| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Apology by Plato: no care at all, great or small, about the matter. But still I should like
to know, Meletus, in what I am affirmed to corrupt the young. I suppose
you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to
acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new
divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the lessons by
which I corrupt the youth, as you say.
Yes, that I say emphatically.
Then, by the gods, Meletus, of whom we are speaking, tell me and the court,
in somewhat plainer terms, what you mean! for I do not as yet understand
whether you affirm that I teach other men to acknowledge some gods, and
therefore that I do believe in gods, and am not an entire atheist--this you
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: and I may almost say, idiom. "Love" then becomes "the anticipation
of benefits"; "duty" becomes "necessity" or "fitness"; and other words
are correspondingly transmuted. Moreover, among Women,
we use language implying the utmost deference for their Sex;
and they fully believe that the Chief Circle Himself is not more
devoutly adored by us than they are: but behind their backs they are
both regarded and spoken of -- by all except the very young --
as being little better than "mindless organisms".
Our Theology also in the Women's chambers is entirely different from
our Theology elsewhere.
Now my humble fear is that this double training, in language as well
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbot: I. And has this Creature sides, as well as angles or what you call
"terminal Points"?
SPHERE. Of course; and all according to Analogy. But, by the way,
not what YOU call sides, but what WE call sides.
You would call them SOLIDS.
I. And how many solids or sides will appertain to this Being whom
I am to generate by the motion of my inside in an "upward" direction,
and whom you call a Cube?
SPHERE. How can you ask? And you a mathematician!
The side of anything is always, if I may so say, one Dimension behind
the thing. Consequently, as there is no Dimension behind a Point,
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions |
