| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: that which is dear to the gods is dear to the gods because it is first
loved of them, not loved of them because it is dear to them. But the pious
or holy is loved by the gods because it is pious or holy, which is
equivalent to saying, that it is loved by them because it is dear to them.
Here then appears to be a contradiction,--Euthyphro has been giving an
attribute or accident of piety only, and not the essence. Euthyphro
acknowledges himself that his explanations seem to walk away or go round in
a circle, like the moving figures of Daedalus, the ancestor of Socrates,
who has communicated his art to his descendants.
Socrates, who is desirous of stimulating the indolent intelligence of
Euthyphro, raises the question in another manner: 'Is all the pious just?'
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: **************
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
FLIGHT THE FOURTH
CHARLES SUMNER
Garlands upon his grave,
And flowers upon his hearse,
And to the tender heart and brave
The tribute of this verse.
His was the troubled life,
The conflict and the pain,
The grief, the bitterness of strife,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Walden by Henry David Thoreau: of life, though there are instances of men having done without it
for long periods in colder countries than this. Samuel Laing says
that "the Laplander in his skin dress, and in a skin bag which he
puts over his head and shoulders, will sleep night after night on
the snow ... in a degree of cold which would extinguish the life of
one exposed to it in any woollen clothing." He had seen them asleep
thus. Yet he adds, "They are not hardier than other people." But,
probably, man did not live long on the earth without discovering the
convenience which there is in a house, the domestic comforts, which
phrase may have originally signified the satisfactions of the house
more than of the family; though these must be extremely partial and
Walden |
