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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Phaedrus by Plato: Laws. At the same time it is not to be denied that love and philosophy are
described by Socrates in figures of speech which would not be used in
Christian times; or that nameless vices were prevalent at Athens and in
other Greek cities; or that friendships between men were a more sacred tie,
and had a more important social and educational influence than among
ourselves. (See note on Symposium.)
In the Phaedrus, as well as in the Symposium, there are two kinds of love,
a lower and a higher, the one answering to the natural wants of the animal,
the other rising above them and contemplating with religious awe the forms
of justice, temperance, holiness, yet finding them also 'too dazzling
bright for mortal eye,' and shrinking from them in amazement. The
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