| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: of the orators.
ALCIBIADES: True.
SOCRATES: But now see what follows, if I can (make it clear to you).
(Some words appear to have dropped out here.) You would distinguish the
wise from the foolish?
ALCIBIADES: Yes.
SOCRATES: The many are foolish, the few wise?
ALCIBIADES: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And you use both the terms, 'wise' and 'foolish,' in reference
to something?
ALCIBIADES: I do.
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad: pointed my finger at the darkness of the passage leading to the
studio. She passed within a foot of me, her pale eyes staring
straight ahead, her face still with disappointment and fury. Yet
it is only my surmise. She might have been made thus inhuman by
the force of an invisible purpose. I waited a moment, then,
stealthily, with extreme caution, I opened the door of the so-
called Captain Blunt's room.
The glow of embers was all but out. It was cold and dark in there;
but before I closed the door behind me the dim light from the hall
showed me Dona Rita standing on the very same spot where I had left
her, statuesque in her night-dress. Even after I shut the door she
The Arrow of Gold |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: as to secure my improvement. For it occurred to me that I should find
much more truth in the reasonings of each individual with reference to the
affairs in which he is personally interested, and the issue of which must
presently punish him if he has judged amiss, than in those conducted by a
man of letters in his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no
practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther,
perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they
are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise
of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable. In addition, I had
always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the
false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right
Reason Discourse |
