| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: patterns in a wonderful and inexplicable manner, which we will hereafter
investigate. For the present we have only to conceive of three natures:
first, that which is in process of generation; secondly, that in which the
generation takes place; and thirdly, that of which the thing generated is a
resemblance. And we may liken the receiving principle to a mother, and the
source or spring to a father, and the intermediate nature to a child; and
may remark further, that if the model is to take every variety of form,
then the matter in which the model is fashioned will not be duly prepared,
unless it is formless, and free from the impress of any of those shapes
which it is hereafter to receive from without. For if the matter were like
any of the supervening forms, then whenever any opposite or entirely
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: Therefore we must suppose either that all Rodents, including the bizcacha,
branched off from some very ancient Marsupial, which will have had a
character in some degree intermediate with respect to all existing
Marsupials; or that both Rodents and Marsupials branched off from a common
progenitor, and that both groups have since undergone much modification in
divergent directions. On either view we may suppose that the bizcacha has
retained, by inheritance, more of the character of its ancient progenitor
than have other Rodents; and therefore it will not be specially related to
any one existing Marsupial, but indirectly to all or nearly all Marsupials,
from having partially retained the character of their common progenitor, or
of an early member of the group. On the other hand, of all Marsupials, as
On the Origin of Species |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Reminiscences of Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy: "When he said good-by, he even made some joke about his having
come to the wrong door.
"I certainly would never have imagined that he would go away
again that same night."
It was a grievous trial for Aunt Masha when the old confessor
Iosif, who was her spiritual director, forbade her to pray for her
dead brother because he had been excommunicated. She was too
broad-minded to be able to reconcile herself to the harsh
intolerance of the church, and for a time she was honestly
indignant. Another priest to whom she applied also refused her
request.
|
