| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: of the future, as far as we can entertain conjecture of them, would lead us
to suppose that God governs us vindictively in this world, and therefore we
have no reason to infer that he will govern us vindictively in another.
The true argument from analogy is not, 'This life is a mixed state of
justice and injustice, of great waste, of sudden casualties, of
disproportionate punishments, and therefore the like inconsistencies,
irregularities, injustices are to be expected in another;' but 'This life
is subject to law, and is in a state of progress, and therefore law and
progress may be believed to be the governing principles of another.' All
the analogies of this world would be against unmeaning punishments
inflicted a hundred or a thousand years after an offence had been
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Faraday as a Discoverer by John Tyndall: The thing appeared so obvious that I did not give myself the trouble
of looking at the battery, which would at once have told me the nature
of the gas. But Faraday would never have been satisfied with a
deduction if he could have reduced it to a fact. And he has taught
me that the fact here is the direct reverse of what I supposed it to
be. The small bubbles are oxygen, and their smallness is due to the
perfect cleanness of the surface on which they are liberated.
The hydrogen adhering to the other electrode swells into large bubbles,
which rise in much slower succession; but when the current is reversed,
the hydrogen is liberated upon the cleansed wire, and then its bubbles
also become small.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Reef by Edith Wharton: were afraid he'd guessed? He HAS..."
"What do you mean--guessed what?"
"That you know something he doesn't...something that made
you glad to have me go."
"Oh--" Anna moaned. If she had wanted more pain she had it
now. "He's told you this?" she faltered.
"He hasn't told me, because I haven't seen him. I kept him
off--I made Mrs. Farlow get rid of him. But he's written me
what he came to say; and that was it."
"Oh, poor Owen!" broke from Anna. Through all the
intricacies of her suffering she felt the separate pang of
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