| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: things and other people; finally the fear of oneself. And with these
fears must disappear forever all those poisons of hatreds, individual
and international. For the realization would come that there would be
no reason for, no value in encroaching upon, the freedom of one
another. To-day we are living in a world which is like a forest of
trees too thickly planted. Hence the ferocious, unending struggle for
existence. Like innumerable ages past, the present age is one of
mutual destruction. Our aim is to substitute cooperation, equity, and
amity for antagonism and conflict. If the aim of our country or our
civilization is to attain a hollow, meaningless superiority over
others in aggregate wealth and population, it may be sound policy to
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: and your companion fight in armour, I thought that you would have known
better...Here Euthydemus held his peace, but Dionysodorus returned to the
previous answer of Ctesippus and said:--
Do you not think that the possession of gold is a good thing?
Yes, said Ctesippus, and the more the better.
And to have money everywhere and always is a good?
Certainly, a great good, he said.
And you admit gold to be a good?
Certainly, he replied.
And ought not a man then to have gold everywhere and always, and as much as
possible in himself, and may he not be deemed the happiest of men who has
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