| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain: was asleep; but he broke loose now, and he was mighty
bitter. He says something like this:
"Idiots! They said it wouldn't go; and they
wanted to examine it, and spy around and get the
secret of it out of me. But I beat them. Nobody
knows the secret but me. Nobody knows what makes
it move but me; and it's a new power -- a new power,
and a thousand times the strongest in the earth!
Steam's foolishness to it! They said I couldn't go to
Europe. To Europe! Why, there's power aboard to
last five years, and feed for three months. They are
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: to be firm and correct upon all issues, important and unimportant
alike. He is a sacerdotalist and a chess player, and suspected by many
of the secret practice of the higher mathematics--creditable rather
than interesting things. His conversation is copious and given
much to needless detail. By many, indeed, his intercourse is
condemned, to put it plainly, as "boring," and such have even done
me the compliment to wonder why I countenance him. But, on the other
hand, there is a large faction who marvel at his countenancing
such a dishevelled, discreditable acquaintance as myself. Few appear
to regard our friendship with equanimity. But that is because they
do not know of the link that binds us, of my amiable connection
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: the higher point of view of abstract ideas: or compare the simple manner
in which the question of cause and effect and their mutual dependence is
regarded by Plato (to which modern science has returned in Mill and Bacon),
and the cumbrous fourfold division of causes in the Physics and Metaphysics
of Aristotle, for which it has puzzled the world to find a use in so many
centuries. When we consider the backwardness of knowledge in the age of
Plato, the boldness with which he looks forward into the distance, the many
questions of modern philosophy which are anticipated in his writings, may
we not truly describe him in his own words as a 'spectator of all time and
of all existence'?
PHILEBUS
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