Wherefore let Man harvest
and garner virtue, that so he may have an inseparable companion in that
gloom which all must pass through, and which it is so hard to traverse."
Is it not extraordinary that many men will deliberately take a road which
they know is, to say the least, not that of happiness? That they prefer to
make others miserable, rather than themselves happy?
Plato, in the Phaedrus, explains this by describing Man as a Composite
Being, having three natures, and compares him to a pair of winged horses
and a charioteer. "Of the two horses one is noble and of noble origin, the
other ignoble and of ignoble origin; and the driving, as might be
expected, is no easy matter." The noble steed endeavors to raise the
chariot, but the ignoble one struggles to drag it down.
"Man," says Shelly, "is an instrument over which a series of external and
internal impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever-changing
wind over an Aeolian lyre, which move it by their motion to ever-changing
melody.
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