| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: path; and it may weaken his natural faculties of thought and expression
without increasing his philosophical power. The mind easily becomes
entangled among abstractions, and loses hold of facts. The glass which is
adapted to distant objects takes away the vision of what is near and
present to us.
To Hegel, as to the ancient Greek thinkers, philosophy was a religion, a
principle of life as well as of knowledge, like the idea of good in the
Sixth Book of the Republic, a cause as well as an effect, the source of
growth as well as of light. In forms of thought which by most of us are
regarded as mere categories, he saw or thought that he saw a gradual
revelation of the Divine Being. He would have been said by his opponents
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Horse's Tale by Mark Twain: flag goes by, the commandant and all; and once I was there, and
ignorantly walked across right in front of the band, which was an
awful disgrace: Ah, the Lieutenant-General was so ashamed, and so
distressed that I should have done such a thing before all the
world, that she couldn't keep the tears back; and then she taught
me the salute, so that if I ever did any other unmilitary act
through ignorance I could do my salute and she believed everybody
would think it was apology enough and would not press the matter.
It is very nice and distinguished; no other horse can do it; often
the men salute me, and I return it. I am privileged to be present
when the Rocky Mountain Rangers troop the colors and I stand
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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 Protagoras by Plato: himself. Pittacus does not say as Simonides says, that hardly can a man
become good, but hardly can a man be good: and our friend Prodicus would
maintain that being, Protagoras, is not the same as becoming; and if they
are not the same, then Simonides is not inconsistent with himself. I dare
say that Prodicus and many others would say, as Hesiod says,
'On the one hand, hardly can a man become good,
For the gods have made virtue the reward of toil,
But on the other hand, when you have climbed the height,
Then, to retain virtue, however difficult the acquisition, is easy (Works
and Days).'
Prodicus heard and approved; but Protagoras said: Your correction,
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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 The Bickerstaff-Partridge Papers by Jonathan Swift: what I can gather from you, said I, the observations and
predictions you printed, with your almanacks, were mere
impositions on the people. He reply'd, if it were otherwise I
should have the less to answer for. We have a common form for all
those things, as to foretelling the weather, we never meddle with
that, but leave it to the printer, who takes it out of any old
almanack, as he thinks fit; the rest was my own invention, to
make my almanack sell, having a wife to maintain, and no other
way to get my bread; for mending old shoes is a poor livelihood;
and, (added he, sighing) I wish I may not have done more mischief
by my physick than my astrology; tho' I had some good receipts
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