| 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: reduced to mere words, they seem to have exercised a far wider influence in
the cities of Ionia (where the people 'were mad about them') than in the
life-time of Heracleitus--a phenomenon which, though at first sight
singular, is not without a parallel in the history of philosophy and
theology.
It is this perverted form of the Heraclitean philosophy which is supposed
to effect the final overthrow of Protagorean sensationalism. For if all
things are changing at every moment, in all sorts of ways, then there is
nothing fixed or defined at all, and therefore no sensible perception, nor
any true word by which that or anything else can be described. Of course
Protagoras would not have admitted the justice of this argument any more
|
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 The Life of the Spider by J. Henri Fabre: where it suits her and waits until the other end, wafted by the
wind, has fastened its loop to the adjacent twigs.
The desired result may be very slow in coming. It does not tire
the unfailing patience of the Epeira, but it soon wears out mine.
And it has happened to me sometimes to collaborate with the Spider.
I pick up the floating loop with a straw and lay it on a branch, at
a convenient height. The foot-bridge erected with my assistance is
considered satisfactory, just as though the wind had placed it. I
count this collaboration among the good actions standing to my
credit.
Feeling her thread fixed, the Epeira runs along it repeatedly, from
The Life of the Spider |
