| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: fallacious, but almost unintelligible, e.g. in the contradiction which is
elicited out of the relative terms older and younger: (11) The relation
between two terms is regarded under contradictory aspects, as for example
when the existence of the one and the non-existence of the one are equally
assumed to involve the existence of the many: (12) Words are used through
long chains of argument, sometimes loosely, sometimes with the precision of
numbers or of geometrical figures.
The argument is a very curious piece of work, unique in literature. It
seems to be an exposition or rather a 'reductio ad absurdum' of the
Megarian philosophy, but we are too imperfectly acquainted with this last
to speak with confidence about it. It would be safer to say that it is an
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: definite point was the inevitable spring of the creature; and the
definite lesson from that was that a man of feeling didn't cause
himself to be accompanied by a lady on a tiger-hunt. Such was the
image under which he had ended by figuring his life.
They had at first, none the less, in the scattered hours spent
together, made no allusion to that view of it; which was a sign he
was handsomely alert to give that he didn't expect, that he in fact
didn't care, always to be talking about it. Such a feature in
one's outlook was really like a hump on one's back. The difference
it made every minute of the day existed quite independently of
discussion. One discussed of course LIKE a hunchback, for there
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