| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: can we determine how far they do or do not exist, or by what degree or kind
of difference they are distinguished. The same remark may be made about
figures of speech. They fill up the vacancy of knowledge; they are to the
mind what too much colour is to the eye; but the truth is rather concealed
than revealed by them.
d. The uncertain meaning of terms, such as Consciousness, Conscience,
Will, Law, Knowledge, Internal and External Sense; these, in the language
of Plato, 'we shamelessly use, without ever having taken the pains to
analyze them.'
e. A science such as Psychology is not merely an hypothesis, but an
hypothesis which, unlike the hypotheses of Physics, can never be verified.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Europeans by Henry James: "I know what you want to say," she answered. And she was on
the point of adding, "And I know just how you will say it;"
but these words she kept back.
"I love you, Gertrude," he said. "I love you very much;
I love you more than ever."
He said the words just as she had known he would;
she had heard them before. They had no charm for her;
she had said to herself before that it was very strange.
It was supposed to be delightful for a woman to listen
to such words; but these seemed to her flat and mechanical.
"I wish you would forget that," she declared.
|
