A certain philosopher, curious as to whether snow is a special case of rain or rain a special case of snow, decided on this experiment, that he would create a new world and wait to see which weather phenomenon would occur first, reasoning that inherent decay causes later instances to sway from the original at an increasing frequency. After creating that world, he built on it a cabin with an accessible roof where he waited.
Long before his commendable patience met a test, two figures descended from the sky. One was a man, or one might say the man, for he was huge and perfect in all his parts so that the philosopher operating by established ideas concluded him to be the original. The other was a monster similarly perfect, but in horror, so that he wondered whether its eight wings and twelve horns and its twin stinging tails were of skin, scale, or the force which corrodes.
The two fell instantly to battle. Resting his judgment on similitude, the philosopher cheered for the original man, who after mighty blows did conquer his foe. The fiend screamed with such vigor that doubtless evil would never thereafter be expunged from the world and melted into a column which stretched above the sky for a few seconds before dissipating. The perfect man planted his sword then and spoke.
"I have won another planet for humans who will people it so soon as the rain or snow or ice or water come, which are all arrangements of other things I see no reason to describe or name." He too became first a column and then nothing.
The philosopher returned to record the experiment's outcome. When he published the account, he was greatly puzzled at the widespread interest in what he considered to be the less important aspects.
Finis
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