Sentence:  Perhaps it was his misfortune , or good fortune , whichever way one looked at it , to belong to the <WSD>former</WSD> group , and he was struggling unconsciously to build up pressure in a world which demanded none , which was positively antagonistic to it . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  referring to the first of two things or persons mentioned (or the earlier one or ones of several); I prefer the former version to the latter one"