| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: philosophy?' is analogous to the question asked in the Philebus, 'What rank
does pleasure hold in the scale of goods?' Admitting the greatest
happiness principle to be true and valuable, and the necessary foundation
of that part of morals which relates to the consequences of actions, we
still have to consider whether this or some other general notion is the
highest principle of human life. We may try them in this comparison by
three tests--definiteness, comprehensiveness, and motive power.
There are three subjective principles of morals,--sympathy, benevolence,
self-love. But sympathy seems to rest morality on feelings which differ
widely even in good men; benevolence and self-love torture one half of our
virtuous actions into the likeness of the other. The greatest happiness
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from I Have A Dream by Martin Luther King, Jr.: slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of captivity.
But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact that
the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later, the life of
the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation
and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the
Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast
ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro
is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds
himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to
dramatize an appalling condition.
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