Possessing power in no greater
quantity than is the just due of pygmies, they cannot conceive of
power greater in others than in themselves. In those days there
were giants; but, as their mouldy books tell them, the giants are
long since passed, and only the bones of them remain. Never having
seen the mountains, there are no mountains.
In the mud of their complacently perpetuated barnyard pond, they
assert that no bright-browed, bright-apparelled shining figures can
be outside of fairy books, old histories, and ancient
superstitions. Never having seen the stars, they deny the stars.
Never having glimpsed the shining ways nor the mortals that tread
them, they deny the existence of the shinning ways as well as the
existence of the high-bright mortals who adventure along the
shining ways. The narrow pupils of their eyes the centre of the
universe, they image the universe in terms of themselves, of their
meagre personalities make pitiful yardsticks with which to measure
the high-bright souls, saying: "Thus long are all souls, and no
longer; it is impossible that there should exist greater-statured
souls than we are, and our gods know that we are great of stature.
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