| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: similar but more fatal assault on his own doctrine of Being, appears to be
the height of absurdity.
Perhaps there is no passage in Plato showing greater metaphysical power
than that in which he assails his own theory of Ideas. The arguments are
nearly, if not quite, those of Aristotle; they are the objections which
naturally occur to a modern student of philosophy. Many persons will be
surprised to find Plato criticizing the very conceptions which have been
supposed in after ages to be peculiarly characteristic of him. How can he
have placed himself so completely without them? How can he have ever
persisted in them after seeing the fatal objections which might be urged
against them? The consideration of this difficulty has led a recent critic
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War by Frederick A. Talbot: bombs in groups of three. The first round fell clear of the
target, but eight of the remaining missiles fell within the area.
In the German competition which was held at Gotha in September of
the same year the results were somewhat disappointing. Two
targets were provided. The one represented a military bivouac
occupying a superficies of 330 square feet, and the other a
captive balloon resembling a Zeppelin. The prizes offered were
L500, L200, and L80--$2,500, $1,000 and $400--respectively, and
were awarded to those who made the greatest number of hits. The
conditions were by no means so onerous as those imposed in the
Michelin contest, inasmuch as the altitude limit was set at 660
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: But in all of them I heard a certain sound: a thud-thud-thud,
like the beating of some big engine; and I discovered, from the
flaring of my matches, that a steady current of air set down the
shafts. Further, I threw a scrap of paper into the throat of
one, and, instead of fluttering slowly down, it was at once
sucked swiftly out of sight.
`After a time, too, I came to connect these wells with tall
towers standing here and there upon the slopes; for above them
there was often just such a flicker in the air as one sees on a
hot day above a sun-scorched beach. Putting things together, I
reached a strong suggestion of an extensive system of
The Time Machine |
