| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Alcibiades II by Platonic Imitator: fail to obtain the best because they trust to opinion which is devoid of
intelligence?
ALCIBIADES: That is the case.
SOCRATES: It is good, then, for the many, if they particularly desire to
do that which they know or suppose that they know, neither to know nor to
suppose that they know, in cases where if they carry out their ideas in
action they will be losers rather than gainers?
ALCIBIADES: What you say is very true.
SOCRATES: Do you not see that I was really speaking the truth when I
affirmed that the possession of any other kind of knowledge was more likely
to injure than to benefit the possessor, unless he had also the knowledge
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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 Records of a Family of Engineers by Robert Louis Stevenson: although it was now advancing towards what was considered the
latter end of the proper working season at the Bell Rock. The
foreman joiner, Mr. Francis Watt, was accordingly appointed to
attend at the rock to-day, when the necessary levels were
taken for the step or seat of each particular beam of the
beacon, that they might be cut to their respective lengths, to
suit the inequalities of the rock; several of the stanchions
were also tried into their places, and other necessary
observations made, to prevent mistakes on the application of
the apparatus, and to facilitate the operations when the beams
came to be set up, which would require to be done in the
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