| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Alcibiades I by Plato: The motive or leading thought of the dialogue may be detected in Xen. Mem.,
and there is no similar instance of a 'motive' which is taken from Xenophon
in an undoubted dialogue of Plato. On the other hand, the upholders of the
genuineness of the dialogue will find in the Hippias a true Socratic
spirit; they will compare the Ion as being akin both in subject and
treatment; they will urge the authority of Aristotle; and they will detect
in the treatment of the Sophist, in the satirical reasoning upon Homer, in
the reductio ad absurdum of the doctrine that vice is ignorance, traces of
a Platonic authorship. In reference to the last point we are doubtful, as
in some of the other dialogues, whether the author is asserting or
overthrowing the paradox of Socrates, or merely following the argument
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Herland by Charlotte Gilman: met their needs, just as young fawns might grow up in dewy forest
glades and brook-fed meadows. And they enjoyed it as frankly and
utterly as the fawns would.
They found themselves in a big bright lovely world, full of
the most interesting and enchanting things to learn about and to do.
The people everywhere were friendly and polite. No Herland
child ever met the overbearing rudeness we so commonly show
to children. They were People, too, from the first; the most
precious part of the nation.
In each step of the rich experience of living, they found the
instance they were studying widen out into contact with an endless
Herland |
