William C. Michael

To complete the objectives of this lesson, complete the following tasks: Study the lesson for mastery. Complete the lesson assessment. Lesson Not everything that the imagination may furnish is equally worth expressing. If you choose to write about something for which imagination supplies the ideas, you may create for yourself such ideas as you wish. Their order of occurrence and their time and place are not determined by outward events, but solely by the mind itself. The events are no longer real and actual, but may be changed and rearranged without limit. An imaginative series of events may conform closely … Continue

In this lesson, we begin our study of Stoic Philosophy. We begin with the study of Seneca’s essay “On Providence”. To complete the objectives of this lesson: Study the lesson for mastery. Complete the lesson assessment. Reading You have asked me, Lucilius, why, if a Providence rules the world, it still happens that many evils befall good men. This would be more fittingly answered in a coherent work designed to prove that a Providence does preside over the universe, and that God concerns himself with us. But since it is your wish that a part be severed from the whole, … Continue

To complete the objectives of this lesson, complete the following tasks: Study the lesson for mastery. Complete the lesson assessment. Lesson All ideas are based upon and spring from experience, and the imagination merely places them in new combinations. For the purpose of this book, however, it is convenient to distinguish those themes that relate real events as they actually occurred from those themes that relate events that did not happen. That body of writing which we call “literature” is largely composed of works of an imaginative character, and for this reason it has sometimes been carelessly assumed that in … Continue

The ancients, who under the leadership of Pythagoras first made science systematic, defined philosophy as the love of wisdom. Indeed the name itself means this, and before Pythagoras all who had knowledge were called “wise” indiscriminately- a carpenter, for example, a cobbler, a helmsman, and in a word anyone who was versed in any art or handicraft((See Sirach 38:25-39)). Pythagoras, however, restricting the title so as to apply to the knowledge and comprehension of reality, and calling the knowledge of the truth in this the only wisdom, naturally designated the desire and pursuit of this knowledge philosophy, as being desire … Continue

In this lesson, we study the demonstration of the first proposition in Euclid’s Geometry (Proposition 1.1). The analysis of the proposition is provided below. To complete the objectives of this lesson, complete the following tasks: Lesson

To complete the objectives of this lesson, complete the following tasks: Review past lessons on adjectives. Study the lesson for mastery. Memorize the rules in bold print. Complete the lesson assessment. Lesson 53. Adjectives are not declined in the English language. In Latin, we learn that adjectives are declined and vary in forms to show gender, number, case and degree. While this is not true of English adjectives, they do vary their forms to express degree. 54. An adjective undergoes a change of form to express a comparison between different objects. When we compare objects, we either compare one to … Continue

In this article of the Summa Theologica, we find St. Thomas Aquinas’ famous five proofs for the existence of God as he answers the question, “Whether God Exists?“. Objection 1 It seems that God does not exist; because if one of two contraries be infinite, the other would be altogether destroyed. But the word “God” means that He is infinite goodness. If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist. Objection 2 Further, it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few … Continue

In this lesson, we will learn how to find the prime factors common to two or more numbers. To complete the objectives of this lesson, complete the following tasks: Study the lesson for mastery. Memorize the rule given in the lesson. Complete all lesson exercises. Complete the lesson assessment. Lesson To learn how to find the prime factors common to two or more numbers, let us begin with an example problem by which the rule may be understood. 1. What prime factors are common to 30 and 42? Step 1. Write the numbers in line. 30 42 Step 2. From … Continue

In this lesson, we will study how the order of events is to be expressed in writing. To complete the objectives of this lesson, complete the following tasks: Study the Lesson for mastery. Complete the lesson Assessment. Compose Theme V. Self-correct your theme. Submit your final theme for review. Lesson The order in which events occur will assist in establishing the order in which to relate them. If you are telling about only one person, you can follow the time order of the events as they actually happened; but if you are telling about two or more persons who were … Continue