| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: opposite direction from beginning to end, was shaken by a mighty
earthquake, which wrought a new destruction of all manner of animals.
Afterwards, when sufficient time had elapsed, the tumult and confusion and
earthquake ceased, and the universal creature, once more at peace, attained
to a calm, and settled down into his own orderly and accustomed course,
having the charge and rule of himself and of all the creatures which are
contained in him, and executing, as far as he remembered them, the
instructions of his Father and Creator, more precisely at first, but
afterwords with less exactness. The reason of the falling off was the
admixture of matter in him; this was inherent in the primal nature, which
was full of disorder, until attaining to the present order. From God, the
Statesman |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: "Poor critters!" said Tom, "I'd be willing to bar' all I
have, if it'll only bring ye to Christ! O, Lord! give me these two
more souls, I pray!"
That prayer was answered!
CHAPTER XLI
The Young Master
Two days after, a young man drove a light wagon up through
the avenue of China trees, and, throwing the reins hastily on the
horse's neck, sprang out and inquired for the owner of the place.
It was George Shelby; and, to show how he came to be there,
we must go back in our story.
Uncle Tom's Cabin |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: matters philosophical but not in matters political? How happened
it that in the eighteenth century those general applications were
all at once drawn from this same method, which Descartes and his
predecessors had either not perceived or had rejected? To what,
lastly, is the fact to be attributed, that at this period the
method we are speaking of suddenly emerged from the schools, to
penetrate into society and become the common standard of
intelligence; and that, after it had become popular among the
French, it has been ostensibly adopted or secretly followed by
all the nations of Europe?
The philosophical method here designated may have been
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