| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: even that part of it which is said to be based upon experience, is really
ideal; and ideas are not only derived from facts, but they are also prior
to them and extend far beyond them, just as the mind is prior to the
senses.
Early Greek speculation culminates in the ideas of Plato, or rather in the
single idea of good. His followers, and perhaps he himself, having arrived
at this elevation, instead of going forwards went backwards from philosophy
to psychology, from ideas to numbers. But what we perceive to be the real
meaning of them, an explanation of the nature and origin of knowledge, will
always continue to be one of the first problems of philosophy.
Plato also left behind him a most potent instrument, the forms of logic--
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe: came up to me, somebody having told her that I was so much
concerned about it. I complained to her, that it was very hard
the doctors should pass such a censure upon me, for which
they had no ground; and that it was still harder, considering
the circumstances I was under in the family; that I hoped I
had done nothing to lessen her esteem for me, or given any
occasion for the bickering between her sons and daughters,
and I had more need to think of a coffin than of being in love,
and begged she would not let me suffer in her opinion for
anybody's mistakes but my own.
She was sensible of the justice of what I said, but told me,
Moll Flanders |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from A Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: find him employment. Butler wished to adopt a literary career.
He acted as a reporter on the Dunedin Evening Star, and gave
satisfaction to the editor of that newspaper. An attempt to do
some original work, in the shape of "Prison Sketches," for
another newspaper, was less successful. Bain had arranged for
the publication of the articles in the Sunday Advertiser, but
when the time came to deliver his manuscript, Butler failed to
appear. Bain, whose duty it was to keep an eye on Butler, found
him in the street looking wild and haggard. He said that he had
found the work "too much for his head," that he had torn up what
he had written, that he had nowhere to go, and had been to the
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
