| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland by Olive Schreiner: generals or colonels up here; it's safest, you know; if they're not that
today they will be tomorrow!"
This was intended as a joke, and in that hot weather, and in that dull
world, anything was good enough to laugh at: the third man smiled, but the
first speaker remained serious.
"I only know this," he said, "I'd teach these fellows a lesson, if any one
belonging to me had been among the people they left to be murdered here,
while they went gallivanting to the Transvaal. If my mother or sister had
been killed here, I'd have taken a pistol and blown out the brains of the
great Panjandrum, and the little ones after him. Fine administration of a
country, this, to invite people to come in and live here, and then take
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Symposium by Xenophon: absentem auditque videtque."
[40] Or, "bear the stamp of Aphrodite."
But the lover who depends upon the body,[41] what of him? First, why
should love-for-love be given to such a lover? because, forsooth, he
bestows upon himself what he desires, and upon his minion things of
dire reproach? or that what he hastens to exact, infallibly must
separate that other from his nearest friends?
[41] Or, "is wholly taken up with." Cf. Plat. "Laws," 831 C.
If it be pleaded that persuasion is his instrument, not violence; is
that no reason rather for a deeper loathing? since he who uses
violence[42] at any rate declares himself in his true colours as a
The Symposium |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: arguments to put quite innocent people to death, and not less often to
acquit the guilty, either through some touch of pity excited by the
pleadings, or that the defendant had skill to turn some charming
phrase?" Thus appealed to, Socrates replied: "Nay, solemnly I tell
you, twice already I have essayed to consider my defence, and twice
the divinity[9] hinders me"; and to the remark of Hermogenes, "That is
strange!" he answered again: "Strange, do you call it, that to God it
should seem better for me to die at once? Do you not know that up to
this moment I will not concede to any man to have lived a better life
than I have; since what can exceed the pleasure, which has been mine,
of knowing[10] that my whole life has been spent holily and justly?
The Apology |
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 Pivot of Civilization by Margaret Sanger: encourage `the glorious fertility of the East' there can be but little
hope of minimizing the penalties of the ruthless struggle for
existence in China, and Nature's law will therefore continue to work
out its own pitiless solution, weeding out every year millions of
predestined weaklings.''
This rapid survey is enough, I hope, to indicate the manifold
inadequacies inherent in present policies of philanthropy and charity.
The most serious charge that can be brought against modern
``benevolence'' is that it encourages the perpetuation of defectives,
delinquents and dependents. These are the most dangerous elements in
the world community, the most devastating curse on human progress and
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