| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: But neither can like be the friend of like, as we were just now saying.
True.
And if so, that which is neither good nor evil can have no friend which is
neither good nor evil.
Clearly not.
Then the good alone is the friend of that only which is neither good nor
evil.
That may be assumed to be certain.
And does not this seem to put us in the right way? Just remark, that the
body which is in health requires neither medical nor any other aid, but is
well enough; and the healthy man has no love of the physician, because he
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Madam How and Lady Why by Charles Kingsley: proved, and other men, like Mr. Wallace, whose excellent book on
the East Indian islands you must read some day, have proved in
other ways) that there was once a great continent, joined perhaps
to Australia and to New Guinea, in the Pacific Ocean, where is now
nothing but deep sea, and coral-reefs which mark the mountain
ranges of that sunken world.
But how does the coral ever rise above the surface of the water
and turn into hard stone?
Of course the coral polypes cannot build above the high-tide mark;
but the surf which beats upon them piles up their broken fragments
just as a sea-beach is piled up, and hammers them together with
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