| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: With virtue, knowledge, taste, and wit,
She condescended to admit;
With pleasing arts she could reduce
Men's talents to their proper use;
And with address each genius hold
To that wherein it most excelled;
Thus making others' wisdom known,
Could please them and improve her own.
A modest youth said something new,
She placed it in the strongest view.
All humble worth she strove to raise;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: these islands; and about other and kindred health-questions, on
the solution of which depends, and will depend more and more, the
life of millions? One would have thought that those public
schools and colleges which desire to monopolise the education of
the owners of the soil; of the great employers of labour; of the
clergy; and of all, indeed, who ought to be acquainted with the
duties of property, the conditions of public health, and, in a
word, with the general laws of what is now called Social Science--
one would have thought, I say, that these public schools and
colleges would have taught their scholars somewhat at least about
such matters, that they might go forth into life with at least
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: Among the branches of philosophy, I had, at an earlier period, given some
attention to logic, and among those of the mathematics to geometrical
analysis and algebra, -- three arts or sciences which ought, as I
conceived, to contribute something to my design. But, on examination, I
found that, as for logic, its syllogisms and the majority of its other
precepts are of avail- rather in the communication of what we already
know, or even as the art of Lully, in speaking without judgment of things
of which we are ignorant, than in the investigation of the unknown; and
although this science contains indeed a number of correct and very
excellent precepts, there are, nevertheless, so many others, and these
either injurious or superfluous, mingled with the former, that it is
Reason Discourse |
