| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: other words, to increase the sum of pleasure in the world. But all
pleasures are not the same: they differ in quality as well as in quantity,
and the pleasure which is superior in quality is incommensurable with the
inferior. Neither is the pleasure or happiness, which we seek, our own
pleasure, but that of others,--of our family, of our country, of mankind.
The desire of this, and even the sacrifice of our own interest to that of
other men, may become a passion to a rightly educated nature. The
Utilitarian finds a place in his system for this virtue and for every
other.'
Good or happiness or pleasure is thus regarded as the true and only end of
human life. To this all our desires will be found to tend, and in
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Danny's Own Story by Don Marquis: --and now the scheme's up in the air and I can't
use 'em."
The doctor had changed some in looks in the year
or more that had passed since I saw him floating
away in that balloon. And not fur the better.
He told me how he had blowed clean acrost Lake
Erie in that there balloon. And then when he got
over land agin and went to pull the cord that lets
the parachute loose it wouldn't work at first. He
jest natcherally drifted on into the midst of nowhere,
he said--miles and miles into Canada. When
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Long Odds by H. Rider Haggard: breath I managed to drag myself from under him. Thank heavens, his
great teeth had not crushed my thigh-bone; but I was losing a great deal
of blood, and had it not been for the timely arrival of Tom, with whose
aid I loosed the handkerchief from my wrist and tied it round my leg,
twisting it tight with a stick, I think that I should have bled to
death.
"Well, it was a just reward for my folly in trying to tackle a family of
lions single-handed. The odds were too long. I have been lame ever
since, and shall be to my dying day; in the month of March the wound
always troubles me a great deal, and every three years it breaks out
raw.
Long Odds |
