THE RHODIAN GENIUS. 383 



their forces, the origin of plants and animals, and those 

 harmonious laws by which the celestial bodies on a large, 

 and the snow-flake and the hail-stone on a small scale, assume 

 a globular form. Decrepid with age, he caused himself to 

 be carried daily to the Poecile, and thence to the harbour of 

 Nasos, where, as he said, the wide ocean presented to his eye 

 an image of the Boundless and the Infinite, which his mind 

 strove in vain to comprehend. He was honoured alike by the 

 lower classes and by the tyrant, but he avoided the latter, 

 while he joyfully cultivated and often assisted the former. 



Epicharmus lay weak and exhausted on his couch, when 

 the newly arrived work of art was brought to him by the 

 command of Dionysius. He was furnished at the same time 

 with a faithful copy of the "Rhodian Genius," and the 

 philosopher now caused both paintings to be placed before 

 him. He gazed on them long and earnestly, then called* 

 together his scholars, and in accents of emotion thus addressed 

 them: 



"Remove the curtain from the window, that I may once 

 more feed my eyes with the sight of the richly animated and 

 living earth. Sixty years long have I pondered on the inter- 

 nal springs of nature and on the differences inherent in matter, 

 but it is only this day that the ' Rhodian Genius' has taught 

 me to see clearly that which before I had only conjectured. 

 While the difference of sexes in all living beings beneficently 

 binds them together in prolific union, the crude matters of 

 inorganic nature are impelled by like instincts. Even in 

 the darkness of chaos, matter was accumulated or separated 

 according as affinity or antagonism attracted or repelled its 

 various parts. The celestial fire follows the metals, the 

 magnet, the iron ; amber when rubbed attaches light bodies ; 

 earth blends with earth ; salt separates from the waters of the 

 sea and joins its like, while the acid moisture of the stypteria 

 (crvTTTT/pia vypa) and the fleecy salt Trickitis, love the clay of 

 "Melos. Everything in inanimate nature hastens to associate 



