| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: who profess to know things of which they are ignorant.
For these reasons, as soon as my age permitted me to pass from under the
control of my instructors, I entirely abandoned the study of letters, and
resolved no longer to seek any other science than the knowledge of myself,
or of the great book of the world. I spent the remainder of my youth in
traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men
of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in
proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me,
and, above all, in making such reflection on the matter of my experience
as to secure my improvement. For it occurred to me that I should find
much more truth in the reasonings of each individual with reference to the
Reason Discourse |
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 A Treatise on Parents and Children by George Bernard Shaw: teaching, and is politically extremely dangerous in an empire in which
a huge majority of the fellow subjects of the governing island do not
profess the religion of that island.
But this objectivity, though intellectually honest, tells the child
only what other people believe. What it should itself believe is
quite another matter. The sort of Rationalism which says to a child
"You must suspend your judgment until you are old enough to choose
your religion" is Rationalism gone mad. The child must have a
conscience and a code of honor (which is the essence of religion) even
if it be only a provisional one, to be revised at its confirmation.
For confirmation is meant to signalize a spiritual coming of age, and
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