| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: Cratyl.). A later view of pleasure is found in Aristotle, who agrees with
Plato in many points, e.g. in his view of pleasure as a restoration to
nature, in his distinction between bodily and mental, between necessary and
non-necessary pleasures. But he is also in advance of Plato; for he
affirms that pleasure is not in the body at all; and hence not even the
bodily pleasures are to be spoken of as generations, but only as
accompanied by generation (Nic. Eth.).
4. Plato attempts to identify vicious pleasures with some form of error,
and insists that the term false may be applied to them: in this he appears
to be carrying out in a confused manner the Socratic doctrine, that virtue
is knowledge, vice ignorance. He will allow of no distinction between the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Footnote to History by Robert Louis Stevenson: fury new among Samoans. When the battle ended on the following
day, one or more outworks remained in the possession of Mataafa.
Another had been taken and lost as many as four times. Carried
originally by a mixed force from Savaii and Tuamasanga, the
victors, instead of completing fresh defences or pursuing their
advantage, fell to eat and smoke and celebrate their victory with
impromptu songs. In this humour a rally of the Tamaseses smote
them, drove them out pell-mell, and tumbled them into the ravine,
where many broke their heads and legs. Again the work was taken,
again lost. Ammunition failed the belligerents; and they fought
hand to hand in the contested fort with axes, clubs, and clubbed
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: friends began to eat, and never once glanced at each other again.
As soon as dinner was over, the two former friends both rose from
their seats, and began to look for their hats, with a view to
departure. Then the chief beckoned; and Ivan Ivanovitch--not our Ivan
Ivanovitch, but the other with the one eye--got behind Ivan
Nikiforovitch, and the chief stepped behind Ivan Ivanovitch, and the
two began to drag them backwards, in order to bring them together, and
not release them till they had shaken hands with each other. Ivan
Ivanovitch, the one-eyed, pushed Ivan Nikiforovitch, with tolerable
success, towards the spot where stood Ivan Ivanovitch. But the chief
of police directed his course too much to one side, because he could
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
