Whether ideas meet receptive or deaf ears, whether they are born to live and bear fruit or to die and be forgotten does not depend on their intrinsic value alone; it also depends on the condition of the soil, so to speak, on which they fall. History knows some instances in which new ideas have been readily absorbed and applied, but many more in which ideas have been allowed to lie fallow and to disseminate very slowly. The reasons for the fate of an idea are as manifold as are the reasons for its birth.