| 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: then he may proceed to argue with what follows.
THEAETETUS: Nothing can be fairer.
STRANGER: Let me ask you to consider a further question.
THEAETETUS: What question?
STRANGER: When we speak of not-being, we speak, I suppose, not of
something opposed to being, but only different.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean?
STRANGER: When we speak of something as not great, does the expression
seem to you to imply what is little any more than what is equal?
THEAETETUS: Certainly not.
STRANGER: The negative particles, ou and me, when prefixed to words, do
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Statesman by Plato: which either of these qualities is wanting. The noblest and best of all
webs or states is that which the royal science weaves, combining the two
sorts of natures in a single texture, and in this enfolding freeman and
slave and every other social element, and presiding over them all.
'Your picture, Stranger, of the king and statesman, no less than of the
Sophist, is quite perfect.'
...
The principal subjects in the Statesman may be conveniently embraced under
six or seven heads:--(1) the myth; (2) the dialectical interest; (3) the
political aspects of the dialogue; (4) the satirical and paradoxical vein;
(5) the necessary imperfection of law; (6) the relation of the work to the
 Statesman |