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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: similar institutions having been once universal. There can be no question
that the study of anthropology has considerably changed our views
respecting the first appearance of man upon the earth. We know more about
the aborigines of the world than formerly, but our increasing knowledge
shows above all things how little we know. With all the helps which
written monuments afford, we do but faintly realize the condition of man
two thousand or three thousand years ago. Of what his condition was when
removed to a distance 200,000 or 300,000 years, when the majority of
mankind were lower and nearer the animals than any tribe now existing upon
the earth, we cannot even entertain conjecture. Plato (Laws) and Aristotle
(Metaph.) may have been more right than we imagine in supposing that some
The Republic |
