| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: just: and if he may do no violence to his father or mother, much less may
he do violence to his country.' What answer shall we make to this, Crito?
Do the laws speak truly, or do they not?
CRITO: I think that they do.
SOCRATES: Then the laws will say: 'Consider, Socrates, if we are speaking
truly that in your present attempt you are going to do us an injury. For,
having brought you into the world, and nurtured and educated you, and given
you and every other citizen a share in every good which we had to give, we
further proclaim to any Athenian by the liberty which we allow him, that if
he does not like us when he has become of age and has seen the ways of the
city, and made our acquaintance, he may go where he pleases and take his
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Atheist's Mass by Honore de Balzac: like the saint that he was, and his death was worthy of his life.
"I alone followed him to the grave. When I had laid my only
benefactor to rest, I looked about to see how I could pay my debt
to him; I found he had neither family nor friends, neither wife
nor child. But he believed. He had a religious conviction; had I
any right to dispute it? He had spoken to me timidly of masses
said for the repose of the dead; he would not impress it on me as
a duty, thinking that it would be a form of repayment for his
services. As soon as I had money enough I paid to Saint-Sulpice
the requisite sum for four masses every year. As the only thing I
can do for Bourgeat is thus to satisfy his pious wishes, on the
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: arithmetic, where many people are speaking, and one speaks better than the
rest, there is somebody who can judge which of them is the good speaker?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And he who judges of the good will be the same as he who judges
of the bad speakers?
ION: The same.
SOCRATES: And he will be the arithmetician?
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: Well, and in discussions about the wholesomeness of food, when
many persons are speaking, and one speaks better than the rest, will he who
recognizes the better speaker be a different person from him who recognizes
|
