| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Parmenides by Plato: another, they will be greater or less or equal by reason of equality or
greatness or smallness inhering in them in addition to their own proper
nature. Let us begin by assuming smallness to be inherent in one: in this
case the inherence is either in the whole or in a part. If the first,
smallness is either coextensive with the whole one, or contains the whole,
and, if coextensive with the one, is equal to the one, or if containing the
one will be greater than the one. But smallness thus performs the function
of equality or of greatness, which is impossible. Again, if the inherence
be in a part, the same contradiction follows: smallness will be equal to
the part or greater than the part; therefore smallness will not inhere in
anything, and except the idea of smallness there will be nothing small.
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from 1984 by George Orwell: properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the
possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly
by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable
words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and
so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single
example. The word FREE still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be
used in such statements as 'This dog is free from lice' or 'This field is
free from weeds'. It could not be used in its old sense of 'politically
free' or 'intellectually free' since political and intellectual freedom no
longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless.
Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction
1984 |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from The Apology by Xenophon: a loss to imagine on what ground[20] Meletus asserts that I do not
recognise the gods which are recognised by the state, since, as far as
sacrificing goes, the rest of the world who have chanced to be present
have been in the habit of seeing me so engaged at common festivals,
and on the public altars; and so might Meletus himself, if he had
wished. And as to novel divinities, how, pray, am I supposed to
introduce them by stating that I have a voice[21] from God which
clearly signifies to me what I ought do do? Why, what else do those
who make use of the cries of birds or utterences of men draw their
conclusions from if not from voices? Who will deny that the thunder
has a voice and is a very mighty omen;[22] and the priestess on her
The Apology |
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 The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: too abundant nourishment, together with complete physical
idleness, is nothing but systematic excitement of the
imagination. The men of our society are fed and kept like
reproductive stallions. It is sufficient to close the
valve,--that is, for a young man to live a quiet life for some
time,--to produce as an immediate result a restlessness, which,
becoming exaggerated by reflection through the prism of our
unnatural life, provokes the illusion of love.
"All our idyls and marriage, all, are the result for the most
part of our eating. Does that astonish you? For my part, I am
astonished that we do not see it. Not far from my estate this
The Kreutzer Sonata |
