| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: these things are not useful towards life, if by them we can procure wealth.
SOCRATES: And how would you answer another question? There are persons,
are there not, who teach music and grammar and other arts for pay, and thus
procure those things of which they stand in need?
ERYXIAS: There are.
SOCRATES: And these men by the arts which they profess, and in exchange
for them, obtain the necessities of life just as we do by means of gold and
silver?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: Then if they procure by this means what they want for the
purposes of life, that art will be useful towards life? For do we not say
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Pocket Diary Found in the Snow by Grace Isabel Colbron and Augusta Groner: dogs here?" he asked.
"I didn't hear any yesterday."
"That's of no value. You didn't seem to hear much of anything
yesterday." Muller opened the door of the cab and helped Berner
out. The old man was trembling. "That was a dreadful drive!"
he stammered.
"I hope you will be happier on the drive back," said the detective
and added, "You stay here with the commissioner now."
The latter had already left his cab with his companion. His sharp
eyes glanced over the heavily shaded garden and the little house in
its midst. A little light shone from two windows of the first story.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: advantages, demonstrated by a free use of miracles. Only one great
religious system, the Buddhist, seems to have resisted the
temptation to secure for its divinity the honour and title of
Creator. Modern religion is like Buddhism in that respect. It
offers no theory whatever about the origin of the universe. It does
not reach behind the appearances of space and time. It sees only a
featureless presumption in that playing with superlatives which has
entertained so many minds from Plotinus to the Hegelians with the
delusion that such negative terms as the Absolute or the
Unconditioned, can assert anything at all. At the back of all known
things there is an impenetrable curtain; the ultimate of existence
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