| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: the richest are the same? The truth is that we are discussing the subject
of riches, and my notion is that we should argue respecting the honest and
dishonest means of acquiring them, and, generally, whether they are a good
thing or a bad.
Very good, I said, and I am obliged to you for the hint: in future we will
be more careful. But why do not you yourself, as you introduced the
argument, and do not think that the former discussion touched the point at
issue, tell us whether you consider riches to be a good or an evil?
I am of opinion, he said, that they are a good. He was about to add
something more, when Critias interrupted him:--Do you really suppose so,
Eryxias?
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: into which no disputed word is allowed to intrude: 'Figure is the limit of
form.' Meno imperiously insists that he must still have a definition of
colour. Some raillery follows; and at length Socrates is induced to reply,
'that colour is the effluence of form, sensible, and in due proportion to
the sight.' This definition is exactly suited to the taste of Meno, who
welcomes the familiar language of Gorgias and Empedocles. Socrates is of
opinion that the more abstract or dialectical definition of figure is far
better.
Now that Meno has been made to understand the nature of a general
definition, he answers in the spirit of a Greek gentleman, and in the words
of a poet, 'that virtue is to delight in things honourable, and to have the
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from King James Bible: as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:
CO1 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither
with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread
of sincerity and truth.
CO1 5:9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
CO1 5:10 Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with
the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs
go out of the world.
CO1 5:11 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any
man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an
idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an
 King James Bible |