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OF HEROISM Every rational person, growing up, had his favorite childhood heroes. Maybe it was a John Wayne character in a Western action movie, leading the cavalry over the hill in a last charge against vicious bandits or marauding Indians. Maybe it was a swashbu ....

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.... like Thomas Edison or Marie Curie or the Wright Brothers devoting years of effort to discover new knowledge or create new products. Whatever one's individual tastes in heroes, one fact is abundantly clear: the great men and women whose achievements provide inspiration for millions come with an assortment of specific characteristics. Some are predominantly physicalistic heroes, some primarily intellectual, some are excellent examples of the principle of mind-body integration; some are grand-scale characters towering through a work of fiction, whether on the printed page, stage or screen--while some perform their great and notable deeds in actual ....