Fa. Before we go any farther look what is settled on the skirt of your coat.
Ch. It is a butterfly: what a prodigiously large one! I never saw such a one before.
Fa. Is it larger than a rat, think you?
Ch. No, that it is not.
Fa. Yet you called the butterfly large, and you called the rat small.
Ch. It is very large for a butterfly.
Fa. It is so. You see, therefore, that large and small are relative terms.
Ch. I do not well understand that phrase.
Fa. It means that they have no precise and determinate signification in themselves, but are applied differently according to the other ideas which you join with them, and the different positions in which you view them. This butterfly, therefore, is large, compared with those of its own species, and small compared with many other species of animals. Besides, there is no circumstance which varies more than the size of individuals. If you were to give an idea of a horse from its size, you would certainly say it was much bigger than a dog; yet if you take the smallest Shetland horse, and the largest Irish greyhound, you will find them very much upon a par; size, therefore, is not a circumstance by which you can accurately distinguish one animal from another; nor yet is colour.
Ch. No; there are black horses, and bay, and white, and pied.