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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: what--horses or men? and if men, under what circumstances? 'I mean to say,
that he is able to command men living in social and political relations.'
And what is their aim? 'The better preservation of the city.' But when is
a city better? 'When there is unanimity, such as exists between husband
and wife.' Then, when husbands and wives perform their own special duties,
there can be no unanimity between them; nor can a city be well ordered when
each citizen does his own work only. Alcibiades, having stated first that
goodness consists in the unanimity of the citizens, and then in each of
them doing his own separate work, is brought to the required point of self-
contradiction, leading him to confess his own ignorance.
But he is not too old to learn, and may still arrive at the truth, if he is
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