| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: lovingly, awfully, any corroboration from foreign schools, and cry with
joy: "Behold, this is not altogether a dream: for others have found it
also. Surely it must be real, universal, eternal." No; be sure there
is far more originality (in the common sense of the word), and far less
(in the true sense of the word), than we fancy; and that it is a paltry
and shallow doctrine which represents each succeeding school as merely
the puppets and dupes of the preceding. More originality, because each
earnest man seems to think out for himself the deepest grounds of his
creed. Less originality, because, as I believe, one common Logos, Word,
Reason, reveals and unveils the same eternal truth to all who seek and
hunger for it.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: turned to have another look round. I have a pretty sharp eye, but I
could see nothing at all.
"Then, on a sudden, I saw something sufficiently alarming. On the top
of the mass of boulders, opposite to me, standing out clear against the
rock beyond, was the huge black-maned lion. He had been crouching
there, and now arose as though by magic. There he stood lashing his
tail, just like a living reproduction of the animal on the gateway of
Northumberland House that I have seen in a picture. But he did not
stand long. Before I could fire--before I could do more than get the
gun to my shoulder--he sprang straight up and out from the rock, and
driven by the impetus of that one mighty bound came hurtling through the
Long Odds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: The present age is not merely an epoch of discovery; it is also a
period of revision of the various elements of knowledge. Having
recognised that there are no phenomena of which the first cause
is still accessible, science has resumed the examination of her
ancient certitudes, and has proved their fragility. To-day she
sees her ancient principles vanishing one by one. Mechanics is
losing its axioms, and matter, formerly the eternal substratum of
the worlds, becomes a simple aggregate of ephemeral forces in
transitory condensation.
Despite its conjectural side, by virtue of which it to some
extent escapes the severest form of criticism, history has not
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