| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Democracy In America, Volume 1 by Alexis de Toqueville: power is certainly much greater in France than in the United
States; though nothing is more rare in the latter country than to
hear of a prosecution having been instituted against it. The
reason of this is perfectly simple: the Americans, having once
admitted the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, apply it
with perfect consistency. It was never their intention to found
a permanent state of things with elements which undergo daily
modifications; and there is consequently nothing criminal in an
attack upon the existing laws, provided it be not attended with a
violent infraction of them. They are moreover of opinion that
courts of justice are unable to check the abuses of the press;
|
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 Alcibiades I by Plato: SOCRATES: Then he who is not wise and good cannot be happy?
ALCIBIADES: He cannot.
SOCRATES: The bad, then, are miserable?
ALCIBIADES: Yes, very.
SOCRATES: And if so, not he who has riches, but he who has wisdom, is
delivered from his misery?
ALCIBIADES: Clearly.
SOCRATES: Cities, then, if they are to be happy, do not want walls, or
triremes, or docks, or numbers, or size, Alcibiades, without virtue?
(Compare Arist. Pol.)
ALCIBIADES: Indeed they do not.
|