| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: will concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals. Whilst the
bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is
being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust
of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made
only at intervals of time immensely remote.
But it may be urged that when several closely-allied species inhabit the
same territory we surely ought to find at the present time many
transitional forms. Let us take a simple case: in travelling from north
to south over a continent, we generally meet at successive intervals with
closely allied or representative species, evidently filling nearly the same
place in the natural economy of the land. These representative species
On the Origin of Species |
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 Sanitary and Social Lectures by Charles Kingsley: "drunken private of the Buffs," who, prisoner among the Chinese,
and commanded to prostrate himself and kotoo, refused in the name
of his country's honour: "He would not bow to any China-man on
earth:" and so was knocked on the head, and died surely a hero's
death. Those soldiers of the Birkenhead, keeping their ranks to
let the women and children escape, while they watched the sharks
who in a few minutes would be tearing them limb from limb. Or, to
go across the Atlantic--for there are heroes in the Far West--Mr.
Bret Harte's "Flynn of Virginia," on the Central Pacific Railway--
the place is shown to travellers--who sacrificed his life for his
married comrade:
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