The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Lesser Hippias by Plato: HIPPIAS: That which is voluntarily out of tune.
SOCRATES: The involuntary is the worse of the two?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And would you choose to possess goods or evils?
HIPPIAS: Goods.
SOCRATES: And would you rather have feet which are voluntarily or
involuntarily lame?
HIPPIAS: Feet which are voluntarily lame.
SOCRATES: But is not lameness a defect or deformity?
HIPPIAS: Yes.
SOCRATES: And is not blinking a defect in the eyes?
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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 Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: finished their repasts."
[7] See Aristot. "Pol." ii. 9 (Jowett, i. pp. xlii. and 52); Muller,
"Dorians," iii. 10, 1 (vol. ii. 197, Eng. tr.)
VII
There are yet other customs in Sparta which Lycurgus instituted in
opposition to those of the rest of Hellas, and the following among
them. We all know that in the generality of states every one devotes
his full energy to the business of making money: one man as a tiller
of the soil, another as a mariner, a third as a merchant, whilst
others depend on various arts to earn a living. But at Sparta Lycurgus
forbade his freeborn citizens to have anything whatsoever to do with
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