| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: indicted me for impiety. And therefore, I adjure you to tell me the nature
of piety and impiety, which you said that you knew so well, and of murder,
and of other offences against the gods. What are they? Is not piety in
every action always the same? and impiety, again--is it not always the
opposite of piety, and also the same with itself, having, as impiety, one
notion which includes whatever is impious?
EUTHYPHRO: To be sure, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And what is piety, and what is impiety?
EUTHYPHRO: Piety is doing as I am doing; that is to say, prosecuting any
one who is guilty of murder, sacrilege, or of any similar crime--whether he
be your father or mother, or whoever he may be--that makes no difference;
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: are quite different from A's, you observe. I shall refer to these
again presently, but we will turn them face down now.
"Here, thrown up ten sizes, are the natal autographs of the
two persons who are here before you accused of murdering Judge Driscoll.
I made these pantograph copies last night, and will so
swear when I go upon the witness stand. I ask the jury to
compare them with the finger marks of the accused upon the
windowpanes, and tell the court if they are the same."
He passed a powerful magnifying glass to the foreman.
One juryman after another took the cardboard and the glass
and made the comparison. Then the foreman said to the judge:
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: means, and, having obtained the aid of medicine which enables him to
acquire the power of hearing, may use that very faculty for the acquisition
of virtue?
CRITIAS: Yes, I do.
SOCRATES: But can that which is evil be useful for virtue?
CRITIAS: No.
SOCRATES: It is not therefore necessary that the means by which we obtain
what is useful for a certain object should always be useful for the same
object: for it seems that bad actions may sometimes serve good purposes?
The matter will be still plainer if we look at it in this way:--If things
are useful towards the several ends for which they exist, which ends would
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