| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells: sustained me while I clambered upon the saddle.
XII
`So I came back. For a long time I must have been insensible
upon the machine. The blinking succession of the days and nights
was resumed, the sun got golden again, the sky blue. I breathed
with greater freedom. The fluctuating contours of the land ebbed
and flowed. The hands spun backward upon the dials. At last I
saw again the dim shadows of houses, the evidences of decadent
humanity. These, too, changed and passed, and others came.
Presently, when the million dial was at zero, I slackened speed.
I began to recognize our own petty and familiar architecture, the
The Time Machine |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: Monon gar auto legeiv, osper gumnon kai aperemomenon apo ton onton apanton,
adunaton. Soph.
Since the above essay first appeared, many books on Psychology have been
given to the world, partly based upon the views of Herbart and other German
philosophers, partly independent of them. The subject has gained in bulk
and extent; whether it has had any true growth is more doubtful. It begins
to assume the language and claim the authority of a science; but it is only
an hypothesis or outline, which may be filled up in many ways according to
the fancy of individual thinkers. The basis of it is a precarious one,--
consciousness of ourselves and a somewhat uncertain observation of the rest
of mankind. Its relations to other sciences are not yet determined: they
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