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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: content merely with pointing out his ideal state, but enters at
considerable length into the question of those general laws whose
consideration forms the chief essential of the philosophy of
history.
He starts by accepting the general principle that all things are
fated to decay (which I noticed in the case of Plato), and that 'as
iron produces rust and as wood breeds the animals that destroy it,
so every state has in it the seeds of its own corruption.' He is
not, however, content to rest there, but proceeds to deal with the
more immediate causes of revolutions, which he says are twofold in
nature, either external or internal. Now, the former, depending as
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