An excerpt from Mortimer J. Adler's The Great Conversation Revisited," an introductory essay in "The Great Conversation":

"The great conversation is the heart and soul of Great Books of the Western World. If one were asked about the paramount service that this set performs for the readers, the answer would be: to get them engaged in the great conversation--to enable them to take part in its give and take.

"What is the great conversation about? What are the subjects, the topics, the themes that those engaged in it discuss? The great ideas are the subjects of that conversation. It touches on all the topics--themes, problems, and issues--that are outlined under the headings of each of the 102 great ideas.

"The goods of the body are food and drink, sleep, clothing, and shelter. These are goods we need because they are indispensable for sustaining life. To be without them in sufficient quantity is a life-threatening deprivation. To possess them is not only necessary, but also a source of pleasure and enjoyment.

"The goods of the mind are information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. We seek these goods not just in order to live, but in order to live well. Possessing them lifts us above the plane of animal existence, for these goods enhance our existence as human beings, as well as providing enjoyment and pleasure.

"Two sets of books serve us in our efforts to attain these four goods of the mind. One is a great general encyclopaedia, such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is a comprehensive storehouse of information and knowledge. It is a work of reference in which we are able to look up information about facts in all fields of learning; it also contains lengthy articles to be read and studied for the sake of acquiring organized knowledge in all the major fields of human learning.

"But comprehensive as it is, a great general encyclopaedia is not enough. It does not provide us with access to all the essential goods that enrich the human mind. What, then, is omitted? The understanding of the great ideas and, through such understanding, the pursuit of wisdom, which is generally acknowledged to be the highest good of the human mind.

"Great Books of the Western World and the Syntopicon, an index to the great ideas, is the other set of books that serves us in our effort to complete the enrichment of our minds--going beyond information and knowledge to understanding and wisdom. The great ideas are not objects of knowledge. That is why the grasp of them is not conveyed by a general encyclopaedia. When the mind thinks about any of the basic subjects of human interest, it is engaged in the understanding of the great ideas and, as that understanding enlarges and deepens, it begins to open the door to the wisdom we need for the good conduct of our lives.

"Like a general encyclopaedia, this set of books is both a work of reference and a set of materials to be read for pleasure and profit. The Syntopicon, as an index to the great ideas as they are discussed in the great books, enables us to read what the wisest men and women of the past and present have thought about the most important subjects that have always concerned and still concern the human race. We do not have to read through all the writings of the greatest authors from Homer to the present day in order to find that out. The Syntopicon enables us to read passages in the books that they wrote in order to find out what they have to say on any of the 102 great ideas that the Syntopicon treats.

"The main use of this set of books is to give us the pleasure and profit we can derive from reading through the works of one or more of the authors included in the [other] volumes of this set. Though the authors and their works are arranged in roughly chronological order from the 8th century B.C. to the middle of the 20th century, readers can pick and choose among them according to their predilections and interests."

[pages 24,25,27,28]