Lesson of The Past
English Essay on "Lesson of The Past"
“Education about to only thing lying around loose in the world, and it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away.”
Our lives are governed by time that can be divided into three periods: Past, Present and Future. Man is a rational being. He can ruminate over the past; live in the present and plunge into the future. From the cradle to the grave, our lives and actions are moulded and measured by time. It is a famous saying that “the stuff of which life is made, is time.”
The mighty ocean rolls on an d man is tossed by the waves of time. History picks up the pearls and the shells and preserves them for the coming generations. Wheat has happened and passed is real and reliable; what is happening is incomplete and incompetent; and what will happen is uncertain and doubtful. Thus the records of history are the richest treasures. We can pick up what we choose so writes Omer Khayyam is his ‘Rubaiyat.’
The Moving finger writes; and having writ;
Moves on, Nor all your pity not wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
History is a hoary-headed and wise teacher and the curious learner, learn a great deal from him. History records can be important events and deeds of the great personages who have left permanent foot prints on the sands of time by reading and studying history reader, as Macaulay says: Feels his mind enlarged.” He may have travelled and seen and met different places and people. But when he plunges into the pages of history, he learns: “Here is a community, politically, intellectually and morally unlike any other community of which he has the means of forming an opinion.
We should study history in order to learn the relevant facts about the pat experience and activities of the human race, and also attempt a philosophical interpretation of them. As an individual, our personal life, compared with the long centuries of human history, is like an ephemeral insect that lives and dies in a day. There is an immense store house of experience that is accessible only through history. We feel that we are the heroes of all ages, and preserver of the past treasure. We claim our heritage by commencing the study of history and archaeology — one of the many sources of wisdom. As individuals we are indeed puny and feeble, but when we have enlarged our experience through history, we are like a dwarf standing on the head of a giant. It extends our mental horizon and range of vision beyond the widest dreams of clairvoyance.
Thus history magnifies and expands our personality. History makes us to understand and evaluate our own lives. The present has its roots in the past. Each generation borrows freely from its predecessors and lends generously to its successors. There is no break in the continuity of biological descent of social evolution as Mathew Arnold makes Empedocles say:
Born into life-man grows
Forth from his parent’s stem
And blends their blood, as those
Of theirs are blent in them:
So each new man strikes root into a fore-time.
Without knowledge of history, one is like wayfarer who does not remember the route by which has travelled, he knows just where he stands but do not whence he has come. History prevents such loss of racial memory. We cannot be an intelligent citizen without knowing something about the origin and development of the different phases of contemporary civilisation having its roots in the past. History (the record of the bygone days) is the basis of true citizenship, without which true Ethics is impossible.
The past as revealed through documents and supported but testimony also teaches us what human nature is. What are the ambitions and aspirations of man? How man has suffered through human weakness and how he has risen to great heights by conquering the mountains of difficulties; how the constant efforts and perseverance have overcome, all obstacles and made impossible possible? Napoleon said the word impossible is in the dictionary of the fools, and Mr. Jinnah is an impossible man, said Gandhi. These are the lessons of the past.
If we are unacquainted wish the vast and ponderous panorama unfolded by history, we can have no idea of the potentialities of the human nature, of the Empyrean heights to which it can soar and the Tartarean depths to which it can sink. Dante and Shakespeare dived deep into human nature, but a thousand Dantes and Shakespeares can interpret and encompass Man’s spirit revealed in history. we feel that Man in truth, is wonderfully made. The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
Man always learns, from experience, for experience is the best teacher. Pat experience helps us to act wisely in life. So the experiences of the race may sometimes help and guide us in problems of today. Mankind has perhaps acquired a small stock of permanently valid principles and presents by the trial and error method. But beware of the fallacy of always turning to the past for wisdom. As:
New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth,
Nor attempt the Future’s portals with
The Past’s blood-rusted key.
The records of the past, interpreted in practical life by noble man and women, supply the moral tonic which must be administered to each generation lest it perish of ethical inanition and debility. History sounds the paean of triumph of great movements in religion. Politics, arts and science. The self-sacrifice of the earnest lovers of Humanity was the price always paid for progress, for victory. We learn that no progress can be made without sacrifice. No sacrifice is too great for a noble cause.
We learn how some brave and bold souls have courted death as martyrs, how the heroes have faced death with smiles on their faces, how the daring pioneers have risked their lives for others? Many have scornd rank and honour, suffered hung er and thirst, despised contumely and calumny, foregone fame, fortune and family life and endured tortures, imprisonment and exiles for sonic noble cause, truth and service of the suffering multitudes. Their deeds and achievements teach us how we can master sense and conquer to ever higher levels of wisdom and virtue.
The greatest lesson history is: Above all nations is Humanity. Thus vision demolishes the idols of race-pride, nationalism and false hero-worships. We learn how all nations and races have striven through sore toil and travail to conquer nature, eliminate evil, and improve society and the individual as far as they could. History also proves the interdependence of all races and nations. We come to know that modern Europeans owe an enormous debt to Greece, Rome and Islam. We are indebted to Italy for Renaissance, to France for Revolution and to Germany for Reformation. The reader joyfully joins Terence and says: I am a Man, and nothing that related to Man, is alien to me. We learn to love mankind as comrades.
In the light of lessons learnt from past we can become ardent but discriminating reformers. They convince us that all elements of permanent value in the old institutions must be prescribed and every ancient institution’ in not altogether rotten. It is an amalgam of good and evil. Wisdom consists in absorbing the good and discarding the evil. The reader than understands that the architect of progress must demolish some old dilapidated houses before beautiful modern building a can be erected on the site, it is rightly said:
It was but the ruin of bad,
The wasting of Ike wrong and ill;
Whatever of the good of old time had
Was living still.
If we want to learn lasting lessons of wisdom and seek guidance, we must turn to the Holy scriptures that disclose and discuss all that have been ordained for mankind from the beginning of the Universe to the Day of Doom and Thereafter. This is Scripture of no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil).”5
From the words of Aristophanes: “Life is short, art is long and opportunity fleeting.” We learn that life is transitory, what man has created, lasts longer and we must do a work at opportunity and appropriate moment, for time and tide wait for none.
The lives of the prophets and saints teach us: Self-denial, spirit of service and the simple life are necessary for the success of great mission and new movement as demonstrated by Hazrat Issa, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Buddah and others.
We learn that greatness and happiness of human race consists in living with love, peace and tolerance; and hatred war and intolerance, are the greatest curses for mankind. That standing armies are menace to freedom, peace and future welfare of human race.
We learn that oligarchies of the Romans, the feudal Barons, the French bourgeoisie, landlords and Sardar, Chieftains are always selfish and cruel and lead to perpetual internecine strife. The past experience has shown that bondage is hell freedom is heaven. The mainspring of human progress is personal freedom and civil freedoms, have raised nations like Athens, England, America, France, Germany, Japan, etc., to unprecedented material progress and human well being.
By reading about the achievements and failures of leaders we learn that the secret of leadership is: a great man, a great country and a great cause Nothing great can be achieved without firm determination, perseverance and sacrifices. It is by means of ladder of ambition, one can scale great heights.
The lessons of history also warn us that able and energetic men will exploit the people by fraud and force, if they are nor trained in high ideals of personal conduct, that every movement tends to produce a gang of charlatans and parasites, however noble its aims may be at the outset. Trade union office nears and socialists leaders are the examples.
We learn that one cannot, always succeed in life; and failures are pillars of success. Records show that some times danger brings out the best in the character of man that one is not defeated unless an loses courage and discouraged. History brings home the great lessons of tyranny and oppression, injustice and unrighteousness. Napoleon, the great ruler had to die in exile at St. Helena. Czardom was a victim of public wrath and people like Hitler and Mussolini reaped as they had sown. We learn greatness’ is not a family monopoly and most of the great men have risen from the humble parents. Napoleon, Abrahim Lincoln, Ghandi and Jinnah are model examples. Finally, the perpetual lesson of past is that life is not to be judged by the number of years we live but by the use that we make of them.
Our lives are governed by time that can be divided into three periods: Past, Present and Future. Man is a rational being. He can ruminate over the past; live in the present and plunge into the future. From the cradle to the grave, our lives and actions are moulded and measured by time. It is a famous saying that “the stuff of which life is made, is time.”
The mighty ocean rolls on an d man is tossed by the waves of time. History picks up the pearls and the shells and preserves them for the coming generations. Wheat has happened and passed is real and reliable; what is happening is incomplete and incompetent; and what will happen is uncertain and doubtful. Thus the records of history are the richest treasures. We can pick up what we choose so writes Omer Khayyam is his ‘Rubaiyat.’
The Moving finger writes; and having writ;
Moves on, Nor all your pity not wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all your tears wash out a word of it.
History is a hoary-headed and wise teacher and the curious learner, learn a great deal from him. History records can be important events and deeds of the great personages who have left permanent foot prints on the sands of time by reading and studying history reader, as Macaulay says: Feels his mind enlarged.” He may have travelled and seen and met different places and people. But when he plunges into the pages of history, he learns: “Here is a community, politically, intellectually and morally unlike any other community of which he has the means of forming an opinion.
We should study history in order to learn the relevant facts about the pat experience and activities of the human race, and also attempt a philosophical interpretation of them. As an individual, our personal life, compared with the long centuries of human history, is like an ephemeral insect that lives and dies in a day. There is an immense store house of experience that is accessible only through history. We feel that we are the heroes of all ages, and preserver of the past treasure. We claim our heritage by commencing the study of history and archaeology — one of the many sources of wisdom. As individuals we are indeed puny and feeble, but when we have enlarged our experience through history, we are like a dwarf standing on the head of a giant. It extends our mental horizon and range of vision beyond the widest dreams of clairvoyance.
Thus history magnifies and expands our personality. History makes us to understand and evaluate our own lives. The present has its roots in the past. Each generation borrows freely from its predecessors and lends generously to its successors. There is no break in the continuity of biological descent of social evolution as Mathew Arnold makes Empedocles say:
Born into life-man grows
Forth from his parent’s stem
And blends their blood, as those
Of theirs are blent in them:
So each new man strikes root into a fore-time.
Without knowledge of history, one is like wayfarer who does not remember the route by which has travelled, he knows just where he stands but do not whence he has come. History prevents such loss of racial memory. We cannot be an intelligent citizen without knowing something about the origin and development of the different phases of contemporary civilisation having its roots in the past. History (the record of the bygone days) is the basis of true citizenship, without which true Ethics is impossible.
The past as revealed through documents and supported but testimony also teaches us what human nature is. What are the ambitions and aspirations of man? How man has suffered through human weakness and how he has risen to great heights by conquering the mountains of difficulties; how the constant efforts and perseverance have overcome, all obstacles and made impossible possible? Napoleon said the word impossible is in the dictionary of the fools, and Mr. Jinnah is an impossible man, said Gandhi. These are the lessons of the past.
If we are unacquainted wish the vast and ponderous panorama unfolded by history, we can have no idea of the potentialities of the human nature, of the Empyrean heights to which it can soar and the Tartarean depths to which it can sink. Dante and Shakespeare dived deep into human nature, but a thousand Dantes and Shakespeares can interpret and encompass Man’s spirit revealed in history. we feel that Man in truth, is wonderfully made. The glory, jest and riddle of the world.
Man always learns, from experience, for experience is the best teacher. Pat experience helps us to act wisely in life. So the experiences of the race may sometimes help and guide us in problems of today. Mankind has perhaps acquired a small stock of permanently valid principles and presents by the trial and error method. But beware of the fallacy of always turning to the past for wisdom. As:
New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth,
Nor attempt the Future’s portals with
The Past’s blood-rusted key.
The records of the past, interpreted in practical life by noble man and women, supply the moral tonic which must be administered to each generation lest it perish of ethical inanition and debility. History sounds the paean of triumph of great movements in religion. Politics, arts and science. The self-sacrifice of the earnest lovers of Humanity was the price always paid for progress, for victory. We learn that no progress can be made without sacrifice. No sacrifice is too great for a noble cause.
We learn how some brave and bold souls have courted death as martyrs, how the heroes have faced death with smiles on their faces, how the daring pioneers have risked their lives for others? Many have scornd rank and honour, suffered hung er and thirst, despised contumely and calumny, foregone fame, fortune and family life and endured tortures, imprisonment and exiles for sonic noble cause, truth and service of the suffering multitudes. Their deeds and achievements teach us how we can master sense and conquer to ever higher levels of wisdom and virtue.
The greatest lesson history is: Above all nations is Humanity. Thus vision demolishes the idols of race-pride, nationalism and false hero-worships. We learn how all nations and races have striven through sore toil and travail to conquer nature, eliminate evil, and improve society and the individual as far as they could. History also proves the interdependence of all races and nations. We come to know that modern Europeans owe an enormous debt to Greece, Rome and Islam. We are indebted to Italy for Renaissance, to France for Revolution and to Germany for Reformation. The reader joyfully joins Terence and says: I am a Man, and nothing that related to Man, is alien to me. We learn to love mankind as comrades.
In the light of lessons learnt from past we can become ardent but discriminating reformers. They convince us that all elements of permanent value in the old institutions must be prescribed and every ancient institution’ in not altogether rotten. It is an amalgam of good and evil. Wisdom consists in absorbing the good and discarding the evil. The reader than understands that the architect of progress must demolish some old dilapidated houses before beautiful modern building a can be erected on the site, it is rightly said:
It was but the ruin of bad,
The wasting of Ike wrong and ill;
Whatever of the good of old time had
Was living still.
If we want to learn lasting lessons of wisdom and seek guidance, we must turn to the Holy scriptures that disclose and discuss all that have been ordained for mankind from the beginning of the Universe to the Day of Doom and Thereafter. This is Scripture of no doubt, a guidance unto those who ward off (evil).”5
From the words of Aristophanes: “Life is short, art is long and opportunity fleeting.” We learn that life is transitory, what man has created, lasts longer and we must do a work at opportunity and appropriate moment, for time and tide wait for none.
The lives of the prophets and saints teach us: Self-denial, spirit of service and the simple life are necessary for the success of great mission and new movement as demonstrated by Hazrat Issa, Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Buddah and others.
We learn that greatness and happiness of human race consists in living with love, peace and tolerance; and hatred war and intolerance, are the greatest curses for mankind. That standing armies are menace to freedom, peace and future welfare of human race.
We learn that oligarchies of the Romans, the feudal Barons, the French bourgeoisie, landlords and Sardar, Chieftains are always selfish and cruel and lead to perpetual internecine strife. The past experience has shown that bondage is hell freedom is heaven. The mainspring of human progress is personal freedom and civil freedoms, have raised nations like Athens, England, America, France, Germany, Japan, etc., to unprecedented material progress and human well being.
By reading about the achievements and failures of leaders we learn that the secret of leadership is: a great man, a great country and a great cause Nothing great can be achieved without firm determination, perseverance and sacrifices. It is by means of ladder of ambition, one can scale great heights.
The lessons of history also warn us that able and energetic men will exploit the people by fraud and force, if they are nor trained in high ideals of personal conduct, that every movement tends to produce a gang of charlatans and parasites, however noble its aims may be at the outset. Trade union office nears and socialists leaders are the examples.
We learn that one cannot, always succeed in life; and failures are pillars of success. Records show that some times danger brings out the best in the character of man that one is not defeated unless an loses courage and discouraged. History brings home the great lessons of tyranny and oppression, injustice and unrighteousness. Napoleon, the great ruler had to die in exile at St. Helena. Czardom was a victim of public wrath and people like Hitler and Mussolini reaped as they had sown. We learn greatness’ is not a family monopoly and most of the great men have risen from the humble parents. Napoleon, Abrahim Lincoln, Ghandi and Jinnah are model examples. Finally, the perpetual lesson of past is that life is not to be judged by the number of years we live but by the use that we make of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment