|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Menexenus by Plato: commemorate. For government is the nurture of man, and the government of
good men is good, and of bad men bad. And I must show that our ancestors
were trained under a good government, and for this reason they were good,
and our contemporaries are also good, among whom our departed friends are
to be reckoned. Then as now, and indeed always, from that time to this,
speaking generally, our government was an aristocracy--a form of government
which receives various names, according to the fancies of men, and is
sometimes called democracy, but is really an aristocracy or government of
the best which has the approval of the many. For kings we have always had,
first hereditary and then elected, and authority is mostly in the hands of
the people, who dispense offices and power to those who appear to be most
|
