| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn: ideals,-- a condition in which everything that we now call evil will have
been atrophied out of existence, and everything that we call virtue have
been transmuted into instinct;-- a state of altruism in which ethical
concepts and codes will have become as useless as they would be, even now,
in the societies of the higher ants.
The giants of modern thought have given some attention to this question;
and the greatest among them has answered it -- partly in the affirmative.
Herbert Spencer has expressed his belief that humanity will arrive at some
state of civilization ethically comparable with that of the ant:--
"If we have, in lower orders of creatures, cases in which the nature is
constitutionally so modified that altruistic activities have become one
Kwaidan |
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 An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce: direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet
it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling
anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested
human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a
straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a
point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead,
as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great
golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange
constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order
which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on
either side was full of singular noises, among which -- once,
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge |
