Alfred North Whitehead - Adventures of Ideas (1961 [1933])

I came across this marvelous text recently. Have any of you read much Whitehead? (Steve Shapiro provides a good introduction in relation to Deleuze, if not). Somewhat of an exercise in historiography and also a treatise on the uses and limits of human freedom, of ideas, Whitehead's book is well-worth a close read. Its historical character is fascinating in itself. The following is taken from the final paragraph of chapter III. After a long discussion of "the Humanitarian Ideal," the name of the chapter, Whitehead writes:

The power of an idea consists in this. When we examine the general world of occurent fact, we find that its general character, practically inescapable, is neutral in respect to the realization of intrinsic value. The electromagnetic occasions and the electromagnetic laws, the molecular occasions and the molecular laws, are all alike neutral. They condition the sort of values, which are possible, but they do not determine the specialties of value. When we examine the specializations of societies which determine values with some particularity, such specializations as societies of men, forests, deserts, prairies, icefields, we find, within limits, plasticity. The story of Plato's idea is the story of its energizing within a local plastic envioronment. It has a creative power, making possible its own approach to realization.
(Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1961)), 42.