… is from page 305 of Daniel Boorstin’s splendid 1973 book, The Americans: The Democratic Experience:
The old tricks of the miracle maker, the witch, and the magician became commonplace. Foods were preserved out of season, water poured from bottomless indoor containers, men flew up into space and landed out of the sky, past events were conjured up again, the living images and resounding voices of the dead were made audible, and the present moment was packaged for future use.
When man could accomplish miracles he began to lose his sense of the miraculous.
