| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: the having them in the hand. And the original chase of them is not the
same as taking them in the hand when they are already caged.
This distinction between use and possession saves us from the absurdity of
supposing that we do not know what we know, because we may know in one
sense, i.e. possess, what we do not know in another, i.e. use. But have we
not escaped one difficulty only to encounter a greater? For how can the
exchange of two kinds of knowledge ever become false opinion? As well
might we suppose that ignorance could make a man know, or that blindness
could make him see. Theaetetus suggests that in the aviary there may be
flying about mock birds, or forms of ignorance, and we put forth our hands
and grasp ignorance, when we are intending to grasp knowledge. But how can
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) by Dante Alighieri: Direct we journey'd: when I felt a weight
Of more exceeding splendour, than before,
Press on my front. The cause unknown, amaze
Possess'd me, and both hands against my brow
Lifting, I interpos'd them, as a screen,
That of its gorgeous superflux of light
Clipp'd the diminish'd orb. As when the ray,
Striking On water or the surface clear
Of mirror, leaps unto the opposite part,
Ascending at a glance, e'en as it fell,
(And so much differs from the stone, that falls
The Divine Comedy (translated by H.F. Cary) |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: The Socialists were literally sweeping everything before them
that election, and Scully and the Cook County machine were at
their wits' end for an "issue." At the very close of the campaign
they bethought themselves of the fact that the strike had been
broken by Negroes, and so they sent for a South Carolina
fire-eater, the "pitchfork senator," as he was called, a man who
took off his coat when he talked to workingmen, and damned and
swore like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively,
and the Socialists advertised it too--with the result that about
a thousand of them were on hand that evening. The "pitchfork
senator" stood their fusillade of questions for about an hour,
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