| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Disputation of the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther: great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater is the fear.
15. This fear and horror is sufficient of itself alone (to say
nothing of other things) to constitute the penalty of
purgatory, since it is very near to the horror of despair.
16. Hell, purgatory, and heaven seem to differ as do despair,
almost-despair, and the assurance of safety.
17. With souls in purgatory it seems necessary that horror
should grow less and love increase.
18. It seems unproved, either by reason or Scripture, that
they are outside the state of merit, that is to say, of
increasing love.
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able to say that,
during my engagement in this foundry, no complaint was ever made against
me that I did not do my work, and do it well. The bellows which I worked
by main strength was, after I left, moved by a steam-engine.
Douglass, Frederick. "Reconstruction."
Atlantic Monthly 18 (1866): 761-765.
RECONSTRUCTION
The assembling of the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress
may very properly be made the occasion of a few earnest words
on the already much-worn topic of reconstruction.
Seldom has any legislative body been the subject of a solicitude
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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 Theaetetus by Plato: can we determine how far they do or do not exist, or by what degree or kind
of difference they are distinguished. The same remark may be made about
figures of speech. They fill up the vacancy of knowledge; they are to the
mind what too much colour is to the eye; but the truth is rather concealed
than revealed by them.
d. The uncertain meaning of terms, such as Consciousness, Conscience,
Will, Law, Knowledge, Internal and External Sense; these, in the language
of Plato, 'we shamelessly use, without ever having taken the pains to
analyze them.'
e. A science such as Psychology is not merely an hypothesis, but an
hypothesis which, unlike the hypotheses of Physics, can never be verified.
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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 Silas Marner by George Eliot: it was Sunday. Living so lone here, you lose your count, I daresay;
and then, when your loom makes a noise, you can't hear the bells,
more partic'lar now the frost kills the sound."
"Yes, I did; I heard 'em," said Silas, to whom Sunday bells were a
mere accident of the day, and not part of its sacredness. There had
been no bells in Lantern Yard.
"Dear heart!" said Dolly, pausing before she spoke again. "But
what a pity it is you should work of a Sunday, and not clean
yourself--if you _didn't_ go to church; for if you'd a roasting
bit, it might be as you couldn't leave it, being a lone man. But
there's the bakehus, if you could make up your mind to spend a
Silas Marner |
