| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: things until he has comprehended all of them that have any affinity within
the bounds of one similarity and embraced them within the reality of a
single kind. But we have said enough on this head, and also of excess and
defect; we have only to bear in mind that two divisions of the art of
measurement have been discovered which are concerned with them, and not
forget what they are.
YOUNG SOCRATES: We will not forget.
STRANGER: And now that this discussion is completed, let us go on to
consider another question, which concerns not this argument only but the
conduct of such arguments in general.
YOUNG SOCRATES: What is this new question?
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Captain Stormfield by Mark Twain: hymns and waving palm branches through all eternity is pretty when
you hear about it in the pulpit, but it's as poor a way to put in
valuable time as a body could contrive. It would just make a
heaven of warbling ignoramuses, don't you see? Eternal Rest sounds
comforting in the pulpit, too. Well, you try it once, and see how
heavy time will hang on your hands. Why, Stormfield, a man like
you, that had been active and stirring all his life, would go mad
in six months in a heaven where he hadn't anything to do. Heaven
is the very last place to come to REST in, - and don't you be
afraid to bet on that!"
Says I -
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: here. I fall out of a buggy and ask--"
"By gum!" said Bertie, now also visited by inspiration.
"Don't you see?" said Billy.
"I see a whole lot more," said Bertie, with excitement. "I had to tell
you about your singing." And the two burst into a flare of talk. To
hear such words as cognition, attention, retention, entity, and
identity, freely mingled with such other words as silver-fizz and false
hair, brought John, the egg-and-coffee man, as near surprise as his
impregnable nature permitted. Thus they finished their large breakfast,
and hastened to their notes for a last good bout at memorizing
Epicharmos of Kos and his various brethren. The appointed hour found
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