| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Vailima Letters by Robert Louis Stevenson: being quite drained of resources) in order to supply the
working squad with food. Tools they did ask for, but it was
especially mentioned that I was to make no presents. In
short, the whole of this little 'presentation' to me had been
planned with a good deal more consideration than goes usually
with a native campaign.
(I sat on the opposite side of the circle to the talking man.
His face was quite calm and high-bred as he went through the
usual Samoan expressions of politeness and compliment, but
when he came on to the object of their visit, on their love
and gratitude to Tusitala, how his name was always in their
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: best expressed to us under the form of a harmony, or with Kant's obedience
to law, which may be summed up under the word 'duty,' or with the Stoical
'Follow nature,' and seems to have no advantage over them. All of these
present a certain aspect of moral truth. None of them are, or indeed
profess to be, the only principle of morals.
And this brings us to speak of the most serious objection to the
utilitarian system--its exclusiveness. There is no place for Kant or
Hegel, for Plato and Aristotle alongside of it. They do not reject the
greatest happiness principle, but it rejects them. Now the phenomena of
moral action differ, and some are best explained upon one principle and
some upon another: the virtue of justice seems to be naturally connected
|