| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: that influx of scientific knowledge which has produced, in after
centuries, the most enormous effects on the welfare of Europe, and made
life possible for millions who would otherwise have been pent within the
narrow bounds of Europe, to devour each other in the struggle for room
and bread.
But those Arabic translations of Greek authors were a fatal gift for
Egypt, and scarcely less fatal gift for Bagdad. In that Almagest of
Ptolemy, in that Organon of Aristotle, which the Crusaders are said to
have brought home, lay, rude and embryotic, the germs of that physical
science, that geographical knowledge which has opened to the European
the commerce and the colonisation of the globe. Within three hundred
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Reign of King Edward the Third by William Shakespeare: She mocks at us, Douglas; I cannot endure it.
COUNTESS.
Say, good my Lord, which is he must have the Lady,
And which her jewels? I am sure, my Lords,
Ye will not hence, till you have shared the spoils.
KING DAVID.
She heard the messenger, and heard our talk;
And now that comfort makes her scorn at us.
[Another messenger.]
MESSENGER.
Arm, my good Lord! O, we are all surprised!
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: than all the offerings of the other Hellenes."' Such were the words of the
God, and nothing more. He seems to have meant by 'silent worship' the
prayer of the Lacedaemonians, which is indeed widely different from the
usual requests of the Hellenes. For they either bring to the altar bulls
with gilded horns or make offerings to the Gods, and beg at random for what
they need, good or bad. When, therefore, the Gods hear them using words of
ill omen they reject these costly processions and sacrifices of theirs.
And we ought, I think, to be very careful and consider well what we should
say and what leave unsaid. Homer, too, will furnish us with similar
stories. For he tells us how the Trojans in making their encampment,
'Offered up whole hecatombs to the immortals,'
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