| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from What is Man? by Mark Twain: of them built her logical arrangement of inferences. Edison
couldn't have done it any better himself.
Y.M. Do you believe that many of the dumb animals can think?
O.M. Yes--the elephant, the monkey, the horse, the dog, the
parrot, the macaw, the mocking-bird, and many others. The
elephant whose mate fell into a pit, and who dumped dirt and
rubbish into the pit till bottom was raised high enough to enable
the captive to step out, was equipped with the reasoning quality.
I conceive that all animals that can learn things through
teaching and drilling have to know how to observe, and put this
and that together and draw an inference--the process of thinking.
What is Man? |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Manon Lescaut by Abbe Prevost: suppose he required eight days to establish a perfect
understanding with your mistress; so that, take eight and eleven
from thirty-one days, the time between the 28th of one month and
the 29th of the next, there remains twelve, more or less!' This
joke war, followed by shouts of laughter.
"I heard it all with a kind of sinking of the heart that I
thought I could not bear up against, until he finished. `You
must know then,' continued my father, `since you appear as yet
ignorant of it, that M. de B---- has won the affections of your
idol; for he can't be serious in pretending that it is his
disinterested regard for me that has induced him to take her from
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift: inclined, from their natural bent either to profusion or avarice;
that the rich man enjoyed the fruit of the poor man's labour, and
the latter were a thousand to one in proportion to the former;
that the bulk of our people were forced to live miserably, by
labouring every day for small wages, to make a few live
plentifully."
I enlarged myself much on these, and many other particulars to
the same purpose; but his honour was still to seek; for he went
upon a supposition, that all animals had a title to their share
in the productions of the earth, and especially those who
presided over the rest. Therefore he desired I would let him
Gulliver's Travels |
