Here Diogenes interrupted the Stagirite and said: "I am afraid, O Aristotle, that your argument has little real force to boast of. It does not prove at all that the Chinese have only crude, empirical, and unorganised knowledge, while the little ones in Europe have a reasoned and systematised, and hence a less cumbrous one. This is owing to quite a different cause.
"The little ones have of late invented a method of publishing encyclopædias in a manner so well adapted to tempt, threaten, bully, or wire each member of the general public into the purchase of an entire copy, that if their encyclopædias consisted of 6000 or 10,000 volumes each, the people of England, for instance, would have to conquer Norway, Sweden, and Iceland first. Norway they would be obliged to conquer, in order to possess themselves of sufficient wood for the cases; Sweden, in order to appoint all Swedish gymnasts for the acrobatic feat of fetching a volume from the fiftieth row of a bookcase; and Iceland, in order to place excited readers of the encyclopædia in a cool place. But for this circumstance, I am sure the little ones in Europe would fain publish an encyclopædia in 15,000 volumes."
When the laughter of the Assembly had subsided, Aristotle continued: "Nothing has struck me more forcibly in my visit to their seats of learning than this universal belief in the infinitude of each tiny department or speciality. They do most gravely assert that 'nowadays' it is impossible to embrace more than one speciality; and they look upon me or Leibniz with a certain knowing smile as if in our times all knowledge would have consisted of a few jugs full of water, whereas now it is no less than an ocean. But when you ask them the simplest questions, they are at a loss how to answer them.
"I asked one of their most famous specialists why the eyebrows of men are shorter than the moustaches. He did not know it. How could he? It takes the knowledge of at least five so-called specialities to answer such a question. I asked their most learned specialist in their language, why the English have dropped the use of 'thou,' although no other European nation has done so. He did not know it.
"They study a given subject when death has driven out all life from it. They do not trouble about language as a living organism, full of fight, of movement, of ruses, of intrigues, of sins and graces; but only of language when it lies motionless, a veritable corpse, on the table of the anatomical dissector and dictionary-fiend. They do not study a butterfly when it is in full life, flirting, pilfering, gossiping, merrymaking; but only when it is motionless, lifeless, pierced by a pin. This is how they get their specialities.
"Death indeed is the greatest of all specialisers. As soon as a man is dead, each hair or bone on or in his body takes up a separate line of decay, caring nothing for the other, full of scorn for its immediate neighbour, sulking by itself, wandering to the Styx alone and sullen.
"In England they have pushed that belief in specialities to a funereal degree. I wonder they allow a man to play one of their instruments, called the piano, with both his hands at a time. I wonder they do not insist that a given piece by Chopin be played by two men, one of whom should first play the part for the right hand, and afterwards the other man the part for the left hand. To play both parts at a time, and to have that done by one single man too,—what presumption! How superficial!
"In law they have long acted in this sense. There is one man, called the solicitor (—a very good name—), who plays the bass, or left-hand part with a vengeance, for several weeks. When that is done; when the 'hearer' or client lies prostrate on the ground from the infernal noise made by the solicitor's music, the solicitor hands over the whole case to the other man, the barrister, who plays the most tortuous treble, in a manner likely to madden Pan himself.