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In his modern classic, The New Science of Politics, Eric Voegelin wrote about the tendency of modern political movements to throw the highest human efforts behind earthly progress and noted that the result is a sacrifice of the human spirit in exchange for earthly goods: “The more fervently all human energies are thrown into the great enterprise of salvation through world-immanent action, the farther the human beings who engage in this enterprise move away from the life of the spirit.” Voegelin was referring to political movements, but the observation applies equally well to individual souls. In fact, it applies first to individual souls, then to society, since, as Plato pointed out, society is man writ large.

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