| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: and impersonations. And the latter may be either dissembling or
unconscious, either with or without knowledge. A man cannot imitate you,
Theaetetus, without knowing you, but he can imitate the form of justice or
virtue if he have a sentiment or opinion about them. Not being well
provided with names, the former I will venture to call the imitation of
science, and the latter the imitation of opinion.
The latter is our present concern, for the Sophist has no claims to science
or knowledge. Now the imitator, who has only opinion, may be either the
simple imitator, who thinks that he knows, or the dissembler, who is
conscious that he does not know, but disguises his ignorance. And the last
may be either a maker of long speeches, or of shorter speeches which compel
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: As soon as the horse race was over,[10] Callias proceeded to escort
Autolycus and his father, Lycon, to his house in the Piraeus, being
attended also by Niceratus.[11] But catching sight of Socrates along
with certain others (Critobulus,[12] Hermogenes, Antisthenes, and
Charmides), he bade an attendant conduct the party with Autolycus,
whilst he himself approached the group, exclaiming:
[10] See A. Martin, op. cit. p. 265.
[11] Niceratus. See Cobet, op. cit. 71; Boeckh, "P. E. A." 480; Plat.
"Lach." 200 C; "Hell." II. iii. 39; Lys. xviii.; Diod. xiv. 5.
[12] Critobulus, Hermogenes, Antisthenes, Charmides. See "Mem."
A happy chance brings me across your path, just when I am about to
The Symposium |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philosophy 4 by Owen Wister: way, gave them his deferential "Good morning," and trusted that the
gentlemen felt easy. Quite so, they told him, and bade him feel easy
about his pay, for which they were, of course, responsible. Oscar
wished them good luck and watched them go to their desks with his Iittle
eyes, smiling in his particular manner. Then he dismissed them from his
mind, and sat with a faint remnant of his smile, fluently writing his
perfectly accurate answer to the first question upon the examination
paper.
Here is that paper. You will not be able to answer all the questions,
probably, but you may be glad to know what such things are like.
PHILOSOPHY 4
|
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 Pagan and Christian Creeds by Edward Carpenter: But in those earliest times, as I have already indicated
more than once, man felt himself intimately related not
only to his brother tribesman, but to the animals and to
general Nature. It was not so much that he THOUGHT thus
as that he never thought OTHERWISE! He FELT subconsciously
that he was a part of all this outer world. And so he
adopted for his totems or presiding spirits every possible
animal, as we have seen, and all sorts of nature-phenomena,
such as rain and fire and water and clouds, and sun, moon and
stars--which WE consider quite senseless and inanimate.
Towards these apparently senseless things therefore he
Pagan and Christian Creeds |
