| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley: department of human knowledge alone. If your wish is to become
really a man of science and not merely a petty experimentalist,
I should advise you to apply to every branch of natural philosophy,
including mathematics." He then took me into his laboratory and
explained to me the uses of his various machines, instructing me as
to what I ought to procure and promising me the use of his own when
I should have advanced far enough in the science not to derange
their mechanism. He also gave me the list of books which I had
requested, and I took my leave.
Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny.
Chapter 4
Frankenstein |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: "strictly according to Analogy"?
O, my Lord, my Lord, behold, I cast myself in faith upon conjecture,
not knowing the facts; and I appeal to your Lordship to confirm
or deny my logical anticipations. If I am wrong, I yield,
and will no longer demand a fourth Dimension; but, if I am right,
my Lord will listen to reason.
I ask therefore, is it, or is it not, the fact, that ere now
your countrymen also have witnessed the descent of Beings
of a higher order than their own, entering closed rooms,
even as your Lordship entered mine, without the opening of doors
or windows, and appearing and vanishing at will? On the reply
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift: impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can
neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither
build houses, (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they
can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing till they arrive
at six years old; except where they are of towardly parts,
although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier; during
which time they can however be properly looked upon only as
probationers: As I have been informed by a principal gentleman in
the county of Cavan, who protested to me, that he never knew
above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part
of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that
A Modest Proposal |
