| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Criminal Sociology by Enrico Ferri: infraction of the law. Thus the judges will come to
pronouncing the conditional sentence almost mechanically,
just as they have come to give the benefit of attenuating
circumstances by force of habit This device also was introduced in
France in 1832, in order to ``individualise punishment''--that is
to say, to compel the judge to apply his sentence rather to the
criminal than to the crime.
So long as penal procedure is not radically reformed, as we have
proposed, in such a manner that the inquiry, the discussion, the
decision upon the evidence, which are the only proper elements of
penal justice, aim at and lead up to the determination of a
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from A Collection of Beatrix Potter by Beatrix Potter: A MINUTE afterwards
Hunca Munca, his wife,
put her head out, too; and
when she saw that there was
no one in the nursery, she
ventured out on the oilcloth
under the coal-box
THE doll's house stood at
the other side of the
fireplace. Tom Thumb and
Hunca Munca went cautiously
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from House of Mirth by Edith Wharton: because, in such affairs, the woman's instinct is to side with
the man, but because his case made a peculiar appeal to her
sympathies. He was so desperately in earnest, poor youth, and his
earnestness was of so different a quality from Bertha's, though
hers too was desperate enough. The difference was that Bertha was
in earnest only about herself, while he was in earnest about her.
But now, at the actual crisis, this difference seemed to throw
the weight of destitution on Bertha's side, since at least he had
her to suffer for, and she had only herself. At any rate, viewed
less ideally, all the disadvantages of such a situation were for
the woman; and it was to Bertha that Lily's sympathies now went
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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 Timaeus by Plato: and the great city of the district is also called Sais, and is the city
from which King Amasis came. The citizens have a deity for their
foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by
them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athene; they are great lovers of
the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them. To this
city came Solon, and was received there with great honour; he asked the
priests who were most skilful in such matters, about antiquity, and made
the discovery that neither he nor any other Hellene knew anything worth
mentioning about the times of old. On one occasion, wishing to draw them
on to speak of antiquity, he began to tell about the most ancient things in
our part of the world--about Phoroneus, who is called 'the first man,' and
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