|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Gorgias by Plato: early education, which is continued in maturer years by observation and
experience. The spoilt child is in later life said to be unfortunate--he
had better have suffered when he was young, and been saved from suffering
afterwards. But is not the sovereign equally unfortunate whose education
and manner of life are always concealing from him the consequences of his
own actions, until at length they are revealed to him in some terrible
downfall, which may, perhaps, have been caused not by his own fault?
Another illustration is afforded by the pauper and criminal classes, who
scarcely reflect at all, except on the means by which they can compass
their immediate ends. We pity them, and make allowances for them; but we
do not consider that the same principle applies to human actions generally.
|
