| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: representative did not die with him. Men of identical mentality
are to be found among the French politicians of to-day. The old
religious beliefs no longer rule their minds, but they are the
creatures of political creeds which they would very soon force on
others, as did Robespierre, if they had the chance of so doing.
Always ready to kill if killing would spread their faith, the
mystics of all ages have employed the same means of persuasion as
soon as they have become the masters.
It is therefore quite natural that Robespierre should still have
many admirers. Minds moulded like his are to be met with in
their thousands. His conceptions were not guillotined with him.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Shadow out of Time by H. P. Lovecraft: Like the other case
I had handled, it was slightly more than twenty by fifteen inches
in size, with curved mathematical designs in low relief. In thickness
it just exceeded three inches.
Crudely wedging it between myself
and the surface I was climbing, I fumbled with the fastener and
finally got the hook free. Lifting the cover, I shifted the heavy
object to my back, and let the hook catch hold of my collar. Hands
now free, I awkwardly clambered down to the dusty floor, and prepared
to inspect my prize.
Kneeling in the gritty dust, I swung the
Shadow out of Time |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: only deal with one witness at a time, and that is the person with whom he
is arguing. But he is certain that in the opinion of any man to do is
worse than to suffer evil.
Polus, though he will not admit this, is ready to acknowledge that to do
evil is considered the more foul or dishonourable of the two. But what is
fair and what is foul; whether the terms are applied to bodies, colours,
figures, laws, habits, studies, must they not be defined with reference to
pleasure and utility? Polus assents to this latter doctrine, and is easily
persuaded that the fouler of two things must exceed either in pain or in
hurt. But the doing cannot exceed the suffering of evil in pain, and
therefore must exceed in hurt. Thus doing is proved by the testimony of
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