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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Protagoras by Plato: in like manner acknowledge his inability to speak short?
Counsels of moderation are urged first in a few words by Critias, and then
by Prodicus in balanced and sententious language: and Hippias proposes an
umpire. But who is to be the umpire? rejoins Socrates; he would rather
suggest as a compromise that Protagoras shall ask and he will answer, and
that when Protagoras is tired of asking he himself will ask and Protagoras
shall answer. To this the latter yields a reluctant assent.
Protagoras selects as his thesis a poem of Simonides of Ceos, in which he
professes to find a contradiction. First the poet says,
'Hard is it to become good,'
and then reproaches Pittacus for having said, 'Hard is it to be good.' How
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