"What man knows is not to be compared with what he does not know. The span of his existence is not to be compared with the span of his non-existence. With the small to strive to exhaust the great, necessarily lands him in confusion, and he does not attain his object. How then should one be able to say that the tip of a hair is the ne plus ultra of smallness, or that the universe is the ne plus ultra of greatness?"
These predicates are abstract terms, which are not names of real existences but of relations, states, or conditions of existences; not things, but conditions of things.
"Dialecticians of the day," replied the Spirit of the River, "all say that the infinitesimally small has no form, and that the infinitesimally great is beyond all measurement. Is that so?"
"If we regard greatness as compared with that which is small," said the Spirit of the Ocean, "there is no limit to it; and if we regard smallness as compared with that which is great, it eludes our sight.
That is, if we proceed from the concrete to the abstract. Given a large or a small thing, there is no limit to the smallness or greatness with which each may be respectively compared.
The infinitesimal is a subdivision of the small; the colossal is an extension of the great. In this sense the two fall into different categories.
"Both small and great things must equally possess form. The mind cannot picture to itself a thing without form, nor conceive a form of unlimited dimensions. The greatness of anything may be a topic of discussion, or the smallness of anything may be mentally realized. But that which can be neither a topic of discussion nor be realized mentally, can be neither great nor small.
"Therefore, the truly great man, although he does not injure others, does not credit himself with charity and mercy.
These are natural to him.