| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: For, let me ask you, Critias, whether, if you take away this, medicine will
not equally give health, and shoemaking equally produce shoes, and the art
of the weaver clothes?--whether the art of the pilot will not equally save
our lives at sea, and the art of the general in war?
Quite so.
And yet, my dear Critias, none of these things will be well or beneficially
done, if the science of the good be wanting.
True.
But that science is not wisdom or temperance, but a science of human
advantage; not a science of other sciences, or of ignorance, but of good
and evil: and if this be of use, then wisdom or temperance will not be of
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Memorabilia by Xenophon: were with him, gave his answers less in the style of a debater
guarding against perversions of his argument, than of a man persuaded
of the supreme importance of right conduct.[3]
[1] For Aristippus see above, p. 38; for the connection, {boulomenos
tous sunontas ophelein}, between this and the preceeding chapter,
see above, Conspectus, p. xxvi.
[2] Possibly in reference to the conversation above. In reference to
the present dialogue see Grote, "Plato," I. xi. p. 380 foll.
[3] For {prattein ta deonta} cf. below, III. ix. 4, 11; Plat. "Charm."
164 B; but see J. J. Hartman, "An. Xen." p. 141.
Aristippus asked him "if he knew of anything good,"[4] intending in
The Memorabilia |
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: later that Marx was in the right. He became a member
of the Slav Congress in Prague, where he vainly
endeavored to promote a Slav insurrection. Toward
the end of 1848, he wrote an ``Appeal to Slavs,''
calling on them to combine with other revolutionaries
to destroy the three oppressive monarchies, Russia,
Austria and Prussia. Marx attacked him in print,
saying, in effect, that the movement for Bohemian
independence was futile because the Slavs had no
future, at any rate in those regions where they hap-
pened to be subject to Germany and Austria.
|
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 Sportsman by Xenophon: between the eyes pronounced;[3] ears long[4] and thin, without hair on
the under side; neck long and flexible, freely moving on its pivot;[5]
chest broad and fairly fleshy; shoulder-blades detached a little from
the shoulders;[6] the shin-bones of the fore-legs should be small,
straight, round, stout and strong; the elbows straight; ribs[7] not
deep all along, but sloped away obliquely; the loins muscular, in size
a mean between long and short, neither too flexible nor too stiff;[8]
flanks, a mean between large and small; the hips (or "couples")
rounded, fleshy behind, not tied together above, but firmly knitted on
the inside;[9] the lower or under part of the belly[10] slack, and the
belly itself the same, that is, hollow and sunken; tail long,
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