One of the philosophers responded that he could certainly imagine that there are intelligent beings much smaller than man. He recounted, not every fabulous thing Virgil says about bees, but what Swammerdam discovered, and what Réaumur has anatomized. He explained finally that there are animals that are to bees what bees are to man, what the Sirian himself was for the vast animals he had spoken of, and what these large animals are to other substances before which they looked like atoms. Little by little the conversation became interesting, and Micromegas spoke thusly: CHAPTER VII. Conversation with the men. "Oh intelligent atoms, in which the Eternal Being desired to make manifest his skill and his power, you must, no doubt, taste pure joys on your planet; for having so little matter, and appearing to be entirely spirit, you must live out your life thinking and loving, the veritable life of the mind. Nowhere have I seen true bliss, but it is here, without a doubt." At this all the philosophers shook their heads, and one of them, more frank than the others, avowed that if one excepts a small number of inhabitants held in poor regard, all the rest are an assembly of mad, vicious, and wretched people. "We have more substance than is necessary," he said, "to do evil, if evil comes from substance; and too much spirit, if evil comes from spirit. Did you know, for example, that as I am speaking with you[1], there are 100,000 madmen of our species wearing hats, killing 100,000 other animals wearing turbans, or being massacred by them, and that we have used almost surface of the Earth for this purpose since time immemorial?" [1] We saw, at the end of chapter III, that the story occurs in 1737. Voltaire is referring to the war between the Turks and the Russians, from 1736 to 1739. B. The Sirian shuddered, and asked the reason for these horrible quarrels between such puny animals. "It is a matter," said the philosopher, "of some piles of mud as big as your heel[2]. It is not that any of these millions of men that slit each other's throats care about this pile of mud. It is only a matter of determining if it should belong to a certain man who we call 'Sultan,' or to another who we call, for whatever reason, 'Czar.' Neither one has ever seen nor will ever see the little piece of Earth, and almost none of these animals that mutually kill themselves have ever seen the animal for which they kill." [2] Crimea, which all the same was not reunited with Russia until 1783. B. "Oh! Cruel fate!" cried the Sirian with indignation, "who could conceive of this excess of maniacal rage! It makes me want to take three steps and crush this whole anthill of ridiculous assassins."