| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake: When He was an infant small.
Thou His image ever see,
Heavenly face that smiles on thee!
Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are His own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.
THE DIVINE IMAGE
To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love,
All pray in their distress,
And to these virtues of delight
Songs of Innocence and Experience |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: them to the resolutions I had wickedly taken at first, than I was
at death itself; and these, added to the terror of the storm, put
me into such a condition that I can by no words describe it. But
the worst was not come yet; the storm continued with such fury that
the seamen themselves acknowledged they had never seen a worse. We
had a good ship, but she was deep laden, and wallowed in the sea,
so that the seamen every now and then cried out she would founder.
It was my advantage in one respect, that I did not know what they
meant by FOUNDER till I inquired. However, the storm was so
violent that I saw, what is not often seen, the master, the
boatswain, and some others more sensible than the rest, at their
Robinson Crusoe |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Complete Poems of Longfellow by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: To grief give birth,
Six feet of earth
Can more than he;
There calm and free
And unoppressed
Shalt thou find rest.
The unattained
In life at last,
When life is passed,
Shall all be gained;
And no more pained,
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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 Parmenides by Plato: please ourselves with the conviction that we are resting on facts. We do
not consider how much metaphysics are required to place us above
metaphysics, or how difficult it is to prevent the forms of expression
which are ready made for our use from outrunning actual observation and
experiment.
In the last century the educated world were astonished to find that the
whole fabric of their ideas was falling to pieces, because Hume amused
himself by analyzing the word 'cause' into uniform sequence. Then arose a
philosophy which, equally regardless of the history of the mind, sought to
save mankind from scepticism by assigning to our notions of 'cause and
effect,' 'substance and accident,' 'whole and part,' a necessary place in
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