| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Concerning Christian Liberty by Martin Luther: priest, but a profane person, whose prayers are turned into sin,
nor does he ever appear in the presence of God, because God does
not hear sinners.
Who then can comprehend the loftiness of that Christian dignity
which, by its royal power, rules over all things, even over
death, life, and sin, and, by its priestly glory, is all-powerful
with God, since God does what He Himself seeks and wishes, as it
is written, "He will fulfil the desire of them that fear Him; He
also will hear their cry, and will save them"? (Psalm cxlv. 19).
This glory certainly cannot be attained by any works, but by
faith only.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: of view which is opposed to his own. The aim of the Introductions in these
volumes has been to represent Plato as the father of Idealism, who is not
to be measured by the standard of utilitarianism or any other modern
philosophical system. He is the poet or maker of ideas, satisfying the
wants of his own age, providing the instruments of thought for future
generations. He is no dreamer, but a great philosophical genius struggling
with the unequal conditions of light and knowledge under which he is
living. He may be illustrated by the writings of moderns, but he must be
interpreted by his own, and by his place in the history of philosophy. We
are not concerned to determine what is the residuum of truth which remains
for ourselves. His truth may not be our truth, and nevertheless may have
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair: entire profit of her chickens for several months. Eight of them she owned,
and she kept them in a little place fenced around on her backstairs.
All day long the children of Aniele were raking in the dump for food for
these chickens; and sometimes, when the competition there was too fierce,
you might see them on Halsted Street walking close to the gutters, and with
their mother following to see that no one robbed them of their finds.
Money could not tell the value of these chickens to old Mrs. Jukniene--
she valued them differently, for she had a feeling that she was getting
something for nothing by means of them--that with them she was getting the
better of a world that was getting the better of her in so many other ways.
So she watched them every hour of the day, and had learned to see like an
|
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 Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: themselves, and I believe there were about thirty stalks of rice,
and about twenty of barley; and now I thought it a proper time to
sow it, after the rains, the sun being in its southern position,
going from me. Accordingly, I dug up a piece of ground as well as
I could with my wooden spade, and dividing it into two parts, I
sowed my grain; but as I was sowing, it casually occurred to my
thoughts that I would not sow it all at first, because I did not
know when was the proper time for it, so I sowed about two-thirds
of the seed, leaving about a handful of each. It was a great
comfort to me afterwards that I did so, for not one grain of what I
sowed this time came to anything: for the dry months following, the
Robinson Crusoe |
