ARTY OF DISTINGUISHING. Loo

C. How so? a man is not at all like a bird.

#, Yet an ancient philosopher could find no way
to distinguish them, but by calling man a two-legged
animal without feathers. |

C. I think he was very silly; they are not at all
alike, though they have each two legs.

#, Another ancient philosopher, called Diogenes,
was of your opinion. He stripped a cock of his
feathers, and turned nim xto the school where Plato
—that was his name---v1as teaching, and said, “ Here
is Plato’s man for you.”

{. « wisa £ had been there; I should have laughed
very rauch.

ff, Probably. Before we laugh at others, however,
let us see what we can do ourselves. We have not
yet found anything that will distinguish a horse from
an elephant, or from a Norway rat.

C. O, that is easy enough. An elephant is very
Jarge, and a rat is very small; a horse is neither large
nor small.

#. Before we go any farther, look what is settled on
the skirt of your coat.

C. It 1s a butterfly ; what a prodigiously large one!
J never saw such a one before.

#. Is it larger than a rat, think you?

C. No; that 1t is not.

#, Yet you called the butterfly large, and you called
the rat small.

C. It is very iarge for a butterfly.

i. It is so. You see, therefore, that large and
small are relative terms.

C. I do not well understand that phrase.

#, It means, that they have no precise and deter-
muinate signification in themselves, but are applied
differently, according to the other ideas which you join
with them, and the different positions in which you
view them. This butterfly, therefore, is large, com-
pared with those of its own species, and small com-
pared with many other species of animals. Besides,