Earth is one of the four classical elements of Greek natural philosophy, and in the Aristotelian pairing of qualities it is cold and dry, the heaviest of the four, sinking to the centre and standing for the solid, the stable and the material. It is the element of the body, the physical world and the practical, of everything fixed, fertile and enduring. The tradition assigns the three earth signs, Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn, to it, signs conventionally read as grounded, practical and concerned with the tangible.
In the humoral medicine of Hippocrates and Galen earth corresponds to black bile and the melancholic temperament, cold and dry, prone to heaviness and reflection. In Western ritual magic earth is the element of the north, associated with the pentacle or disc, with silence, and with manifestation and the body; its opposite is airy fire and its complement watery moisture. The later tarot attribution of earth to the suit of Coins or Pentacles is a Golden Dawn systematisation of 1888. Earth's enduring symbolism is of stability, fertility, patience and the material ground of things.
Sources The Presocratic PhilosophersG. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield with The Golden Dawn: The Original Account of the Teachings, Rites, and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 6th editionIsrael Regardie