STRANGER: Of all changes of the heavenly motions, we may consider this

to be the greatest and most complete.

YOUNG SOCRATES: I should imagine so.

STRANGER: And it may be supposed to result in the greatest changes to

the human beings who are the inhabitants of the world at the time.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Such changes would naturally occur.

STRANGER: And animals, as we know, survive with difficulty great and

serious changes of many different kinds when they come upon them at

once.

YOUNG SOCRATES: Very true.

STRANGER: Hence there necessarily occurs a great destruction of them,

which extends also to the life of man; few survivors of the race are

left, and those who remain become the subjects of several novel and

remarkable phenomena, and of one in particular, which takes place at the

time when the transition is made to the cycle opposite to that in which

we are now living.

YOUNG SOCRATES: What is it?

STRANGER: The life of all animals first came to a standstill, and the

Statesman