| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: That key, or rather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand
when its owner was asked for river information by a stranger--
for the success of the St. Louis and New Orleans association
had now bred tolerably thriving branches in a dozen neighboring
steamboat trades--was the association man's sign and diploma
of membership; and if the stranger did not respond by producing
a similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed,
his question was politely ignored. From the association's secretary
each member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks,
printed like a billhead, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns;
a bill-head worded something like this--
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Les Miserables by Victor Hugo: lower down, it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations
are no longer penetrable by the spirit of civilization, the limit
breathable by man has been passed; a beginning of monsters is possible.
The descending scale is a strange one; and each one of the rungs of this
ladder corresponds to a stage where philosophy can find foothold,
and where one encounters one of these workmen, sometimes divine,
sometimes misshapen. Below John Huss, there is Luther; below Luther,
there is Descartes; below Descartes, there is Voltaire; below Voltaire,
there is Condorcet; below Condorcet, there is Robespierre;
below Robespierre, there is Marat; below Marat there is Babeuf.
And so it goes on. Lower down, confusedly, at the limit which separates
Les Miserables |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: because all that we know is subject to the conditions of human thought. To
the old belief in Him we return, but with corrections. He is a person, but
not like ourselves; a mind, but not a human mind; a cause, but not a
material cause, nor yet a maker or artificer. The words which we use are
imperfect expressions of His true nature; but we do not therefore lose
faith in what is best and highest in ourselves and in the world.
'A little philosophy takes us away from God; a great deal brings us back to
Him.' When we begin to reflect, our first thoughts respecting Him and
ourselves are apt to be sceptical. For we can analyze our religious as
well as our other ideas; we can trace their history; we can criticize their
perversion; we see that they are relative to the human mind and to one
|
