| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Philebus by Plato: on nomoi prokeintai upsipodes, ouranian
di aithera teknothentes.
To satisfy an imaginative nature in any degree, the doctrine of utility
must be so transfigured that it becomes altogether different and loses all
simplicity.
But why, since there are different characters among men, should we not
allow them to envisage morality accordingly, and be thankful to the great
men who have provided for all of us modes and instruments of thought?
Would the world have been better if there had been no Stoics or Kantists,
no Platonists or Cartesians? No more than if the other pole of moral
philosophy had been excluded. All men have principles which are above
|
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 Book of Remarkable Criminals by H. B. Irving: was Nicolais, not Nicolai--a very important difference from the
genealogical point of view. The Duplessis inheritance, though
certainly existent, would seem to have had little more chance of
realisation than the mythical Crawford millions of Madame
Humbert. And yet, crippled with debt, without a penny in the
world, this daring grocer of the Rue Beaubourg, for such was M.
Derues' present condition in life, could cheerfully and
confidently engage in a transaction as considerable as the
purchase of a large estate for 130,000 livres! The origin of so
enterprising a gentleman is worthy of attention.
Antoine Francois Derues was born at Chartres in 1744; his
A Book of Remarkable Criminals |
