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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson: in their abstracted and invariable state; he must disregard present
laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths,
which will always be the same. He must, therefore, content himself
with the slow progress of his name, contemn the praise of his own
time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He must
write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind,
and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of
future generations, as a being superior to time and place.
"His labour is not yet at an end. He must know many languages and
many sciences, and, that his style may be worthy of his thoughts,
must by incessant practice familiarise to himself every delicacy of
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