| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Hiero by Xenophon: devoted to various methods of safeguarding his life, and to cut down
any of them would be little less than suicidal.[18]
[18] Or, "and to curtail these would seem to be self-slaughter."
Or, to put it differently, why should any one expend compassion on a
man, as if he were a beggar, who has it in his power to satisfy by
just and honest means his every need?[19] Surely it would be more
appropriate to call that man a wretched starveling beggar rather, who
through lack of means is driven to live by ugly shifts and base
contrivances.
[19] i.e. "to expend compassion on a man who, etc., were surely a
pathetic fallacy." Al. "Is not the man who has it in his power,
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Theaetetus by Plato: with a better hope of success, to the examination of opinion.
But is true opinion really distinct from knowledge? The difference between
these he seeks to establish by an argument, which to us appears singular
and unsatisfactory. The existence of true opinion is proved by the
rhetoric of the law courts, which cannot give knowledge, but may give true
opinion. The rhetorician cannot put the judge or juror in possession of
all the facts which prove an act of violence, but he may truly persuade
them of the commission of such an act. Here the idea of true opinion seems
to be a right conclusion from imperfect knowledge. But the correctness of
such an opinion will be purely accidental; and is really the effect of one
man, who has the means of knowing, persuading another who has not. Plato
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