| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Meno by Plato: religious and contemplative feeling, and also from an observation of
curious mental phenomena. They gather up the elements of the previous
philosophies, which they put together in a new form. Their great diversity
shows the tentative character of early endeavours to think. They have not
yet settled down into a single system. Plato uses them, though he also
criticises them; he acknowledges that both he and others are always talking
about them, especially about the Idea of Good; and that they are not
peculiar to himself (Phaedo; Republic; Soph.). But in his later writings
he seems to have laid aside the old forms of them. As he proceeds he makes
for himself new modes of expression more akin to the Aristotelian logic.
Yet amid all these varieties and incongruities, there is a common meaning
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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 King James Bible: GEN 30:29 And he said unto him, Thou knowest how I have served thee,
and how thy cattle was with me.
GEN 30:30 For it was little which thou hadst before I came, and it is
now increased unto a multitude; and the LORD hath blessed thee since my
coming: and now when shall I provide for mine own house also?
GEN 30:31 And he said, What shall I give thee? And Jacob said, Thou
shalt not give me any thing: if thou wilt do this thing for me, I will
again feed and keep thy flock.
GEN 30:32 I will pass through all thy flock to day, removing from
thence all the speckled and spotted cattle, and all the brown cattle
among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and of
 King James Bible |