| 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: and hatreds and differences?
EUTHYPHRO: Yes, that was also said.
SOCRATES: And what sort of difference creates enmity and anger? Suppose
for example that you and I, my good friend, differ about a number; do
differences of this sort make us enemies and set us at variance with one
another? Do we not go at once to arithmetic, and put an end to them by a
sum?
EUTHYPHRO: True.
SOCRATES: Or suppose that we differ about magnitudes, do we not quickly
end the differences by measuring?
EUTHYPHRO: Very true.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Father Damien by Robert Louis Stevenson: and the missionaries, all indefatigable in their noble tasks. It
was a different place when Damien came there and made this great
renunciation, and slept that first night under a tree amidst his
rotting brethren: alone with pestilence; and looking forward (with
what courage, with what pitiful sinkings of dread, God only knows)
to a lifetime of dressing sores and stumps.
You will say, perhaps, I am too sensitive, that sights as painful
abound in cancer hospitals and are confronted daily by doctors and
nurses. I have long learned to admire and envy the doctors and the
nurses. But there is no cancer hospital so large and populous as
Kalawao and Kalaupapa; and in such a matter every fresh case, like
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