The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: able, never.
And do you imagine, I said, that I am such a madman as to try and cheat,
Thrasymachus? I might as well shave a lion.
Why, he said, you made the attempt a minute ago, and you failed.
Enough, I said, of these civilities. It will be better that I should ask
you a question: Is the physician, taken in that strict sense of which you
are speaking, a healer of the sick or a maker of money? And remember that
I am now speaking of the true physician.
A healer of the sick, he replied.
And the pilot--that is to say, the true pilot--is he a captain of sailors
or a mere sailor?
The Republic |