I mean, he replied, as you might say of the very large and very small, that nothing is more uncommon than a very large or a very SMALL MAN ; and this applies generally to all extremes, whether of great and small, or swift and slow, or fair and foul, or black and white : and whether the instances you select be men or dogs or anything else, few are the extremes, but many are in the mean between them. Did you never observe this ? PHAEDO
Then I will tell you, said Socrates. When I was young, Cebes, I had a prodigious desire to know that department of philosophy which is called Natural Science ; this appeared to me to have lofty aims, as being the science which has to do with the causes of things, and which teaches why a thing is, and is created and destroyed ; and I was always agitating myself with the consideration of such questions as these : Is the growth of animals the result of some decay which the hot and cold principle contracts, as some have said ? Is the blood the element with which we think, or the air, or the fire ? or perhaps nothing of this sort — but the brain may be the originating power of the perceptions of hearing and sight and smell, and memory and opinion may come from them, and science may be based on memory and opinion when no longer in motion, but at rest. And then I went on to examine the decay of them, and then to the things of heaven and earth, and at last I concluded that I was wholly incapable of these inquiries, as I will satisfactorily prove to you. For I was fascinated by them to such a degree that my eyes grew blind to things that I had seemed to myself, and also to others, to know quite well ; and I forgot what I had before thought to be self-evident, that the growth of man is the result of eating and drinking ; for when by the digestion of food flesh is added to flesh and bone to bone, and whenever there is an aggregation of congenial elements, the lesser bulk becomes larger and the SMALL MAN greater. Was not that a reasonable notion ? PHAEDO
Thus, my excellent friend, is brought about all that ruin and failure which I have been describing of the natures best adapted to the best of all pursuits ; they are natures which we maintain to be rare at any time ; this being the class out of which come the men who are the authors of the greatest evil to States and individuals ; and also of the greatest good when the tide carries them in that direction ; but a SMALL MAN never was the doer of any great thing either to individuals or to States. THE REPUBLIC BOOK VI