| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Cratylus by Plato: explained as e ama theo iontos poreia, and akolasia as e akolouthia tois
pragmasin. Thus the names which in these instances we find to have the
worst sense, will turn out to be framed on the same principle as those
which have the best. And any one I believe who would take the trouble
might find many other examples in which the giver of names indicates, not
that things are in motion or progress, but that they are at rest; which is
the opposite of motion.
CRATYLUS: Yes, Socrates, but observe; the greater number express motion.
SOCRATES: What of that, Cratylus? Are we to count them like votes? and is
correctness of names the voice of the majority? Are we to say of whichever
sort there are most, those are the true ones?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: from his fellows and regarding his own conduct as that of
a 'separate self.' It was in the very conception of a
separate self that 'sin' and disunity first began; and it
was by 'sacrifice' that unity and harmony were restored,
appeasement and atonement effected.
But in those earliest times, as I have already indicated
more than once, man felt himself intimately related not
only to his brother tribesman, but to the animals and to
general Nature. It was not so much that he THOUGHT thus
as that he never thought OTHERWISE! He FELT subconsciously
that he was a part of all this outer world. And so he
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Caesar's Commentaries in Latin by Julius Caesar: plerumque perturbant, et cum se inter equitum turmas insinuaverunt, ex
essedis desiliunt et pedibus proeliantur. Aurigae interim paulatim ex
proelio excedunt atque ita currus conlocant ut, si illi a multitudine
hostium premantur, expeditum ad quos receptum habeant. Ita mobilitatem
equitum, stabilitatem peditum in proeliis praestant, ac tantum usu
cotidiano et exercitatione efficiunt uti in declivi ac praecipiti loco
incitatos equos sustinere et brevi moderari ac flectere et per temonem
percurrere et in iugo insistere et se inde in currus citissime recipere
consuerint.
Quibus rebus perturbatis nostris [novitate pugnae] tempore
oportunissimo Caesar auxilium tulit: namque eius adventu hostes
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