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Impossible.
Then were we not right in saying that even the very qualities which make a
man a philosopher, may, if he be ill-educated, divert him from philosophy, no
less than riches and their accompaniments and the other so-called goods of
life?
We were quite right.
Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I
have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits;
they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time; this being the class
out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States
and individuals; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in
that direction; but a small man never was the doer of any great thing either to
individuals or to States.
That is most true, he said.
And so philosophy is left desolate, with her marriage rite incomplete: for
her own have fallen away and forsaken her, and while they are leading a false
and unbecoming life, other unworthy persons, seeing that she has no kinsmen
to be her protectors, enter in and dishonor her; and fasten upon her the
reproaches which, as you say, her reprovers utter, who affirm of her votaries
that some are good for nothing, and that the greater number deserve the
severest punishment.
That is certainly what people say.
Yes; and what else would you expect, I said, when you think of the puny
creatures who, seeing this land open to them—a land well stocked with fair
names and showy titles—like prisoners running out of prison into a sanctuary,
take a leap out of their trades into philosophy; those who do so being
probably the cleverest hands at their own miserable crafts? For, although
philosophy be in this evil case, still there remains a dignity about her which is
not to be found in the arts. And many are thus attracted by her whose natures
are imperfect and whose souls are maimed and disfigured by their
meannesses, as their bodies are by their trades and crafts. Is not this
unavoidable?
Yes.
Are they not exactly like a bald little tinker who has just got out of durance
and come into a fortune—he takes a bath and puts on a new coat, and is
decked out as a bridegroom going to marry his master’s daughter, who is left
poor and desolate?
1188
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International