heir reward. Man-always vain, windy, conceited-thinks he will be in the
majority there. He will be disappointed. Let him humble himself. But for
the despised microbe and the persecuted bacillus, who needed a home and
nourishment, he would not have been created. He has a mission, therefore
a reason for existing: let him do the service he was made for, and keep
quiet.

Three weeks ago I was a man myself, and thought and felt as men think
and feel; I have lived 3,000 years since then [microbic time], and I see
the foolishness of it now. We live to learn, and fortunate are we when
we are wise enough to profit by it.

In matters pertaining to microscopy we necessarily have an advantage
here over the scientist of the earth, because, as I have just been
indicating, we see with our naked eyes minutenesses which no man-made
microscope can detect, and are therefore able to register as facts many
things which exist for him as theories only. Indeed, we know as facts
several things which he has not yet divined even by theory. For example,
he does not suspect that there is no life but animal life, and that
all atoms are individual animals endowed each with a certain degree
of consciousness, great or small, each with likes and dislikes,
predilections and aversions--that, in a word, each has a character, a
character of its own. Yet such is the case. Some of the molecules of
a stone have an aversion for some of those of a vegetable or any other
creature and will not associate with them--and would not be allowed to,
if they tried. Nothing is more particular about society than a molecule.
And so there are no end of castes; in this matter India is not a
circumstance.

"Tell me, Franklin [a microbe of great learning], is the ocean an
individual, an animal, a creature?"

"Yes."

"Then water--any water-is an individual?"

"Yes."

"Suppose you remove a drop of it? Is what is left an individual?"

"Yes, and so is the drop."

"Suppose you divide the drop?"

"Then you have two individuals."

"Suppose you separate the hydrogen and the oxygen?"

"Again you have two individuals. But you haven't water any more."

"Of course. Certainly. Well, suppose you combine them again, but in
a new way: make the proportions equal--one part oxygen to one of
hydrogen?"

"But you know you can't. They won't combine on equal terms."

I was ashamed to have made that blunder. I was embarrassed; to cover it
I started to say we used to combine them lik