“Fire * Earth * Air * Water
The ancient division of the world of matter into four categories underwrote a whole interlinked system of equivalences that helped define human character, tend imbalances, mend illness and peer into the future. For the four elements were also assessed on a scale of hot and cold, wet and dry and given particular associations.
Thus, Fire was both hot and dry and linked with one of the four humours (the choleric) and the astrological signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. Earth was dry and cold, and allied to black ‘melas’ bile (melancholic) and the three earth signs of Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn. Air was both hot and wet, and connected with blood and a sanguinous character and the three air signs of Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Water was wet and cold, allied with a phlegmatic character and the water signs of Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.
The elements can also be allied to the four suits of cards, either our modern symbols or the fourteenth-century forms that are used in the tarot pack: Cups (water), Swords (air), Batons (fire) and Coins (earth).”
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
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