| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Essays & Lectures by Oscar Wilde: glass of religion in the pages of Herodotus, more metaphysical than
scientific with Thucydides, Plato strove to seize it by the eagle-
flight of speculation, to reach it with the eager grasp of a soul
impatient of those slower and surer inductive methods which
Aristotle, in his trenchant criticism of his greater master, showed
were more brilliant than any vague theory, if the test of
brilliancy is truth.
What then is the position of Polybius? Does any new method remain
for him? Polybius was one of those many men who are born too late
to be original. To Thucydides belongs the honour of being the
first in the history of Greek thought to discern the supreme calm
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: arts should be wise also in general? Or is there a difference between the
clever artist and the wise man?
ALCIBIADES: All the difference in the world.
SOCRATES: And what sort of a state do you think that would be which was
composed of good archers and flute-players and athletes and masters in
other arts, and besides them of those others about whom we spoke, who knew
how to go to war and how to kill, as well as of orators puffed up with
political pride, but in which not one of them all had this knowledge of the
best, and there was no one who could tell when it was better to apply any
of these arts or in regard to whom?
ALCIBIADES: I should call such a state bad, Socrates.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: 79. 1. When a reconciliation is effected (between two parties) after a
great animosity, there is sure to be a grudge remaining (in the mind
of the one who was wrong). And how can this be beneficial (to the
other)?
2. Therefore (to guard against this), the sage keeps the left-hand
portion of the record of the engagement, and does not insist on the
(speedy) fulfilment of it by the other party. (So), he who has the
attributes (of the Tao) regards (only) the conditions of the
engagement, while he who has not those attributes regards only the
conditions favourable to himself.
3. In the Way of Heaven, there is no partiality of love; it is always
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