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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: assembly; they neither see nor hear the laws or decrees, as they are
called, of the state written or recited; the eagerness of political
societies in the attainment of offices--clubs, and banquets, and revels,
and singing-maidens,--do not enter even into their dreams. Whether any
event has turned out well or ill in the city, what disgrace may have
descended to any one from his ancestors, male or female, are matters of
which the philosopher no more knows than he can tell, as they say, how many
pints are contained in the ocean. Neither is he conscious of his
ignorance. For he does not hold aloof in order that he may gain a
reputation; but the truth is, that the outer form of him only is in the
city: his mind, disdaining the littlenesses and nothingnesses of human
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