If any god were to ask you, while your senses are sound and unimpaired, whether you desire anything further, what would you answer? I wish, indeed, he would ask me! You should hear how ill he treats us: for how far are we to look in order to see the truth? I can see the Cumæan villa of Catulus from this place, but not his villa near Pompeii; not that there is any obstacle interposed, but my eyesight cannot extend so far. What a superb view! We see Puteoli, but we do not see our friend Avianus, though he may perhaps be walking in the portico of Neptune; there was, however, some one or other who is often spoken of in the Schools who could see things that were a thousand and eighty furlongs off; and some birds can see further still. I should therefore answer your god boldly, that I am not at all contented with these eyes of mine. He will tell me, perhaps, that I can see better than some fishes; which are not seen by us, and which even now are beneath our eyes, and yet they cannot look up far enough to see us: therefore, as water is shed around them, so a dense air is around us. But we desire nothing better. What? do you suppose that a mole longs for light?—nor would he complain to the god that he could not see far, but rather that he saw incorrectly. Do you see that ship? It appears to us to be standing still; but to those who are in that ship, this villa appears to be moving. Seek for the reason why it seems so, and if you discover it ever so much, and I do not know whether you may not be able to, still you will have proved, not that you have a trustworthy witness, but that he has not given false evidence without sufficient reason. XXVI. What need had I to speak of the ship? for I saw that what I said about the oar was despised by you; perhaps you expect something more serious. What can be greater than the sun, which the mathematicians affirm to be more than eighteen times as large as the earth? How little does it appear to us! To me, indeed, it seems about a foot in diameter; but Epicurus thinks it possible that it may be even less than it seems, but not much; nor does he think that it is much greater, but that it is very near the size it seems to be: so that our eyes are either quite correct, or, at all events, not very incorrect. What becomes then of the exception, “If once...?” However, let us leave this credulous man, who does not believe that the senses are ever wrong,—not even now, when that sun, which is borne along with such rapidity that it is impossible even to conceive how great its velocity is, nevertheless seems to us to be standing still.