| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Euthyphro by Plato: Republic II. The virtue of piety has been already mentioned as one of five
in the Protagoras, but is not reckoned among the four cardinal virtues of
Republic IV. The figure of Daedalus has occurred in the Meno; that of
Proteus in the Euthydemus and Io. The kingly science has already appeared
in the Euthydemus, and will reappear in the Republic and Statesman. But
neither from these nor any other indications of similarity or difference,
and still less from arguments respecting the suitableness of this little
work to aid Socrates at the time of his trial or the reverse, can any
evidence of the date be obtained.
EUTHYPHRO
by
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift: defaced one half of his leaves, and chained him fast among a shelf
of Moderns. Where, soon discovering how high the quarrel was
likely to proceed, he tried all his arts, and turned himself to a
thousand forms. At length, in the borrowed shape of an ass, the
regent mistook him for a Modern; by which means he had time and
opportunity to escape to the Ancients, just when the spider and the
bee were entering into their contest; to which he gave his
attention with a world of pleasure, and, when it was ended, swore
in the loudest key that in all his life he had never known two
cases, so parallel and adapt to each other as that in the window
and this upon the shelves. "The disputants," said he, "have
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