| 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: intransigents of the classical school. This is why the new
Italian penal code, in spite of its progressive aim, had
not the courage in 1889 to adopt them frankly; and in the
definitive text, as in the ministerial draft, it took refuge in an
eclectic arrangement which has already met with a crowd of
obstacles, due to the vagueness of the principles inspiring the
code.
These criminal lunatic asylums ought to be of two kinds, differing
in their discipline, one for the insane authors of serious and
dangerous crimes, such as homicide, incendiarism, rape, and the
like; and the other for slighter crimes, such as petty theft,
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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 Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe: their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the
rushing gust--but then without those doors there DID stand the
lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There
was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter
struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment
she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold,--
then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person
of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies,
bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he
had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast.
The Fall of the House of Usher |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: through the medium of thought, sees them only 'through a glass darkly,' any
more than he who considers them in action and operation. However, this was
the method which I adopted: I first assumed some principle which I judged
to be the strongest, and then I affirmed as true whatever seemed to agree
with this, whether relating to the cause or to anything else; and that
which disagreed I regarded as untrue. But I should like to explain my
meaning more clearly, as I do not think that you as yet understand me.
No indeed, replied Cebes, not very well.
There is nothing new, he said, in what I am about to tell you; but only
what I have been always and everywhere repeating in the previous discussion
and on other occasions: I want to show you the nature of that cause which
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: knowledge, as has been already remarked, is not attained until, combined
with true opinion, there is an enumeration of the elements out of which
anything is composed.
THEAETETUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: In the same general way, we might also have true opinion about a
waggon; but he who can describe its essence by an enumeration of the
hundred planks, adds rational explanation to true opinion, and instead of
opinion has art and knowledge of the nature of a waggon, in that he attains
to the whole through the elements.
THEAETETUS: And do you not agree in that view, Socrates?
SOCRATES: If you do, my friend; but I want to know first, whether you
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