| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Republic by Plato: man; and this they will conceive according to that other image, which, when
existing among men, Homer calls the form and likeness of God.
Very true, he said.
And one feature they will erase, and another they will put in, until they
have made the ways of men, as far as possible, agreeable to the ways of
God?
Indeed, he said, in no way could they make a fairer picture.
And now, I said, are we beginning to persuade those whom you described as
rushing at us with might and main, that the painter of constitutions is
such an one as we are praising; at whom they were so very indignant because
to his hands we committed the State; and are they growing a little calmer
The Republic |
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 Historical Lecturers and Essays by Charles Kingsley: The eldest of things which we see actually as history is not
equality, but an already developed hideous inequality, trying to
perpetuate itself, and yet by a most divine and gracious law,
destroying itself by the very means which it uses to keep itself
alive.
"There were giants in the earth in those days. And Nimrod began to
be a mighty one in the earth" -
A mighty hunter; and his game was man.
No; it is not equality which we see through the dim mist of bygone
ages.
What we do see is--I know not whether you will think me
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