e of power, a child cannot doubt who is
powerful, more or less; for power is relative. All men are weak, not
only if compared to {112} the Demiurgos, but if compared to the sea or
the earth, or certain things upon each of them, such as elephants and
whales. So placid and tranquil is the scene around us, we can hardly
bring to mind the images of strength and force, the precipices, the
abysses--

_Diogenes_. Prythee hold thy loose tongue, twinkling and glittering
like a serpent's in the midst of luxuriance and rankness! Did never
this reflection of thine warn thee that, in human life, the precipices
and abysses would be much farther from our admiration, if we were less
inconsiderate, selfish, and vile? I will not however stop thee long,
for thou wert going on quite consistently. As thy great men are
fighters and wranglers, so thy mighty things upon the earth and sea are
troublesome and intractable incumbrances. Thou perceivedst not what
was greater in the former case, neither art thou aware what is greater
in this. Didst thou feel the gentle air that passed us?

_Plato_. I did not, just then.

_Diogenes_. That air, so gentle, so imperceptible to thee, is more
powerful not only than all the creatures that breathe and live by it;
not only than all the oaks of the forest, which it rears in an age and
shatters in a moment; not only than all the monsters of the sea, but
than the sea itself, which it tosses up into foam, and breaks against
every rock in its vast circumference; for it carries in its bosom, with
perfect calm and composure, the incontrollable ocean and the peopled
earth, like an atom of a feather.

To the world's turmoils and pageantries is attracted, not only the
admiration of the populace, but the zeal of {113} the orator, the
enthusiasm of the poet, the investigation of the historian, and the
contemplation of the philosopher: yet how silent and invisible are they
in the depths of air! Do I say in those depths and deserts? No; I say
at the distance of a swallow's flight,--at the distance she rises above
us, ere a sentence brief as this could be uttered.

What are its mines and mountains? Fragments welded up and dislocated
by the expansion of water from below; the most part reduced to mud, the
rest to splinters. Afterwards sprang up fire in many places, and again
tore and mangled the mutilated carcass, and still growls over it.

What are its cities and ramparts, and moles and monuments? Segme