ANTAGORAS OF AEGYPTUS MINOR

                                          Man is the measure of nothing, not even himself.

THE CREDULITY OF SAINT THOMAS

He saw with the eye of a skeptical camel

Spoke loud in a voice that did not stammer

Thrust with a hand that could well heft a hammer

Yet regained his lost faith anyway

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Excerpt from Metrical Ethics

But even an impartial and rational observer cannot make valid judgements concerning the actions of persons remote in space or time. Ethical principles are epiphenomenal to location and circumstance, so spatial and temporal discontinuities preclude any attempts to formulate a universal moral code.

Valid judgements can be made solely about actions that occur within the observer's synchrostere, i.e., in real time and within a volume of space not exceeding one cubic meter. This is slightly in excess of 35 cubic feet, or approximately six feet by three feet by two feet, dimensions that might contain two persons as they copulate. Of course, copulating persons are seldom rational observers.

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A THINKER'S DAMNED

   And how dieth the wise man?  As the fool.

      Ecclesiastes 2:16

They dragged him into the main square

where they bound him to a granite post

placed in its center. Then they arranged

themselves about, each fervently clutching

a paver or a cobble from the usual rubble of

public places, awaiting the patriarch's signal.

His final thoughts were of the stone he'd sought,

the stone that is more than stone, so perfect,

so perfectly unobtainable by mortals like him.

                                    Just before the thing itself smashed into his skull

                                    as much of wisdom as he would acquire in this life.