| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: which sometimes obscures his intelligence (compare the construction of
solids out of surfaces in his account of the creation of the world, or the
attraction of similars to similars). Further, Mr. Grote supposes, not that
(Greek) means 'revolving,' or that this is the sense in which Aristotle
understood the word, but that the rotation of the earth is necessarily
implied in its adherence to the cosmical axis. But (a) if, as Mr Grote
assumes, Plato did not see that the rotation of the earth on its axis and
of the sun and outer heavens around the earth in equal times was
inconsistent with the alternation of day and night, neither need we suppose
that he would have seen the immobility of the earth to be inconsistent with
the rotation of the axis. And (b) what proof is there that the axis of the
|
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 The Tanach: Ezekiel 31: 8 The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it; the cypress-trees were not like its boughs, and the plane-trees were not as its branches; nor was any tree in the garden of God like unto it in its beauty.
Ezekiel 31: 9 I made it fair by the multitude of its branches; so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied it.
Ezekiel 31: 10 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD: Because thou art exalted in stature, and he hath set his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height;
Ezekiel 31: 11 I do even deliver him into the hand of the mighty one of the nations; he shall surely deal with him; I do drive him out according to his wickedness.
Ezekiel 31: 12 And strangers, the terrible of the nations, do cut him off, and cast him down; upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs lie broken in all the channels of the land; and all the peoples of the earth do go down from his shadow, and do leave him.
Ezekiel 31: 13 Upon his carcass all the fowls of the heaven do dwell, and upon his branches are all the beasts of the field;
Ezekiel 31: 14 to the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves in their stature, neither set their top among the thick boughs, nor that their mighty ones stand up in their height, even all that drink water; for they are all delivered unto death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.
Ezekiel 31: 15 Thus saith the Lord GOD: In the day when he went down to the nether-world I caused the deep to mourn and cover itself for him, and I restrained the rivers thereof, and the great water  The Tanach |