| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: the age of Plato, the idea of an infinite mind would have been an
absurdity. He would have insisted that 'the good is of the nature of the
finite,' and that the infinite is a mere negative, which is on the level of
sensation, and not of thought. He was aware that there was a distinction
between the infinitely great and the infinitely small, but he would have
equally denied the claim of either to true existence. Of that positive
infinity, or infinite reality, which we attribute to God, he had no
conception.
The Greek conception of the infinite would be more truly described, in our
way of speaking, as the indefinite. To us, the notion of infinity is
subsequent rather than prior to the finite, expressing not absolute vacancy
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: by their privilege of voluntary recitations, they had dropped in but
seldom on Philosophy 4. These blithe grasshoppers had danced and sung
away the precious storing season, and now that the bleak hour of
examinations was upon them, their waked-up hearts had felt aghast at the
sudden vision of their ignorance. It was on a Monday noon that this
feeling came fully upon them, as they read over the names of the
philosophers. Thursday was the day of the examination. "Who's
Anaxagoras?" Billy had inquired of Bertie. "I'll tell you," said
Bertie, "if you'll tell me who Epicharmos of Kos was." And upon this
they embraced with helpless laughter. Then they reckoned up the hours
left for them to learn Epicharmos of Kos in,--between Monday noon and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: There was a stone bench in one corner, one or two mouldy statues,
several lattices which had lost their nails with time, were rotting
on the wall, and there were no walks nor turf; but there was
enough grass everywhere. Gardening had taken its departure,
and nature had returned. Weeds abounded, which was a great piece
of luck for a poor corner of land. The festival of gilliflowers
was something splendid. Nothing in this garden obstructed the
sacred effort of things towards life; venerable growth reigned
there among them. The trees had bent over towards the nettles,
the plant had sprung upward, the branch had inclined, that which crawls
on the earth had gone in search of that which expands in the air,
Les Miserables |
