The survivors would be hill-shepherds, small sparks of the human race, dwelling in isolation, and unacquainted with the arts and vices of civilization.

We may further suppose that the cities on the plain and on the coast have been swept away, and that all inventions, and every sort of knowledge, have perished.

'Why, if all things were as they now are, nothing would have ever been invented.

All our famous discoveries have been made within the last thousand years, and many of them are but of yesterday.' Yes, Cleinias, and you must not forget Epimenides, who was really of yesterday; he practised the lesson of moderation and abstinence which Hesiod only preached.

'True.' After the great destruction we may imagine that the earth was a desert, in which there were a herd or two of oxen and a few goats, hardly enough to support those who tended them; while of politics and governments the survivors would know nothing.