| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James: it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over
persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion
has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the
spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and
stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of
whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted
on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous
religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain
from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.
Unless, indeed, by adopting new movements of the spirit it can
make capital out of them and use them for its selfish corporate
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: are of little avail if there are not good judges to administer
them; but with good judges it matters little if the codes or
statutes are imperfect.
In criminal law the application of the statute to the particular
case is not, or should not be, a mere question of legal and
abstract logic, as it is in civil law. It involves the adaptation
of an abstract rule, in a psychological sense, to a living and
breathing man; for the criminal judge cannot separate himself from
the environment and social life, so as to become a more or less
mechanical _lex loquens_. The living and human tests of every
criminal sentence reside in the conditions of the act, the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Blue Flower by Henry van Dyke: whiteness,--an ancient Roman road, covered with snow. It was
as if some great ship had ploughed through the green ocean
long ago, and left behind it a thick, smooth wake of foam.
Along this open track the travellers held their way,--heavily,
for the drifts were deep; warily, for the hard winter had driven
many packs of wolves down from the moors.
The steps of the pilgrims were noiseless; but the sledges
creaked over the dry snow, and the panting of the horses
throbbed through the still air. The pale-blue shadows on the
western side of the road grew longer. The sun, declining
through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops.
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