| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: be any individuals with the same direct and intense
interest in technical improvements as now belongs
to the capitalist in manufacture. If the natural
conservatism of the workers is not to prove stronger
than their interest in increasing production, it will
be necessary that, when better methods are introduced
by the workers in any industry, part at least
of the benefit should be allowed for a time to be
retained by them. If this is done, it may be presumed
that each Guild will be continually seeking for new
processes or inventions, and will value those technical
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure
ground of a principle. And if any one assails you there, you would not
mind him, or answer him, until you had seen whether the consequences which
follow agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to
give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher
principle, and a higher, until you found a resting-place in the best of the
higher; but you would not confuse the principle and the consequences in
your reasoning, like the Eristics--at least if you wanted to discover real
existence. Not that this confusion signifies to them, who never care or
think about the matter at all, for they have the wit to be well pleased
with themselves however great may be the turmoil of their ideas. But you,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Catherine de Medici by Honore de Balzac: it is because it shows the Spirit of a Time, and because we may
clearly see in it the influence of thought.
But before entering the political arena, where Catherine will be seen
facing the two great difficulties of her career, it is necessary to
give a succinct account of her preceding life, from the point of view
of impartial criticism, in order to take in as much as possible of
this vast and regal existence up to the moment when the first part of
the present Study begins.
Never was there any period, in any land, in any sovereign family, a
greater contempt for legitimacy than in the famous house of the
Medici. On the subject of power they held the same doctrine now
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