i86 PHYSICAL SCIENCE BK. iv 



5 Accordingly to that mode of speech of yours, one 

 tree must be said to be nearer the sky than another ; 

 which is false, because among puny objects there 

 cannot exist great differences except while they are 

 compared with one another. When one comes 

 to compare such objects with the mighty frame of 

 things, it is immaterial how much the one is bigger 

 than the other, because the very small things, how 

 ever great the differences among them, are quite 

 dwarfed by comparison with the universe. 



XII 



BUT to return to my main theme ; for the reasons 

 which I have detailed, most authorities are satisfied 

 that snow is formed in the part of the atmosphere 

 which is in the vicinity of the earth. It is less 

 compacted than hail because congealed through 

 less intense cold. For the air near us has at 

 once too much cold to allow its passage into water 

 and rain, and at the same time too little to get 

 hardened into hail. Through this moderate but 

 not too intense cold the water is massed and turns 

 into snow. 



XIII 



i WHY, I fancy I hear you say, do you pursue so 

 laboriously those frivolous explanations of yours, 

 by which no one is made either more accomplished 

 or more virtuous ? You tell us all about the 

 formation of snow ; it would be far more to the 

 point that we should be told why it is a 



