| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: In a later chapter, devoted to the revolutionary armies, we shall
see how they conquered Europe in arms. They set out inspired by
the ideas of liberty and equality which constituted the new
gospel, and once on the frontiers, which were to keep them so
long, they retained a special mentality, very different from that
of the Government, which they first knew nothing of and
afterwards despised.
Having no part whatever in their victories, the men of the
Convention contented themselves with legislating at hazard
according to the injunctions of the leaders who directed them,
and who claimed to be regenerating France by means of the
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: dominant species spreading widely and varying; the new species thus
produced being themselves dominant owing to inheritance, and to having
already had some advantage over their parents or over other species; these
again spreading, varying, and producing new species. The forms which are
beaten and which yield their places to the new and victorious forms, will
generally be allied in groups, from inheriting some inferiority in common;
and therefore as new and improved groups spread throughout the world, old
groups will disappear from the world; and the succession of forms in both
ways will everywhere tend to correspond.
There is one other remark connected with this subject worth making. I have
given my reasons for believing that all our greater fossiliferous
 On the Origin of Species |