| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: Mytilene, and Byzantium; Kohler, "Herm." v. 10; Rangabe, "Antiq.
Hellen." ii. 40, 373; Naumann, op. cit. 26.
XV
I wish to explain with sufficient detail the nature of the covenant
between king and state as instituted by Lycurgus; for this, I take it,
is the sole type of rule[1] which still preserves the original form in
which it was first established; whereas other constitutions will be
found either to have been already modified or else to be still
undergoing modifications at this moment.
[1] Or, "magistracy"; the word {arkhe} at once signifies rule and
governmental office.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell: piece of mechanism unknown to the East till we imported it thither,
turns on an implicit belief in the word of one's neighbor. Our
legal safeguards would snap like red tape were the great bond of
mutual trust once broken. Western civilization has to be truthful,
or perish.
And now for the spirits of the two beliefs.
The soul of any religion realizes in one respect the Brahman idea of
the individual soul of man, namely, that it exists much after the
manner of an onion, in many concentric envelopes. Man, they tell us,
is composed not of a single body simply, but of several layers of body,
each shell as it were respectively inclosing another. The outermost
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| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Charmides by Plato: Yet I think, he replied, that if you discard knowledge, you will hardly
find the crown of happiness in anything else.
But of what is this knowledge? I said. Just answer me that small question.
Do you mean a knowledge of shoemaking?
God forbid.
Or of working in brass?
Certainly not.
Or in wool, or wood, or anything of that sort?
No, I do not.
Then, I said, we are giving up the doctrine that he who lives according to
knowledge is happy, for these live according to knowledge, and yet they are
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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 Beast in the Jungle by Henry James: neighbour had done, and what it said to him, full in the face, was
that she was what he had missed. This was the awful thought, the
answer to all the past, the vision at the dread clearness of which
he turned as cold as the stone beneath him. Everything fell
together, confessed, explained, overwhelmed; leaving him most of
all stupefied at the blindness he had cherished. The fate he had
been marked for he had met with a vengeance--he had emptied the cup
to the lees; he had been the man of his time, THE man, to whom
nothing on earth was to have happened. That was the rare stroke--
that was his visitation. So he saw it, as we say, in pale horror,
while the pieces fitted and fitted. So SHE had seen it while he
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