| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf: Moving very slowly, and rearing absurdly high over each wave,
the little boat was now approaching a white crescent of sand.
Behind this was a deep green valley, with distinct hills on either side.
On the slope of the right-hand hill white houses with brown roofs
were settled, like nesting sea-birds, and at intervals cypresses
striped the hill with black bars. Mountains whose sides were
flushed with red, but whose crowns were bald, rose as a pinnacle,
half-concealing another pinnacle behind it. The hour being
still early, the whole view was exquisitely light and airy;
the blues and greens of sky and tree were intense but not sultry.
As they drew nearer and could distinguish details, the effect of
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: are characteristic of his priestly office. His failure to apprehend an
argument may be compared to a similar defect which is observable in the
rhapsode Ion. But he is not a bad man, and he is friendly to Socrates,
whose familiar sign he recognizes with interest. Though unable to follow
him he is very willing to be led by him, and eagerly catches at any
suggestion which saves him from the trouble of thinking. Moreover he is
the enemy of Meletus, who, as he says, is availing himself of the popular
dislike to innovations in religion in order to injure Socrates; at the same
time he is amusingly confident that he has weapons in his own armoury which
would be more than a match for him. He is quite sincere in his prosecution
of his father, who has accidentally been guilty of homicide, and is not
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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 Moran of the Lady Letty by Frank Norris: and unrestrained, and on more than one occasion, as Wilbur passed
close to her, he was made aware that her hair, her neck, her
entire personality exhaled a fine, sweet, natural redolence that
savored of the ocean and great winds.
One day, as he saw her handling a huge water-barrel by the chines
only, with a strength he knew to be greater than his own, her
brows contracted with the effort, her hair curling about her thick
neck, her large, round arms bare to the elbow, a sudden thrill of
enthusiasm smote through him, and between his teeth he exclaimed
to himself:
"By Jove, you're a woman!"
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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 Charmides by Plato: speaking more in agreement with modern terminology, in the latter half.
But there is no reason to suppose that Plato's theory, or, rather, his
various theories, of the Ideas underwent any definite change during his
period of authorship. They are substantially the same in the twelfth Book
of the Laws as in the Meno and Phaedo; and since the Laws were written in
the last decade of his life, there is no time to which this change of
opinions can be ascribed. It is true that the theory of Ideas takes
several different forms, not merely an earlier and a later one, in the
various Dialogues. They are personal and impersonal, ideals and ideas,
existing by participation or by imitation, one and many, in different parts
of his writings or even in the same passage. They are the universal
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