| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: orations, are more liable to suspicion than others; those, again, which
have a taste of sophistry in them, or the ring of a later age, or the
slighter character of a rhetorical exercise, or in which a motive or some
affinity to spurious writings can be detected, or which seem to have
originated in a name or statement really occurring in some classical
author, are also of doubtful credit; while there is no instance of any
ancient writing proved to be a forgery, which combines excellence with
length. A really great and original writer would have no object in
fathering his works on Plato; and to the forger or imitator, the 'literary
hack' of Alexandria and Athens, the Gods did not grant originality or
genius. Further, in attempting to balance the evidence for and against a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Egmont by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe: ruled, because he can rely upon their disinterestedness, upon their
sympathy with his fate.
Alva. And ought not the Regent to be empowered to alter these ancient
usages? Should not this constitute his fairest privilege? What is permanent
in this world? And shall the constitution of a state alone remain
unchanged? Must not every relation alter in the course of time, and on that
very account, an ancient constitution become the source of a thousand
evils, because not adapted to the present condition of the people? These
ancient rights afford, doubtless, convenient loopholes, through which the
crafty and the powerful may creep, and wherein they may lie concealed, to
the injury of the people and of the entire community; and it is on this
Egmont |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: CRITO: Of one man only.
SOCRATES: And he ought to fear the censure and welcome the praise of that
one only, and not of the many?
CRITO: Clearly so.
SOCRATES: And he ought to act and train, and eat and drink in the way
which seems good to his single master who has understanding, rather than
according to the opinion of all other men put together?
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of
the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding,
will he not suffer evil?
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