Dec. 8-Lyndon LaRouche addressed associates in these terms on Tuesday, Dec 1. There are two general subjects which are related ultimately, but which are distinctive; and I'm going to start with the first one on the subject of Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446). Now, what is not understood generally, is what Brunelleschi really was, and the depth of his work, and the importance of his work for all features of science; it was way beyond anything otherwise. Others in the same area of work were different; but he was very special in this respect, and on physical science, exceptional-absolutely exceptional. His breadth of understanding was great. When you bring this into play, then you have to go back to Charlemagne, because you have to realize that there was a crisis which, after a great achievement by Charlemagne (742-814), -he had a short life, actually, and the span of his achievement was that-his own relatively short life. He had headquarters which travelled around the whole area of France and Germany; and this process was key to Brunelleschi, because he was responding to what Charlemagne had done before. And it was a different kind of discovery, but all of these discovery periods were divided by phases of degeneration. For example, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464); what happened to him? Well, after him there was a degeneration of Christianity in that century and beyond. So, that kind of thing goes on again and again; and therefore, we cannot really try to derive from experience, -derive a principle on one principle as such, or a few principles. You can't do it; it doesn't work in history. History is a fairly long institution, relative to our own modest lives; and therefore we have to understand that we are actually operating between phases. When Charlemagne was dead, the great achievements of Charlemagne disappeared. The water system, -Charlemagne created a water system; he did everything. It was a complete revolution, but when Charlemagne was dead, then the religious bodies in Europe destroyed the achievements that Charlemagne had accomplished; and it took several generations to get back to what Charlemagne had achieved. And it was never fully done itself; I mean, we had one system of water management in Germany in fact, and there was this connection in the water system-it was never finished. Even in modern times, it's still like that