| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: can ever make to the true government of the one scientific ruler, is to do
nothing contrary to their own written laws and national customs.
YOUNG SOCRATES: Very good.
STRANGER: When the rich imitate the true form, such a government is called
aristocracy; and when they are regardless of the laws, oligarchy.
YOUNG SOCRATES: True.
STRANGER: Or again, when an individual rules according to law in imitation
of him who knows, we call him a king; and if he rules according to law, we
give him the same name, whether he rules with opinion or with knowledge.
YOUNG SOCRATES: To be sure.
STRANGER: And when an individual truly possessing knowledge rules, his
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Woman and Labour by Olive Schreiner: permanent and active and dominant factor in the lives of both. The
concentrated and all-absorbing affection and fellowship which existed
between the greatest female intellect France has produced and the son she
bore, dominating both lives to the end, the fellowship of the English
historian with his mother, who remained his chosen companion and the sharer
of all his labours through life, the relation of St. Augustine to his
mother, and those of countless others, are relations almost inconceivable
where the woman is not of commanding and active intelligence, and where the
passion of mere physical instinct is completed by the passion of the
intellect and spirit.
There appears, then, from the study of human nature in the past, no ground
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: if such an expression may be used, displayed on these small,
barren, and rocky islands; and still more so, at its diverse
yet analogous action on points so near each other. I have
said that the Galapagos Archipelago might be called a satellite
attached to America, but it should rather be called a
group of satellites, physically similar, organically distinct,
yet intimately related to each other, and all related in a
marked, though much lesser degree, to the great American
continent.
I will conclude my description of the natural history of
these islands, by giving an account of the extreme tameness
The Voyage of the Beagle |
