| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: the very name 'Being,' is unable to maintain itself against the subtleties
of the Megarians. He did not mean to say that Being or Substance had no
existence, but he is preparing for the development of his later view, that
ideas were capable of relation. The fact that contradictory consequences
follow from the existence or non-existence of one or many, does not prove
that they have or have not existence, but rather that some different mode
of conceiving them is required. Parmenides may still have thought that
'Being was,' just as Kant would have asserted the existence of 'things in
themselves,' while denying the transcendental use of the Categories.
Several lesser links also connect the first and second parts of the
dialogue: (1) The thesis is the same as that which Zeno has been already
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Marriage Contract by Honore de Balzac: to politics. I am going into public life. I intend to have, within
five years, the portfolio of a ministry or some embassy. There
comes an age when the only mistress a man can serve is his
country. I enter the ranks of those who intend to upset not only
the ministry, but the whole present system of government. In
short, I swim in the waters of a certain prince who is lame of the
foot only,--a man whom I regard as a statesman of genius whose
name will go down to posterity; a prince as complete in his way as
a great artist may be in his.
Several of us, Ronquerolles, Montriveau, the Grandlieus, La Roche-
Hugon, Serisy, Feraud, and Granville, have allied ourselves
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: Saturday morning, I sent down and arranged with Charlie
Taylor to go down that afternoon. I had scarce got the
saddle bags fixed and had not yet mounted, when the rain
began. But it was no use delaying now; off I went in a wild
waterspout to Apia; found Charlie (Sale) Taylor - a
sesquipedalian young half-caste - not yet ready, had a snack
of bread and cheese at the hotel while waiting him, and then
off to Malie. It rained all the way, seven miles; the road,
which begins in triumph, dwindles down to a nasty, boggy,
rocky footpath with weeds up to a horseman's knees; and there
are eight pig fences to jump, nasty beastly jumps - the next
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The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain: nobody was curious about it; so, for a century and a half
the Mississippi remained out of the market and undisturbed.
When De Soto found it, he was not hunting for a river, and had
no present occasion for one; consequently he did not value it
or even take any particular notice of it.
But at last La Salle the Frenchman conceived the idea of
seeking out that river and exploring it. It always happens
that when a man seizes upon a neglected and important idea,
people inflamed with the same notion crop up all around.
It happened so in this instance.
Naturally the question suggests itself, Why did these people want the river
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