| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: metaphysician, like a prophet of old, was naturally inclined to believe
that his own thoughts were divine realities. We may almost say that
whatever came into his head seemed to him to be a necessary truth. He
never appears to have criticized himself, or to have subjected his own
ideas to the process of analysis which he applies to every other
philosopher.
Hegel would have insisted that his philosophy should be accepted as a whole
or not at all. He would have urged that the parts derived their meaning
from one another and from the whole. He thought that he had supplied an
outline large enough to contain all future knowledge, and a method to which
all future philosophies must conform. His metaphysical genius is
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare: Till after a deep groan) 'Tarquin from, hence?'
'Madam, ere I was up,' replied the maid,
'The more to blame my sluggard negligence:
Yet with the fault I thus far can dispense;
Myself was stirring ere the break of day,
And, ere I rose, was Tarquin gone away.
'But, lady, if your maid may be so bold,
She would request to know your heaviness.'
'O peace!' quoth Lucrece: 'if it should be told,
The repetition cannot make it less;
For more it is than I can well express:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: a time like this, I do think he ought to stand right up and bawl out those
plug-uglies to a fare-you-well!"
"Yes--well--" said Babbitt.
The Rev. Dr. Drew, his rustic bang flopping with the intensity of his poetic
and sociologic ardor, trumpeted:
"During the untoward series of industrial dislocations which have--let us be
courageous and admit it boldly--throttled the business life of our fair city
these past days, there has been a great deal of loose talk about scientific
prevention of scientific--SCIENTIFIC! Now, let me tell you that the most
unscientific thing in the world is science! Take the attacks on the
established fundamentals of the Christian creed which were so popular with the
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