| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from In Darkest England and The Way Out by General William Booth: which may be made for the prevention of intemperance and immorality and
the preservation of the fundamental features of the Colony. In this
way our Farm Colony will throw off small Colonies all round it until
the original site is but the centre of a whole series of small farms,
where those whom we have rescued and trained will live, if not under
their own vine and fig tree, at least in the midst of their own little
fruit farm, and surrounded by their small flocks and herds.
The cottages will be so many detached residences, each standing in its
own ground, not so far away from its neighbours as to deprive its
occupants of the benefit of human intercourse.
SECTION 4.--CO-OPERATIVE FARM.
In Darkest England and The Way Out |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Crisis in Russia by Arthur Ransome: that the overgrown power of the Extraordinary Commission,
and the cure that must sooner or later be applied to it, may,
as in the French Revolution, bring about the collapse of the
whole system. The Commission depends for its strength on
the fear of something else. I have seen it weaken when there
was a hope of general peace. I have seen it tighten its grip in
the presence of attacks from without and attempted
assassination within. It is dreaded by everybody; not even
Communists are safe from it; but it does not suffice to
explain the Dictatorship, and is actually entirely irrelevant to
the most important process of that Dictatorship, namely, the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: Socrates.
Socrates returns to the consideration of the question 'whether virtue is
teachable,' which was denied on the ground that there are no teachers of
it: (for the Sophists are bad teachers, and the rest of the world do not
profess to teach). But there is another point which we failed to observe,
and in which Gorgias has never instructed Meno, nor Prodicus Socrates.
This is the nature of right opinion. For virtue may be under the guidance
of right opinion as well as of knowledge; and right opinion is for
practical purposes as good as knowledge, but is incapable of being taught,
and is also liable, like the images of Daedalus, to 'walk off,' because not
bound by the tie of the cause. This is the sort of instinct which is
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