| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Euthydemus by Plato: power? Perhaps you may not be ready with an answer?
CRITO: Indeed I am not, Socrates.
SOCRATES: No more were we, Crito. But at any rate you know that if this
is the art which we were seeking, it ought to be useful.
CRITO: Certainly.
SOCRATES: And surely it ought to do us some good?
CRITO: Certainly, Socrates.
SOCRATES: And Cleinias and I had arrived at the conclusion that knowledge
of some kind is the only good.
CRITO: Yes, that was what you were saying.
SOCRATES: All the other results of politics, and they are many, as for
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: never been contested, this instinctive patriotism is wont to
endure.
But there is another species of attachment to a country
which is more rational than the one we have been describing. It
is perhaps less generous and less ardent, but it is more fruitful
and more lasting; it is coeval with the spread of knowledge, it
is nurtured by the laws, it grows by the exercise of civil
rights, and, in the end, it is confounded with the personal
interest of the citizen. A man comprehends the influence which
the prosperity of his country has upon his own welfare; he is
aware that the laws authorize him to contribute his assistance to
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