tter. 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.

However, to abridge the controversy, consider, I pray you, within what
narrow bounds you are confined. There are four principles which conduct
you to the conclusion that there is nothing which can be known, or
perceived, or comprehended;--and it is about this that the whole dispute
is. The first principle is, that some perceptions are false; the second,
that such cannot be perceived; the third, that of perceptions between
which there is no difference, it is not possible that some of them can be
perceived and that others cannot; the fourth, that there is no true
perception proceeding from the senses, to which there is not some other
perception opposed which in no respect differs from it, and which cannot
be perceived. Now of these four principles, the second and third are
admitted by every one. Epicurus does not admit the first, but you, with
whom we are now arguing, admit that one too,--the whole contest is about
the fourth.

The man, then, who saw Publius Serv