| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne: understanding, without being carried backwards or forwards, till some
little gusts of passion or interest drive them to one side.
A sudden trampling in the room above, near my mother's bed, did the
proposition the very service I am speaking of. By all that's unfortunate,
quoth Dr. Slop, unless I make haste, the thing will actually befall me as
it is.
Chapter 2.II.
In the case of knots,--by which, in the first place, I would not be
understood to mean slip-knots--because in the course of my life and
opinions--my opinions concerning them will come in more properly when I
mention the catastrophe of my great uncle Mr. Hammond Shandy,--a little
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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 Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians by Martin Luther: because if we don't we will be punished. Our obedience is inspired by fear.
We obey under duress and we do it resentfully. Now what kind of
righteousness is this when we refrain from evil out of fear of
punishment? Hence, the righteousness of the Law is at bottom nothing
but love of sin and hatred of righteousness.
All the same, the Law accomplishes this much, that it will outwardly at
least and to a certain extent repress vice and crime.
But the Law is also a spiritual prison, a veritable hell. When the Law
begins to threaten a person with death and the eternal wrath of God, a
man just cannot find any comfort at all. He cannot shake off at will the
nightmare of terror which the Law stirs up in his conscience. Of this terror
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