| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: idealism. Like the ancient Sophists, he relegates the more important
principles of ethics to custom and probability. But crude and unmeaning as
this philosophy is, it exercised a great influence on his successors, not
unlike that which Locke exercised upon Berkeley and Berkeley upon Hume
himself. All three were both sceptical and ideal in almost equal degrees.
Neither they nor their predecessors had any true conception of language or
of the history of philosophy. Hume's paradox has been forgotten by the
world, and did not any more than the scepticism of the ancients require to
be seriously refuted. Like some other philosophical paradoxes, it would
have been better left to die out. It certainly could not be refuted by a
philosophy such as Kant's, in which, no less than in the previously
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from La Grande Breteche by Honore de Balzac: " 'For about three months previously,' he went on, with a jerk of his
head, 'the Count and Countess had lived in a very eccentric way; they
admitted no visitors; Madame lived on the ground-floor, and Monsieur
on the first floor. When the Countess was left alone, she was never
seen excepting at church. Subsequently, at home, at the chateau, she
refused to see the friends, whether gentlemen or ladies, who went to
call on her. She was already very much altered when she left la Grande
Breteche to go to Merret. That dear lady--I say dear lady, for it was
she who gave me this diamond, but indeed I saw her but once--that kind
lady was very ill; she had, no doubt, given up all hope, for she died
without choosing to send for a doctor; indeed, many of our ladies
La Grande Breteche |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Poems of William Blake by William Blake: In milky fondness, then on Thel she fix'd her humble eyes
O beauty of the vales of Har, we live not for ourselves,
Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed:
My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark,
But he that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head
And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast.
And says; Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee
And I have given thee a crown that none can take away.
But how this is sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know
I ponder, and I cannot ponder; yet I live and love.
The daughter of beauty wip'd her pitying tears with her white veil,
Poems of William Blake |
