| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Proposed Roads To Freedom by Bertrand Russell: bulk of agricultural work could be carried on by
people whose main occupations are sedentary, and
with only such a number of hours as would serve to
keep them in health and produce a pleasant diversification.
He protests against the theory of exces-
sive division of labor. What he wants is INTEGRATION,
``a society where each individual is a producer of
both manual and intellectual work; where each able-
bodied human being is a worker, and where each
worker works both in the field and in the industrial
workshop.''[40]
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: simple thing.
THEAETETUS: What do you mean, Socrates?
SOCRATES: Perhaps nothing. I will endeavour, however, to explain what I
believe to be my meaning: When you speak of cobbling, you mean the art or
science of making shoes?
THEAETETUS: Just so.
SOCRATES: And when you speak of carpentering, you mean the art of making
wooden implements?
THEAETETUS: I do.
SOCRATES: In both cases you define the subject matter of each of the two
arts?
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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 The Door in the Wall, et. al. by H. G. Wells: civilised lands, ships with throbbing engines, and ships with
bellying sails, crowded with men and living creatures, were
standing out to ocean and the north. For already the warning of
the master mathematician had been telegraphed all over the world,
and translated into a hundred tongues. The new planet and Neptune,
locked in a fiery embrace, were whirling headlong, ever faster and
faster towards the sun. Already every second this blazing mass
flew a hundred miles, and every second its terrific velocity
increased. As it flew now, indeed, it must pass a hundred million
of miles wide of the earth and scarcely affect it. But near its
destined path, as yet only slightly perturbed, spun the mighty
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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 A Voyage to Abyssinia by Father Lobo: according to the number of persons, and the want they are in: the
proportion they observe in this distribution is twenty pots of beer,
ten of mead, and one cow to a hundred loaves. The chief officers
and persons of note carry their own provisions with them, which I
did too, though I afterwards found the precaution unnecessary, for I
had often two or three cows more than I wanted, which I bestowed on
those whose allowance fell short.
The Abyssins are not only obliged to maintain the troops in their
march, but to repair the roads, to clear them, especially in the
forests, of brambles and thorns, and by all means possible to
facilitate the passage of the army. They are, by long custom,
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