| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Sophist by Plato: STRANGER: Yet I suspect that he will furnish us with the sort of
definition and line of enquiry which we want.
THEAETETUS: Very good.
STRANGER: Let us begin by asking whether he is a man having art or not
having art, but some other power.
THEAETETUS: He is clearly a man of art.
STRANGER: And of arts there are two kinds?
THEAETETUS: What are they?
STRANGER: There is agriculture, and the tending of mortal creatures, and
the art of constructing or moulding vessels, and there is the art of
imitation--all these may be appropriately called by a single name.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Dust by Mr. And Mrs. Haldeman-Julius: of that fine creature he had imported; two cows he had spotted as
not paying their board could go on for months eating good alfalfa
and bran before a new herdsman might become convinced of their
unreadiness to turn the expensive feed into white gold; he had
not written down the dates when the sows were to farrow, and they
might have litters somewhere around the strawstack and crush half
the little pigs. His one hundred and seventy-five acres of wheat
had had north and south dead furrows, but he had learned that
this was a mistake in probably half the acreage, where they
should be east and west. It would make a great difference in the
drainage, but a new plowman might think this finickiness and just
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