| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: of imagery; the general analogy of the arts is constantly employed by him
as well as the comparison of particular arts--weaving, the refining of
gold, the learning to read, music, statuary, painting, medicine, the art of
the pilot--all of which occur in this dialogue alone: though he is also
aware that 'comparisons are slippery things,' and may often give a false
clearness to ideas. We shall find, in the Philebus, a division of sciences
into practical and speculative, and into more or less speculative: here we
have the idea of master-arts, or sciences which control inferior ones.
Besides the supreme science of dialectic, 'which will forget us, if we
forget her,' another master-science for the first time appears in view--the
science of government, which fixes the limits of all the rest. This
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from 1492 by Mary Johntson: tithe is likewise to be taken by his heirs from generation to
generation. He or one that he shall name shall be judge in
all disputes that arise in these continents and islands, so be it
that the honor of the Sovereigns of Spain is not touched.
He shall have the salary that hath the High Admiral of
Castile. He and his family shall be ennobled and henceforth
be called Don and Dona. And for the immediate sailing
of ships he may, if he so desire, be at an eighth of the
expense of outfitting, for which he shall be returned an
eighth of all the profit of this the first voyage.''
The secretary did not make the terms less sounding by
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Z. Marcas by Honore de Balzac: comedy that lay behind this algebraic statement of his career; his
useless patience dogging the footsteps of fortune, which presently
took wings, his long tramps over the thorny brakes of Paris, his
breathless chases as a petitioner, his attempts to win over fools; the
schemes laid only to fail through the influence of some frivolous
woman; the meetings with men of business who expected their capital to
bring them places and a peerage, as well as large interest. Then the
hopes rising in a towering wave only to break in foam on the shoal;
the wonders wrought in reconciling adverse interests which, after
working together for a week, fell asunder; the annoyance, a thousand
times repeated, of seeing a dunce decorated with the Legion of Honor,
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