vice. — Lysias: Is there any mean between vice and virtue? so that having got rid of vice I might not attain to virtue, but remain at the mean; like one who, abandoning falsehood, stops short at silence and speaks neither truth nor falsehood; or one who avoids iniquity and does neither injustice nor justice? — Aristotle: He who is silent elects to be so either with ignorance or with knowledge; if he be silent with knowledge, he is a speaker of truth; if with ignorance he is a liar. So, too, whoso pauses does so either for fraud or for right; if for right, he is just and righteous; if for fraud, he is iniquitous and a doer of injustice. — Lysias: You have made clear to me the difference between all the good and the bad that may happen to me by a clear distinction, and have proved to me that whatever has not happened to me must resemble what has happened. God, who gave thee wisdom, and who protects thee, give thee therefor a meet reward! Never has father in his lifetime tended his child better, or after death left him a more honourable inheritance! — Aristotle: 1£ you are satisfied with the answer to your questions, let Kriton speak, for I can see that he wishes to do so. — Kriton: It is painful to impose on you the burden of speaking, whereas it is sad to be quiet and leave the subject to be finished on some later day. — Aristotle: Withhold nothing, so long as you see a spark of life in me on which I can sustain myself. — Kriton: I heard and understood all the answers you gave Lysias; and I agreed as he did that the absent is to be known from the present. But I am not quite satisfied without knowing what are the qualities and unknown operations of that “absent” to which I confessed and agreed. — Aristotle: I know of nothing in the present or the absent, save knowledge and ignorance, and the reward of the two. — Kriton: How could I acknowledge this of the “absent and the present,” when I have not yet acknowledged it of the present? And though you should force me to acknowledge it of the present, I will not acknowledge it of the absent, save by definition and evidence. — Aristotle: The evidence which tells you it of the present
