| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Ion by Plato: and have plenty to say?
SOCRATES: The reason, my friend, is obvious. No one can fail to see that
you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak
of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other
poets; for poetry is a whole.
ION: Yes.
SOCRATES: And when any one acquires any other art as a whole, the same may
be said of them. Would you like me to explain my meaning, Ion?
ION: Yes, indeed, Socrates; I very much wish that you would: for I love
to hear you wise men talk.
SOCRATES: O that we were wise, Ion, and that you could truly call us so;
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: heaven for the good man, and a sorry and ill-starred existence for the
coward.
In other states the man who shows himself base and cowardly wins to
himself an evil reputation and the nickname of a coward, but that is
all. For the rest he buys and sells in the same market-place as the
good man; he sits beside him at play; he exercises with him in the
same gymnasium, and all as suits his humour. But at Lacedaemon there
is not one man who would not feel ashamed to welcome the coward at the
common mess-tabe, or to try conclusions with such an antagonist in a
wrestling bout. Consider the day's round of his existence. The sides
are being picked up in a football match,[2] but he is left out as the
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