| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: SOCRATES: Capital, Theaetetus; and about this there shall be no dispute,
because I want you to grow; but there is another difficulty coming, which
you will also have to repulse.
THEAETETUS: What is it?
SOCRATES: Some one will say, Can a man who has ever known anything, and
still has and preserves a memory of that which he knows, not know that
which he remembers at the time when he remembers? I have, I fear, a
tedious way of putting a simple question, which is only, whether a man who
has learned, and remembers, can fail to know?
THEAETETUS: Impossible, Socrates; the supposition is monstrous.
SOCRATES: Am I talking nonsense, then? Think: is not seeing perceiving,
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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 Firm of Nucingen by Honore de Balzac: the men. This method of manufacturing without looking ahead ought
never to have existed in the country where one of the greatest
citizens that France has ever known ruined himself to keep six
thousand weavers in work without orders. Richard Lenoir fed them, and
the government was thickheaded enough to allow him to suffer from the
fall of the prices of textile fabrics brought about by the Revolution
of 1814. Richard Lenoir is the one case of a merchant that deserves a
statue. And yet the subscription set on foot for him has no
subscribers, while the fund for General Foy's children reached a
million francs. Lyons has drawn her own conclusions; she knows France,
she knows that there is no religion left. The story of Richard Lenoir
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