| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: owing to his intemperance, will it not also be better that he should be too
poor to gratify his lust rather than that he should have a superabundance
of means? For thus he will not be able to sin, although he desire never so
much.
Critias appeared to be arguing so admirably that Eryxias, if he had not
been ashamed of the bystanders, would probably have got up and struck him.
For he thought that he had been robbed of a great possession when it became
obvious to him that he had been wrong in his former opinion about wealth.
I observed his vexation, and feared that they would proceed to abuse and
quarrelling: so I said,--I heard that very argument used in the Lyceum
yesterday by a wise man, Prodicus of Ceos; but the audience thought that he
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: know is the same as the knowledge of what you do not know; and also in the
distinction between 'what you know' and 'that you know,' (Greek;) here too
is the first conception of an absolute self-determined science (the claims
of which, however, are disputed by Socrates, who asks cui bono?) as well as
the first suggestion of the difficulty of the abstract and concrete, and
one of the earliest anticipations of the relation of subject and object,
and of the subjective element in knowledge--a 'rich banquet' of
metaphysical questions in which we 'taste of many things.' (7) And still
the mind of Plato, having snatched for a moment at these shadows of the
future, quickly rejects them: thus early has he reached the conclusion
that there can be no science which is a 'science of nothing' (Parmen.).
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini: first do so. Since that is accomplished, why, here's to make an end."
He went in with lightning rapidity. For a moment his point seemed
to La Tour d'Azyr to be everywhere at once, and then from a low
engagement in sixte, Andre-Louis stretched forward with swift and
vigorous ease to lunge in tierce. He drove his point to transfix
his opponent whom a series of calculated disengages uncovered in
that line. But to his amazement and chagrin, La Tour d'Azyr parried
the stroke; infinitely more to his chagrin La Tour d'Azyr parried
it just too late. Had he completely parried it, all would yet have
been well. But striking the blade in the last fraction of a second,
the Marquis deflected the point from the line of his body, yet not
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