6
And as for the strength of one adult man, it surpasses that of a child immeasurably, for one man could easily overpower any number of children, since it seems that by nature we have always in early life a time of perfect helplessness and impotence. Now, seeing that man apparently differs from man to such a degree, how shall we suppose the whole heaven compares with our powers in the eyes of those that attain to such vision? It will probably seem likely to many that the power and understanding and reason of the universe are as much in excess of what Sokrates or Chairephon has as its size surpasses that of our bodies.
7
Moreover, many things that are impossible to others are easy to you and me and hosts of men like us, and even the arts of flute-playing and reading and writing are more impossible to the uninstructed, until they learn them, than making birds into women or women into birds. Nature, we may say, deposits a footless, wingless creature in the honey-comb. Then she sets it upon feet, and gives it wings, and makes it bright with the bravery of many varying colors, and lo! it is a bee, a clever maker of honey fit for the gods. And from voiceless, lifeless eggs she forms all sorts of flying and walking and swimming creatures, employing, as some hold, divine arts of the boundless air.
