| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: Socrates will discover my facetious contradiction, or whether I shall be
able to deceive him and the rest of them. For he certainly does appear to
me to contradict himself in the indictment as much as if he said that
Socrates is guilty of not believing in the gods, and yet of believing in
them--but this is not like a person who is in earnest.
I should like you, O men of Athens, to join me in examining what I conceive
to be his inconsistency; and do you, Meletus, answer. And I must remind
the audience of my request that they would not make a disturbance if I
speak in my accustomed manner:
Did ever man, Meletus, believe in the existence of human things, and not of
human beings?...I wish, men of Athens, that he would answer, and not be
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: senses, our brains don't experience the sensations of sound or light or
what not, and so, of course, we can't know about them--not until they
reach us."
"Precisely," said the tutor. He had a suave and slightly alien accent.
"Well, just tell me how that proves a thunder-storm in a desert island
makes no noise."
"If a thing is inaudible--" began the tutor,
"That's mere juggling!" vociferated the boy," That's merely the same
kind of toy-shop brain-trick you gave us out of Greek philosophy
yesterday, They said there was no such thing as motion because at every
instant of time the moving body had to be somewhere, so how could it get
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ursula by Honore de Balzac: our good abbe has told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations.
The destinies of men and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula
Mirouet for my wife; I could go to her and say that I loved her; but a
young girl is false to herself if she asks the love of the man she
loves. A woman has not the right which men have to seek the
accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is to her--above all
to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which protects the
secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me these first
emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than admit to
Savinien--"
"Oh, yes!" she said.
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