| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: cows?
ION: No, he will not.
SOCRATES: But he will know what a spinning-woman ought to say about the
working of wool?
ION: No.
SOCRATES: At any rate he will know what a general ought to say when
exhorting his soldiers?
ION: Yes, that is the sort of thing which the rhapsode will be sure to
know.
SOCRATES: Well, but is the art of the rhapsode the art of the general?
ION: I am sure that I should know what a general ought to say.
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: 1. In reply to the first, we have only probabilities to offer. Three main
points have to be decided: (a) Would Protagoras have identified his own
thesis, 'Man is the measure of all things,' with the other, 'All knowledge
is sensible perception'? (b) Would he have based the relativity of
knowledge on the Heraclitean flux? (c) Would he have asserted the
absoluteness of sensation at each instant? Of the work of Protagoras on
'Truth' we know nothing, with the exception of the two famous fragments,
which are cited in this dialogue, 'Man is the measure of all things,' and,
'Whether there are gods or not, I cannot tell.' Nor have we any other
trustworthy evidence of the tenets of Protagoras, or of the sense in which
his words are used. For later writers, including Aristotle in his
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe: for setting me right."
"You do really try to be provoking," said Marie.
"O, come, Marie, the day is growing warm, and I have just
had a long quarrel with Dolph, which has fatigued me excessively;
so, pray be agreeable, now, and let a fellow repose in the light
of your smile."
"What's the matter about Dolph?" said Marie. "That fellow's
impudence has been growing to a point that is perfectly intolerable
to me. I only wish I had the undisputed management of him a while.
I'd bring him down!"
"What you say, my dear, is marked with your usual acuteness
 Uncle Tom's Cabin |