| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: one which is found chiefly in the Republic and the Phaedo, and a later,
which appears in the Theaetetus, Philebus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides,
Timaeus. In the first stage of his philosophy Plato attributed Ideas to
all things, at any rate to all things which have classes or common notions:
these he supposed to exist only by participation in them. In the later
Dialogues he no longer included in them manufactured articles and ideas of
relation, but restricted them to 'types of nature,' and having become
convinced that the many cannot be parts of the one, for the idea of
participation in them he substituted imitation of them. To quote Dr.
Jackson's own expressions,--'whereas in the period of the Republic and the
Phaedo, it was proposed to pass through ontology to the sciences, in the
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from God The Invisible King by H. G. Wells: has been able to modify the nature of animals and plants, man must
attempt to modify his own constitution, so as to readjust its
disharmonies. . . .
"To modify the human constitution, it will be necessary first, to
frame the ideal, and thereafter to set to work with all the
resources of science.
"If there can be formed an ideal able to unite men in a kind of
religion of the future, this ideal must be founded on scientific
principles. And if it be true, as has been asserted so often, that
man can live by faith alone, the faith must be in the power of
science."
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: for me would never have been at all."
"We are each married to another person," she said faintly;
"and assistance from you would have an evil sound--after--after--"
"Well, there's no preventing slanderers from having
their fill at any time; but you need not be afraid.
Whatever I may feel I promise you on my word of honour never
to speak to you about--or act upon--until you say I may.
I know my duty to Thomasin quite as well as I know my duty
to you as a woman unfairly treated. What shall I assist
you in?"
"In getting away from here."
Return of the Native |
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 Edition of The Ambassadors by Henry James: This idea however was luckily all before him again from the
moment he crossed the threshold of the little entresol of the
Quartier Marboeuf into which she had gathered, as she said,
picking them up in a thousand flights and funny little passionate
pounces, the makings of a final nest. He recognised in an instant
that there really, there only, he should find the boon with the
vision of which he had first mounted Chad's stairs. He might have
been a little scared at the picture of how much more, in this
place, he should know himself "in" hadn't his friend been on the
spot to measure the amount to his appetite. Her compact and
crowded little chambers, almost dusky, as they at first struck
|
