| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is
being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust
of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made
only at intervals of time immensely remote.
But it may be urged that when several closely-allied species inhabit the
same territory we surely ought to find at the present time many
transitional forms. Let us take a simple case: in travelling from north
to south over a continent, we generally meet at successive intervals with
closely allied or representative species, evidently filling nearly the same
place in the natural economy of the land. These representative species
often meet and interlock; and as the one becomes rarer and rarer, the other
On the Origin of Species |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: for a slave to be beaten by a free citizen, or for a resident alien or
freedman to be beaten by a citizen, it would frequently happen that an
Athenian might be mistaken for a slave or an alien and receive a
beating; since the Athenian People is no better clothed than the slave
or alien, nor in personal appearance is there any superiority. Or if
the fact itself that slaves in Athens are allowed to indulge in
luxury, and indeed in some cases to live magnificently, be found
astonishing, this too, it can be shown, is done of set purpose. Where
you have a naval power[22] dependent upon wealth[23] we must perforce
be slaves to our slaves, in order that we may get in our slave-
rents,[24] and let the real slave go free. Where you have wealthy
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ozma of Oz by L. Frank Baum: upon Earth has ever dared to fight me, and no ruler ever will, for I
am too powerful to oppose."
He whistled again, and at once the martial array filed through the
silver and gold doorways and disappeared, after which the workmen
again resumed their labors at the furnaces.
Then, sad and discouraged, Ozma of Oz turned to her friends, and the
Nome King calmly reseated himself on his rock throne.
"It would be foolish for us to fight," the girl said to the Tin
Woodman. "For our brave Twenty-Seven would be quickly destroyed. I'm
sure I do not know how to act in this emergency.
"Ask the King where his kitchen is," suggested the Tiger. "I'm hungry
Ozma of Oz |
