Draughting, or drawing, as it is more commonly called, is a means by which mental conceptions are conveyed from one person to another; it is the language of mechanics, and takes the place of words, which are insufficient to convey mechanical ideas in an intelligible manner.
I succeeded in laying my hands on an original copy of a proclamation that ought not to have been posted before the following day. I took the document with me to The Netherlands, and it is of special interest, because in it the Germans admit to have tyrannised the people, and to have not only burned Louvain, but also ransacked the town. The proclamation had been drawn up in concert with the German authorities and was approved by them. It was in French and in Flemish, and read as follows:
ONE:When I was half way between Lige and the Netherland frontier, I noticed that the village of68 Vivignes was burning in various places. It is a beautiful spot, quite concealed between the green trees on the slope of the hills, west of the canal. And the finest and largest farms were exactly those ablaze. The fire crackled fiercely, roofs came down with a crash and a thud. Not a living being could be seen. From the windows of the burning houses small white flags hung, and they too were one by one destroyed by the fire. I counted forty-five farms that were burning, destroyed by the raging flames."You took him. In that case I need not ask----"
And while both light and darkness serve mankind"Tell me a tale," she demanded, imperiously.They should stay there for all time, those stones with the blood upon them, but now, when they were being carried off by the woman who had robbed him of all that life holds dear, Charlton's passion flared out."I must see further into this," Hetty told herself. "When this honoured guest comes I will creep downstairs and listen. It's not a very nice thing to do, but if ever the end justifies the means, surely this is a case in point.""Have you been there already? I am going there too. How are things there?"Such arguments have almost the air of an afterthought, and Plato was perhaps more powerfully swayed by other considerations, which we shall now proceed to analyse. When pleasure was assumed to be the highest good, knowledge was agreed to be the indispensable means for its attainment; and, as so often happens, the means gradually substituted itself for the end. Nor was this all; for knowledge (or reason) being not only the means but the supreme arbiter, when called on to adjudicate between conflicting claims, would naturally pronounce in its own favour. Naturally, also, a moralist who made science the chief interest of his own life would come to believe that it was the proper object of all227 life, whether attended or not by any pleasurable emotion. And so, in direct opposition to the utilitarian theory, Plato declares at last that to brave a lesser pain in order to escape from a greater, or to renounce a lesser pleasure in order to secure a greater, is cowardice and intemperance in disguise; and that wisdom, which he had formerly regarded as a means to other ends, is the one end for which everything else should be exchanged.139 Perhaps it may have strengthened him in this attitude to observe that the many, whose opinion he so thoroughly despised, made pleasure their aim in life, while the fastidious few preferred knowledge. Yet, after a time, even the latter alternative failed to satisfy his restless spirit. For the conception of knowledge resolved itself into the deeper conceptions of a knowing subject and a known object, the soul and the universe, each of which became in turn the supreme ideal. What interpretation should be given to virtue depended on the choice between them. According to the one view it was a purification of the higher principle within us from material wants and passions. Sensual gratifications should be avoided, because they tend to degrade and pollute the soul. Death should be fearlessly encountered, because it will release her from the restrictions of bodily existence. But Plato had too strong a grasp on the realities of life to remain satisfied with a purely ascetic morality. Knowledge, on the objective side, brought him into relation with an organised universe where each individual existed, not for his own sake but for the sake of the whole, to fulfil a definite function in the system of which he formed a part. And if from one point of view the soul herself was an absolutely simple indivisible substance, from another point of view she reflected the external order, and only fulfilled the law of her being when each separate faculty was exercised within its appropriate sphere.
路见不平Eason吼
