| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: as Parmenides affirms. Thus we are in the midst of the fray; both parties
are dragging us to their side; and we are not certain which of them are in
the right; and if neither, then we shall be in a ridiculous position,
having to set up our own opinion against ancient and famous men.
Let us first approach the river-gods, or patrons of the flux.
When they speak of motion, must they not include two kinds of motion,
change of place and change of nature?--And all things must be supposed to
have both kinds of motion; for if not, the same things would be at rest and
in motion, which is contrary to their theory. And did we not say, that all
sensations arise thus: they move about between the agent and patient
together with a perception, and the patient ceases to be a perceiving power
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Falk by Joseph Conrad: --the carpenter--was lying dead between him and
them.
"He was eaten, of course," I said.
He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, draw-
ing his hands over his face, and said, "I had never
any quarrel with that man. But there were our
lives between him and me."
Why continue the story of that ship, that story
before which, with its fresh-water pump like a
spring of death, its man with the weapon, the sea
ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by
Falk |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: Yonge Symnele shall again miscarrye:
And Norways Pryd again shall marrye.
And from the tree where Blosums feele,
Ripe Fruit shall come, and all is wele,
Reaums shall daunce Honde in Honde,
And it shall be merrye in old Inglonde,
Then old Inglonde shall be no more,
And no man shall be sorre therefore.
Geryon shall have three Hedes agayne,
Till Hapsburge makyth them but twayne.
Explanatory notes.
|
