| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: hopes?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And these hopes, as they are termed, are propositions which
exist in the minds of each of us?
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And the fancies of hope are also pictured in us; a man may often
have a vision of a heap of gold, and pleasures ensuing, and in the picture
there may be a likeness of himself mightily rejoicing over his good
fortune.
PROTARCHUS: True.
SOCRATES: And may we not say that the good, being friends of the gods,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: kinds of means, the one exceeding and exceeded by equal parts of its
extremes (as for example 1, 4/3, 2, in which the mean 4/3 is one-third of 1
more than 1, and one-third of 2 less than 2), the other being that kind of
mean which exceeds and is exceeded by an equal number (e.g.
- over 1, 4/3, 3/2, - over 2, 8/3, 3, - over 4, 16/3, 6, - over 8: and
- over 1, 3/2, 2, - over 3, 9/2, 6, - over 9, 27/2, 18, - over 27.).
Where there were intervals of 3/2 and of 4/3 and of 9/8, made by the
connecting terms in the former intervals, he filled up all the intervals of
4/3 with the interval of 9/8, leaving a fraction over; and the interval
which this fraction expressed was in the ratio of 256 to 243 (e.g.
243:256::81/64:4/3::243/128:2::81/32:8/3::243/64:4::81/16:16/3::242/32:8.).
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Mosses From An Old Manse by Nathaniel Hawthorne: gradual decline. From Roderick's own lips they could learn
nothing. More than once, it is true, he had been heard to say,
clutching his hands convulsively upon his breast,--"It gnaws me!
It gnaws me!"--but, by different auditors, a great diversity of
explanation was assigned to this ominous expression. What could
it be that gnawed the breast of Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow?
Was it merely the tooth of physical disease? Or, in his reckless
course, often verging upon profligacy, if not plunging into its
depths, had he been guilty of some deed which made his bosom a
prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was plausible ground
for each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed that
Mosses From An Old Manse |
