dge of the law of their existence
(of their functional activity, according to their own jargon), every
thing that the grandest minds of mankind have accomplished in this
direction, since the beginning of the world,--all this is nonsense, and
has no weight whatever. According to this new doctrine, it appears that
you are cells: and that you, as a cell, have a very definite functional
activity, which you not only fulfil, but which you infallibly feel within
you; and that you are a thinking, talking, understanding cell, and that
you, for this reason, can ask another similar talking cell whether it is
just the same, and in this way verify your own experience; that you can
take advantage of the fact that speaking cells, which have lived before
you, have written on the same subject, and that you have millions of
cells which confirm your observations by their agreement with the cells
which have written down their thoughts,--all this signifies nothing; all
this is an evil and an erroneous method.

The true scientific method is this: If you wish to know in what the
destiny and the welfare of all mankind and of all the world consists, you
must, first of all, cease to listen to the voices of your conscience and
of your reason, which present themselves in you and in others like you;
you must cease to believe all that the great teachers of mankind have
said with regard to your conscience and reason, and you must consider all
this as nonsense, and begin all over again. And, in order to understand
every thing from the beginning, you must look through microscopes at the
movements of amoebae, and cells in worms, or, with still greater
composure, believe in every thing that men with a diploma of
infallibility shall say to you about them. And as you gaze at the
movements of these cells, or read about what others have seen, you must
attribute to these cells your own human sensations and calculations as to
what they desire, whither they are directing themselves, how they compare
and discuss, and to what they have become accustomed; and from these
observations (in which there is not a word about an error of thought or
of expression) you must deduce a conclusion by analogy as to what you
are, what is your destiny, wherein lies the welfare of yourself and of
other cells like you. In order to understand yourself, you must study
not only the worms which you see, but microscopic creatures which you can
barely see, and transformations from one