| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: life, no "perfect" happiness, no "perfect" conduct. He releases one
from the arbitrary but all too easy assumption that there is even an
ideal "perfection" in organic life. He sweeps out of the mind with
all the confidence and conviction of a physiological specialist, any
idea that there is a perfect man or a conceivable perfect man. It
is in the nature of every man to fall short at every point from
perfection. From the biological point of view we are as individuals
a series of involuntary "tries" on the part of an imperfect species
towards an unknown end.
Our spiritual nature follows our bodily as a glove follows a hand.
We are disharmonious beings and salvation no more makes an end to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad: business if he made such a fool of himself as to marry a girl with
a crippled mother and a crazy idiot of a boy on her hands. But he
would hang about me, till one evening I found the courage to slam
the door in his face. I had to do it. I loved him dearly. Five
and twenty shillings a week! There was that other man - a good
lodger. What is a girl to do? Could I've gone on the streets? He
seemed kind. He wanted me, anyhow. What was I to do with mother
and that poor boy? Eh? I said yes. He seemed good-natured, he
was freehanded, he had money, he never said anything. Seven years
- seven years a good wife to him, the kind, the good, the generous,
the - And he loved me. Oh yes. He loved me till I sometimes
The Secret Agent |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: the seals and impressions of sense meet straight and opposite--false when
they go awry and crooked.
THEAETETUS: And is not that, Socrates, nobly said?
SOCRATES: Nobly! yes; but wait a little and hear the explanation, and then
you will say so with more reason; for to think truly is noble and to be
deceived is base.
THEAETETUS: Undoubtedly.
SOCRATES: And the origin of truth and error is as follows:--When the wax
in the soul of any one is deep and abundant, and smooth and perfectly
tempered, then the impressions which pass through the senses and sink into
the heart of the soul, as Homer says in a parable, meaning to indicate the
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