| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson: The same night there was brought to us from the ship a little
packet of pamphlets. The next day my lord was under engagement to
go with the Governor upon some party of pleasure; the time was
nearly due, and I left him for a moment alone in his room and
skimming through the pamphlets. When I returned, his head had
fallen upon the table, his arms lying abroad amongst the crumpled
papers.
"My lord, my lord!" I cried as I ran forward, for I supposed he was
in some fit.
He sprang up like a figure upon wires, his countenance deformed
with fury, so that in a strange place I should scarce have known
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Barlaam and Ioasaph by St. John of Damascus: comforted his brother and sent him home with a gift.
"Then he ordered four wooden caskets to be made. Two of these he
covered over all with gold, and, placing dead men's mouldering
bones therein, secured them with golden clasps. The other two he
smeared over with pitch and tar, but filled them with costly
stones and precious pearls, and all manner of aromatic sweet
perfume. He bound them fast with cords of hair, and called for
the noblemen who had blamed him for his manner of accosting the
men by the wayside. Before them he set the four caskets, that
they might appraise the value of these and those. They decided
that the golden ones were of greatest value, for, peradventure,
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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 Parmenides by Plato: treat even this second class of difficulties as hopeless or insoluble. He
says only that they cannot be explained without a long and laborious
demonstration: 'The teacher will require superhuman ability, and the
learner will be hard of understanding.' But an attempt must be made to
find an answer to them; for, as Socrates and Parmenides both admit, the
denial of abstract ideas is the destruction of the mind. We can easily
imagine that among the Greek schools of philosophy in the fourth century
before Christ a panic might arise from the denial of universals, similar to
that which arose in the last century from Hume's denial of our ideas of
cause and effect. Men do not at first recognize that thought, like
digestion, will go on much the same, notwithstanding any theories which may
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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 Democracy In America, Volume 2 by Alexis de Toqueville: subject which engages them, and they expound them in the
vernacular tongue. Scientific pursuits then follow a freer and a
safer course, but a less lofty one.
The mind may, as it appears to me, divide science into three
parts. The first comprises the most theoretical principles, and
those more abstract notions whose application is either unknown
or very remote. The second is composed of those general truths
which still belong to pure theory, but lead, nevertheless, by a
straight and short road to practical results. Methods of
application and means of execution make up the third. Each of
these different portions of science may be separately cultivated,
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