The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Phaedo by Plato: not the ideas, then not the souls.
Yes, Socrates; I am convinced that there is precisely the same necessity
for the one as for the other; and the argument retreats successfully to the
position that the existence of the soul before birth cannot be separated
from the existence of the essence of which you speak. For there is nothing
which to my mind is so patent as that beauty, goodness, and the other
notions of which you were just now speaking, have a most real and absolute
existence; and I am satisfied with the proof.
Well, but is Cebes equally satisfied? for I must convince him too.
I think, said Simmias, that Cebes is satisfied: although he is the most
incredulous of mortals, yet I believe that he is sufficiently convinced of
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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 Crito by Plato: were made within a few days to be thrown away? And have we, at our age,
been earnestly discoursing with one another all our life long only to
discover that we are no better than children? Or, in spite of the opinion
of the many, and in spite of consequences whether better or worse, shall we
insist on the truth of what was then said, that injustice is always an evil
and dishonour to him who acts unjustly? Shall we say so or not?
CRITO: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then we must do no wrong?
CRITO: Certainly not.
SOCRATES: Nor when injured injure in return, as the many imagine; for we
must injure no one at all? (E.g. compare Rep.)
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