"At present they affect to believe no longer in the numerous gods and goddesses of the Olympus, but only in one God. In point of knowledge, on the other hand, they declare that each little department thereof is endless, requiring the study and devotion of a whole lifetime, and controlled, each of them, by a god whom they call an authority. Now, nothing can be more evident than the fact that knowledge, real knowledge, becomes increasingly more stenographic in expression, and sensibly easier of acquisition. The Chinese write encyclopædias in 6000 volumes; the modern Europeans do so in twenty-four or thirty-six volumes." 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.