The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Reason Discourse by Rene Descartes: had been in reality existent, I would have had no reason to believe that I
existed; I thence concluded that I was a substance whose whole essence or
nature consists only in thinking, and which, that it may exist, has need
of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so that " I," that is
to say, the mind by which I am what I am, is wholly distinct from the
body, and is even more easily known than the latter, and is such, that
although the latter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is.
After this I inquired in general into what is essential I to the truth and
certainty of a proposition; for since I had discovered one which I knew to
be true, I thought that I must likewise be able to discover the ground of
this certitude. And as I observed that in the words I think, therefore I
Reason Discourse |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim by William Shakespeare: Anon Adonis comes with horn and hounds;
She, silly queen, with more than love's good will,
Forbade the boy he should not pass those grounds:
'Once,' quoth she, 'did I see a fair sweet youth
Here in these brakes deep-wounded with a boar,
Deep in the thigh, a spectacle of ruth!
See, in my thigh,' quoth she, 'here was the sore.
She showed hers: he saw more wounds than one,
And blushing fled, and left her all alone.
X.
Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely pluck'd, soon vaded,
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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 First Inaugural Address by Abraham Lincoln: If there be an object to HURRY any of you in hot haste to a step
which you would never take DELIBERATELY, that object will be
frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated
by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied, still have the
old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point,
the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration
will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either.
If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the
right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason
for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity,
and a firm reliance on him who has never yet forsaken this favored land,
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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 Phaedo by Plato: the way to make two, and the participation in one is the way to make one.
You would say: I will let alone puzzles of division and addition--wiser
heads than mine may answer them; inexperienced as I am, and ready to start,
as the proverb says, at my own shadow, I cannot afford to give up the sure
ground of a principle. And if any one assails you there, you would not
mind him, or answer him, until you had seen whether the consequences which
follow agree with one another or not, and when you are further required to
give an explanation of this principle, you would go on to assume a higher
principle, and a higher, until you found a resting-place in the best of the
higher; but you would not confuse the principle and the consequences in
your reasoning, like the Eristics--at least if you wanted to discover real
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