| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: truth higher than either (compare Soph.). But his ideal theory is not
based on antinomies. The correlation of Ideas was the metaphysical
difficulty of the age in which he lived; and the Megarian and Cynic
philosophy was a 'reductio ad absurdum' of their isolation. To restore
them to their natural connexion and to detect the negative element in them
is the aim of Plato in the Sophist. But his view of their connexion falls
very far short of the Hegelian identity of Being and Not-being. The Being
and Not-being of Plato never merge in each other, though he is aware that
'determination is only negation.'
After criticizing the hypotheses of others, it may appear presumptuous to
add another guess to the many which have been already offered. May we say,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Silverado Squatters by Robert Louis Stevenson: on a valise, to copy its terms, with some necessary changes,
twice over on the two sheets of note-paper. One was then to
be placed on the same cairn - a "mound of rocks" the notice
put it; and the other to be lodged for registration.
Rufe watched me, silently smoking, till I came to the place
for the locator's name at the end of the first copy; and when
I proposed that he should sign, I thought I saw a scare in
his eye. "I don't think that'll be necessary," he said
slowly; "just you write it down." Perhaps this mighty
hunter, who was the most active member of the local school
board, could not write. There would be nothing strange in
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: SOCRATES: You surely know, do you not, Anytus, that these are the people
whom mankind call Sophists?
ANYTUS: By Heracles, Socrates, forbear! I only hope that no friend or
kinsman or acquaintance of mine, whether citizen or stranger, will ever be
so mad as to allow himself to be corrupted by them; for they are a manifest
pest and corrupting influence to those who have to do with them.
SOCRATES: What, Anytus? Of all the people who profess that they know how
to do men good, do you mean to say that these are the only ones who not
only do them no good, but positively corrupt those who are entrusted to
them, and in return for this disservice have the face to demand money?
Indeed, I cannot believe you; for I know of a single man, Protagoras, who
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