Since he is only interested in structures as he fashions his big, over-arching narrative, Kneale never gets beyond superficially attractive catch-all explanations: that those who are attracted to religion are poor, needy, fearful, or women.
If so, and if a contemporary interpreter believes that all forms of capital punishment, including hanging, is in actual fact cruel and unusual, then she might fashion an argument of the following sort, one which has, at least superficially, an originalist flavor.
Superficially, this is just technology and fashion.
Author and historian Nikolay Karamzin, for instance, had concluded from his travels through Europe that Russians had become Westernized only superficially, acting in European fashion but thinking according to native traditions and mindset.
There is good evidence that pterosaurs launched from a standing, quadrupedal start in a superficially vampire bat-like fashion, vaulting over their forelimbs and using powerful flapping to gain altitude (Fig. 6, [41]).
And, yet, as the world changes – and sometimes dramatically so, in front of photographers' eyes – the M-series Leica carries on superficially heedless of new fads, fashions, faces and wars.
Superficially, this sounds promising.
Superficially, it's cinematic.
Superficially, this seems reasonable.
Superficially, the society works.
