| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley: most crafty argument of Sir Humphrey's--how Aristotle in his book
"De Mundo," and Simon Gryneus in his annotations thereon, declare
that the world (the Old World) is an island, compassed by that
which Homer calls the river Oceanus; ergo, the New World is an
island also, and there is a North-West passage; of the three
brothers (names unknown) who had actually made the voyage, and
named what was afterwards called Davis's Strait after themselves;
of the Indians who were cast ashore in Germany in the reign of
Frederic Barbarossa who, as Sir Humphrey had learnedly proved per
modum tollendi, could have come only by the North-West; and above
all, of Salvaterra, the Spaniard, who in 1568 had told Sir Henry
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Symposium by Plato: than which there can be nothing nobler. Thus noble in every case is the
acceptance of another for the sake of virtue. This is that love which is
the love of the heavenly godess, and is heavenly, and of great price to
individuals and cities, making the lover and the beloved alike eager in the
work of their own improvement. But all other loves are the offspring of
the other, who is the common goddess. To you, Phaedrus, I offer this my
contribution in praise of love, which is as good as I could make extempore.
Pausanias came to a pause--this is the balanced way in which I have been
taught by the wise to speak; and Aristodemus said that the turn of
Aristophanes was next, but either he had eaten too much, or from some other
cause he had the hiccough, and was obliged to change turns with Eryximachus
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Laches by Plato: Socrates, because his actions, in the true Dorian mode, correspond to his
words.
Socrates proceeds: We might ask who are our teachers? But a better and
more thorough way of examining the question will be to ask, 'What is
Virtue?'--or rather, to restrict the enquiry to that part of virtue which
is concerned with the use of weapons--'What is Courage?' Laches thinks
that he knows this: (1) 'He is courageous who remains at his post.' But
some nations fight flying, after the manner of Aeneas in Homer; or as the
heavy-armed Spartans also did at the battle of Plataea. (2) Socrates wants
a more general definition, not only of military courage, but of courage of
all sorts, tried both amid pleasures and pains. Laches replies that this
|
