Diminution

Socrates taught Plato and Plato taught Aristotle and Aristotle taught
Alexander the Great, who founded a city that would house the most
voluminous library of the ancient world—until it was burned, until
forgetting came back into vogue. The great minds come down through the
years like monkeys descending from high branches. Always, a leopard is
waiting to greet them—in the tall grass, among the magnetic berries, in the
place they should have checked.