| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: proportioned to the mass and distance of the bodies which attract them,
never occurred to him. Yet the affinities of similar substances have some
effect upon the composition of the world, and of this Plato may be thought
to have had an anticipation. He may be described as confusing the
attraction of gravitation with the attraction of cohesion. The influence
of such affinities and the chemical action of one body upon another in long
periods of time have become a recognized principle of geology.
(2) Plato is perfectly aware--and he could hardly be ignorant--that blood
is a fluid in constant motion. He also knew that blood is partly a solid
substance consisting of several elements, which, as he might have observed
in the use of 'cupping-glasses', decompose and die, when no longer in
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The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Prince Otto by Robert Louis Stevenson: is perhaps philosophical to recognise it as you do.'
'Perhaps philosophical?' repeated Otto.
'Yes, perhaps. I would not be dogmatic,' answered Gotthold.
'Perhaps philosophical, and certainly not virtuous,' Otto resumed.
'Not of a Roman virtue,' chuckled the recluse.
Otto drew his chair nearer to the table, leaned upon it with his
elbow, and looked his cousin squarely in the face. 'In short,' he
asked, 'not manly?'
'Well,' Gotthold hesitated, 'not manly, if you will.' And then,
with a laugh, 'I did not know that you gave yourself out to be
manly,' he added. 'It was one of the points that I inclined to like
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