| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: believed are persuaded?
GORGIAS: Just so.
SOCRATES: Shall we then assume two sorts of persuasion,--one which is the
source of belief without knowledge, as the other is of knowledge?
GORGIAS: By all means.
SOCRATES: And which sort of persuasion does rhetoric create in courts of
law and other assemblies about the just and unjust, the sort of persuasion
which gives belief without knowledge, or that which gives knowledge?
GORGIAS: Clearly, Socrates, that which only gives belief.
SOCRATES: Then rhetoric, as would appear, is the artificer of a persuasion
which creates belief about the just and unjust, but gives no instruction
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: of the sun.
And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low,
and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat,
as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom
brooding over a crowd of men.
Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity
became less brilliant but more profound. The old river
in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day,
after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks,
spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading
to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable
Heart of Darkness |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: in anything. (Compare Gorgias.)
SOCRATES: What an ornament, Hippias, will the reputation of your wisdom be
to the city of Elis and to your parents! But to return: what say you of
Odysseus and Achilles? Which is the better of the two? and in what
particular does either surpass the other? For when you were exhibiting and
there was company in the room, though I could not follow you, I did not
like to ask what you meant, because a crowd of people were present, and I
was afraid that the question might interrupt your exhibition. But now that
there are not so many of us, and my friend Eudicus bids me ask, I wish you
would tell me what you were saying about these two heroes, so that I may
clearly understand; how did you distinguish them?
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