| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: that he who had wisdom had no need of fortune. I then recalled to his mind
the previous state of the question. You remember, I said, our making the
admission that we should be happy and fortunate if many good things were
present with us?
He assented.
And should we be happy by reason of the presence of good things, if they
profited us not, or if they profited us?
If they profited us, he said.
And would they profit us, if we only had them and did not use them? For
example, if we had a great deal of food and did not eat, or a great deal of
drink and did not drink, should we be profited?
|
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Eve and David by Honore de Balzac: wise. He came to Angouleme on the day after Eve's visit, and went to
Maitre Cachan for advice. His son owed him arrears of rent; how could
he come by this rent in the scrimmage in which his son was engaged?
"I am engaged by the other side," pronounced Cachan, "and I cannot
appear for the father when I am suing the son; but go to Petit-Claud,
he is very clever, he may perhaps do even better for you than I should
do."
Cachan and Petit-Claud met at the Court.
"I have sent you Sechard senior," said Cachan; "take the case for me
in exchange." Lawyers do each other services of this kind in country
towns as well as in Paris.
|
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: man is made out of the remains of the elements which had been used in
creating the soul of the world; these remains, however, are diluted to the
third degree; by this Plato expresses the measure of the difference between
the soul human and divine. The human soul, like the cosmical, is framed
before the body, as the mind is before the soul of either--this is the
order of the divine work--and the finer parts of the body, which are more
akin to the soul, such as the spinal marrow, are prior to the bones and
flesh. The brain, the containing vessel of the divine part of the soul, is
(nearly) in the form of a globe, which is the image of the gods, who are
the stars, and of the universe.
There is, however, an inconsistency in Plato's manner of conceiving the
|
