| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tales of the Klondyke by Jack London: aside the judgments of God? Before the foundations of the world
were all things written in the book of life. Worm that I am,
shall I erase the page or any portion thereof? As God wills, so
shall the spirit move!"
Bill reached over, plucked him to his feet, and shook him,
fiercely, silently. Then he dropped the bundle of quivering
nerves and turned his attention to the two converts. But they
showed little fright and a cheerful alacrity in preparing for the
coming passage at arms.
Stockard, who had been talking in undertones with the Teslin
woman, now turned to the missionary.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: You have seen better than that. Have you not seen stock created with
the concurrence of a government to pay the interest upon older stock,
so as to keep things going and tide over the difficulty? These
operations were more or less like Nucingen's settlements."
"The thing may look queer on a small scale," said Blondet, "but on a
large we call it finance. There are high-handed proceedings criminal
between man and man that amount to nothing when spread out over any
number of men, much as a drop of prussic acid becomes harmless in a
pail of water. You take a man's life, you are guillotined. But if, for
any political conviction whatsoever, you take five hundred lives,
political crimes are respected. You take five thousand francs out of
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: others who are like me. But when I see a certain kind of snub-nosedness,
then I recognize Theaetetus. And having this sign of difference, I have
knowledge. But have I knowledge or opinion of this difference; if I have
only opinion I have not knowledge; if I have knowledge we assume a disputed
term; for knowledge will have to be defined as right opinion with knowledge
of difference.
And so, Theaetetus, knowledge is neither perception nor true opinion, nor
yet definition accompanying true opinion. And I have shown that the
children of your brain are not worth rearing. Are you still in labour, or
have you brought all you have to say about knowledge to the birth? If you
have any more thoughts, you will be the better for having got rid of these;
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