| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: wealthiest. But now there seems no escape from this conclusion. Suppose
that we are asked, 'Is a horse useful to everybody?' will not our reply be,
'No, but only to those who know how to use a horse?'
ERYXIAS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And so, too, physic is not useful to every one, but only to him
who knows how to use it?
ERYXIAS: True.
SOCRATES: And the same is the case with everything else?
ERYXIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then gold and silver and all the other elements which are
supposed to make up wealth are only useful to the person who knows how to
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Crito by Plato: according to the opinion of all other men put together?
CRITO: True.
SOCRATES: And if he disobeys and disregards the opinion and approval of
the one, and regards the opinion of the many who have no understanding,
will he not suffer evil?
CRITO: Certainly he will.
SOCRATES: And what will the evil be, whither tending and what affecting,
in the disobedient person?
CRITO: Clearly, affecting the body; that is what is destroyed by the evil.
SOCRATES: Very good; and is not this true, Crito, of other things which we
need not separately enumerate? In questions of just and unjust, fair and
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: unarmed sides in such sort that none turned to defend himself, but
each victim rather seemed to contribute what he could towards his own
destruction--if that was not divine interposition, I know now what to
call it. Miracle or not, in that little space so many fell, and the
corpses lay piled so thick, that eyes familiar with the stacking of
corn or wood or piles of stones were called upon to gaze at layers of
human bodies. Nor did the guard of the Boeotians in the port
itself[12] escape death; some were slain upon the ramparts, others on
the roofs of the dock-houses, which they had scaled for refuge.
Nothing remained but for the Corinthians and Argives to carry away
their dead under cover of a truce; whilst the allies of Lacedaemon
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