| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: The want of a copula is another instance of the primitive character
of the tongue. It has its counterpart in our own baby-talk, where a
quality is predicated of a thing simply by placing the adjective in
apposition with the noun.
That the Japanese word which is commonly translated "is" is in no
sense a copula, but an ordinary intransitive verb, referring to a
natural state, and not to a logical condition, is evident in two
ways. In the first place, it is never used to predicate a quality
directly. A Japanese does not say, "The scenery is fine," but
simply, "Scenery, fine." Secondly, wherever this verb is indirectly
employed in such a manner, it is followed, not by an adjective, but
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: unnumbered ages and changes, such as one's fancy could not grasp.
But you will agree that, if Master Analysis took that shell to
pieces, Master Synthesis would not be likely to put it together
again; much less to put it together in the right way, in which
Madam How made it.
And what was that?
By making a living animal, which went on growing, that is, making
itself; and making, as it grew, its shell to live in. Synthesis
has not found out yet the first step towards doing that; and, as I
believe, he never will.
But there would be no harm in his trying?
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: And yet he has the knowledge?
MENO: The fact, Socrates, is undeniable.
SOCRATES: But if he did not acquire the knowledge in this life, then he
must have had and learned it at some other time?
MENO: Clearly he must.
SOCRATES: Which must have been the time when he was not a man?
MENO: Yes.
SOCRATES: And if there have been always true thoughts in him, both at the
time when he was and was not a man, which only need to be awakened into
knowledge by putting questions to him, his soul must have always possessed
this knowledge, for he always either was or was not a man?
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