| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: prove the existence of the one by disproving the existence of the many, and
Parmenides seems to aim at proving the existence of the subject by showing
the contradictions which follow from the assertion of any predicates. Take
the simplest of all notions, 'unity'; you cannot even assert being or time
of this without involving a contradiction. But is the contradiction also
the final conclusion? Probably no more than of Zeno's denial of the many,
or of Parmenides' assault upon the Ideas; no more than of the earlier
dialogues 'of search.' To us there seems to be no residuum of this long
piece of dialectics. But to the mind of Parmenides and Plato, 'Gott-
betrunkene Menschen,' there still remained the idea of 'being' or 'good,'
which could not be conceived, defined, uttered, but could not be got rid
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Twelve Stories and a Dream by H. G. Wells: in America, shouted, "CAUGHT a ghost, did you, Clayton? I'm glad
of it! Tell us all about it right now."
Clayton said he would in a minute, and asked him to shut the door.
He looked apologetically at me. "There's no eavesdropping of course,
but we don't want to upset our very excellent service with any rumours
of ghosts in the place. There's too much shadow and oak panelling
to trifle with that. And this, you know, wasn't a regular ghost.
I don't think it will come again--ever."
"You mean to say you didn't keep it?" said Sanderson.
"I hadn't the heart to," said Clayton.
And Sanderson said he was surprised.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Margret Howth: A Story of To-day by Rebecca Harding Davis: turbid heart of the man cowered, awestruck, as yours or mine has
done when some swift touch of music or human love gave us a
cleaving glimpse of the great I AM. The next, he opened the
newspaper in his hand. What part in the eternal order could THAT
hold? or slavery, or secession, or civil war? No harmony could
be infinite enough to hold such discords, he thought, pushing the
whole matter from him in despair. Why, the experiment of
self-government, the problem of the ages, was crumbling in ruin!
So he despaired, just as Tige did the night the mill fell about
his ears, in full confidence that the world had come to an end
now, without hope of salvation,--crawling out of his cellar in
Margret Howth: A Story of To-day |
