| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Tanach: Isaiah 30: 4 For his princes are at Zoan, and his ambassadors are come to Hanes.
Isaiah 30: 5 They shall all be ashamed of a people that cannot profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.
Isaiah 30: 6 The burden of the beasts of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the lioness and the lion, the viper and flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the humps of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.
Isaiah 30: 7 For Egypt helpeth in vain, and to no purpose; therefore have I called her arrogancy that sitteth still.
Isaiah 30: 8 Now go, write it before them on a tablet, and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever.
Isaiah 30: 9 For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that refuse to hear the teaching of the LORD;
Isaiah 30: 10 That say to the seers: 'See not,' and to the prophets: 'Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy delusions;
Isaiah 30: 11 Get you out of the way, turn aside out of the path, cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us.'
Isaiah 30: 12 Wherefore thus saith the Holy One of Israel: because ye despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and stay thereon;
Isaiah 30: 13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant.
The Tanach |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: the friend of good, as has been also shown. The problem is unsolved, and
the three friends, Socrates, Lysis, and Menexenus, are still unable to find
out what a friend is.
Thus, as in the Charmides and Laches, and several of the other Dialogues of
Plato (compare especially the Protagoras and Theaetetus), no conclusion is
arrived at. Socrates maintains his character of a 'know nothing;' but the
boys have already learned the lesson which he is unable to teach them, and
they are free from the conceit of knowledge. (Compare Chrm.) The dialogue
is what would be called in the language of Thrasyllus tentative or
inquisitive. The subject is continued in the Phaedrus and Symposium, and
treated, with a manifest reference to the Lysis, in the eighth and ninth
Lysis |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: him; and, I would wager a crown, have done more service in your
time. Though it seems young by comparison with men of a great age
like me, yet it's some way through life for all that; and the mere
fools and fiddlers are beginning to grow weary and to look old.
Yes, sir, by six-and-thirty, if a man be a follower of God's laws,
he should have made himself a home and a good name to live by; he
should have got a wife and a blessing on his marriage; and his
works, as the Word says, should begin to follow him.'
'Ah, well, the Prince is married,' cried Fritz, with a coarse burst
of laughter.
'That seems to entertain you, sir,' said Otto.
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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 Eryxias by Platonic Imitator: them only will they seem to be wealth. It appears, however, that where a
person is ignorant of riding, and has horses which are useless to him, if
some one teaches him that art, he makes him also richer, for what was
before useless has now become useful to him, and in giving him knowledge he
has also conferred riches upon him.
ERYXIAS: That is the case.
SOCRATES: Yet I dare be sworn that Critias will not be moved a whit by the
argument.
CRITIAS: No, by heaven, I should be a madman if I were. But why do you
not finish the argument which proves that gold and silver and other things
which seem to be wealth are not real wealth? For I have been exceedingly
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