| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: But although on that occasion, in the presence of the whole army, he spoke
after this fashion, and on the other occasion to his companions, he appears
never to have made any preparation or attempt to draw down the ships, as if
he had the least intention of sailing home; so nobly regardless was he of
the truth. Now I, Hippias, originally asked you the question, because I
was in doubt as to which of the two heroes was intended by the poet to be
the best, and because I thought that both of them were the best, and that
it would be difficult to decide which was the better of them, not only in
respect of truth and falsehood, but of virtue generally, for even in this
matter of speaking the truth they are much upon a par.
HIPPIAS: There you are wrong, Socrates; for in so far as Achilles speaks
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: stronger is the bent of the human mind, as if by its own impulse,
towards the idea of an only and all-powerful Being, dispensing
equal laws in the same manner to every man. In democratic ages,
then, it is more particularly important not to allow the homage
paid to secondary agents to be confounded with the worship due to
the Creator alone.
Another truth is no less clear - that religions ought to
assume fewer external observances in democratic periods than at
any others. In speaking of philosophical method among the
Americans, I have shown that nothing is more repugnant to the
human mind in an age of equality than the idea of subjection to
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collection of Antiquities by Honore de Balzac: hearts, to ask you to do me the one service that I have ever asked
of you in the course of our long lives, crossed as they have been
by political catastrophes, to which, perhaps, I owe it that I have
the honor to be your colleague. And now I ask this service of you,
my friend, and my white hairs will be brought with sorrow to the
grave if you should refuse my entreaty. It is no question of
myself or of mine, Sorbier, for I lost poor Mme. Chesnel, and I
have no child of my own. Something more to me than my own family
(if I had one) is involved--it is the Marquis d'Esgrignon's only
son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis' land steward ever
since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own
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