| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Son of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs: catching fish after a fashion of his own devising and eating
them raw. When night came he curled up in a great tree beside
the stream--the one from which he had been fishing during the
afternoon--and was soon asleep. Numa, roaring beneath him,
awoke him. He was about to call out in anger to his noisy
neighbor when something else caught his attention. He listened.
Was there something in the tree beside himself? Yes, he heard
the noise of something below him trying to clamber upward.
Presently he heard the click of a crocodile's jaws in the waters
beneath, and then, low but distinct: "By George! The beggar nearly
got me." The voice was familiar.
The Son of Tarzan |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: of the masses, thus prepared, was then easily roused by such
immediate factors as the speeches of orators, and the resistance
of the court party to insignificant reforms.
Among the remote factors there are some of a general nature,
which are found to underlie all the beliefs and opinions of
crowds. They are race, traditions, time, institutions, and
education.
We now proceed to study the influence of these different factors.
1. RACE
This factor, race, must be placed in the first rank, for in
itself it far surpasses in importance all the others. We have
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