| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: practice. He is himself more confident of immortality than he is of his
own arguments; and the confidence which he expresses is less strong than
that which his cheerfulness and composure in death inspire in us.
Difficulties of two kinds occur in the Phaedo--one kind to be explained out
of contemporary philosophy, the other not admitting of an entire solution.
(1) The difficulty which Socrates says that he experienced in explaining
generation and corruption; the assumption of hypotheses which proceed from
the less general to the more general, and are tested by their consequences;
the puzzle about greater and less; the resort to the method of ideas, which
to us appear only abstract terms,--these are to be explained out of the
position of Socrates and Plato in the history of philosophy. They were
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Arizona Nights by Stewart Edward White:
"Very well," said Buck Johnson. He paused a moment, collecting
his thoughts. "There's too much cattle-rustling here. I'm going
to stop it. I've got good men here ready to take the job, but no
one who knows the country south. Three days ago I had a bunch of
cattle stolen right here from the home-ranch corrals, and by one
man, at that. It wasn't much of a bunch--about twenty head--but
I'm going to make a starter right here, and now. I'm going to
get that bunch back, and the man who stole them, if I have to go
to hell to do it. And I'm going to do the same with every case
of rustling that comes up from now on. I don't care if it's only
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare: To the rest yet, my chiefe humour is for a tyrant. I could
play Ercles rarely, or a part to teare a Cat in, to make all
split the raging Rocks; and shiuering shocks shall break
the locks of prison gates, and Phibbus carre shall shine
from farre, and make and marre the foolish Fates. This
was lofty. Now name the rest of the Players. This
is Ercles vaine, a tyrants vaine: a louer is more condoling
Quin. Francis Flute the Bellowes-mender
Flu. Heere Peter Quince
Quin. You must take Thisbie on you
Flut. What is Thisbie, a wandring Knight?
A Midsummer Night's Dream |
