| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: growing up. The description of Dionysodorus and Euthydemus suggests to him
the reflection that the professors of education are strange beings.
Socrates consoles him with the remark that the good in all professions are
few, and recommends that 'he and his house' should continue to serve
philosophy, and not mind about its professors.
...
There is a stage in the history of philosophy in which the old is dying
out, and the new has not yet come into full life. Great philosophies like
the Eleatic or Heraclitean, which have enlarged the boundaries of the human
mind, begin to pass away in words. They subsist only as forms which have
rooted themselves in language--as troublesome elements of thought which
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Death of the Lion by Henry James: charming form, with notes, with the tenderest editorial care, that
precious heritage of his written project. But where was that
precious heritage and were both the author and the book to have
been snatched from us? Lady Augusta wrote me that she had done all
she could and that poor Lord Dorimont, who had really been worried
to death, was extremely sorry. I couldn't have the matter out with
Mrs. Wimbush, for I didn't want to be taunted by her with desiring
to aggrandise myself by a public connexion with Mr. Paraday's
sweepings. She had signified her willingness to meet the expense
of all advertising, as indeed she was always ready to do. The last
night of the horrible series, the night before he died, I put my
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: considerations of loss of reputation or injury to his children should be
dismissed: the only question is whether he would be right in attempting to
escape. Crito, who is a disinterested person not having the fear of death
before his eyes, shall answer this for him. Before he was condemned they
had often held discussions, in which they agreed that no man should either
do evil, or return evil for evil, or betray the right. Are these
principles to be altered because the circumstances of Socrates are altered?
Crito admits that they remain the same. Then is his escape consistent with
the maintenance of them? To this Crito is unable or unwilling to reply.
Socrates proceeds:--Suppose the Laws of Athens to come and remonstrate with
him: they will ask 'Why does he seek to overturn them?' and if he replies,
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