| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: which are quoted but not named, are still more defective in their external
credentials. There may be also a possibility that Aristotle was mistaken,
or may have confused the master and his scholars in the case of a short
writing; but this is inconceivable about a more important work, e.g. the
Laws, especially when we remember that he was living at Athens, and a
frequenter of the groves of the Academy, during the last twenty years of
Plato's life. Nor must we forget that in all his numerous citations from
the Platonic writings he never attributes any passage found in the extant
dialogues to any one but Plato. And lastly, we may remark that one or two
great writings, such as the Parmenides and the Politicus, which are wholly
devoid of Aristotelian (1) credentials may be fairly attributed to Plato,
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: long curves of the globe such a connexion could only be an
improvement: it brought them instantly within reach. Of course
there were gaps in the constellation, for Stransom knew he could
only pretend to act for his own, and it wasn't every figure passing
before his eyes into the great obscure that was entitled to a
memorial. There was a strange sanctification in death, but some
characters were more sanctified by being forgotten than by being
remembered. The greatest blank in the shining page was the memory
of Acton Hague, of which he inveterately tried to rid himself. For
Acton Hague no flame could ever rise on any altar of his.
CHAPTER IV.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Dialogues he no longer included in them manufactured articles and ideas of
relation, but restricted them to 'types of nature,' and having become
convinced that the many cannot be parts of the one, for the idea of
participation in them he substituted imitation of them. To quote Dr.
Jackson's own expressions,--'whereas in the period of the Republic and the
Phaedo, it was proposed to pass through ontology to the sciences, in the
period of the Parmenides and the Philebus, it is proposed to pass through
the sciences to ontology': or, as he repeats in nearly the same words,--
'whereas in the Republic and in the Phaedo he had dreamt of passing through
ontology to the sciences, he is now content to pass through the sciences to
ontology.'
|
