“Friends,” he said, “let us not deride this old person. Let us, rather, point out his astonishing errors to him. Be tolerant, I say! Be tolerant, by all means, even when we are opposed. Sir, we’ll admit that there are many Men instead of only this one, and that all inhabit some vast creature that they call the Earth. But what for? We are here for pleasure, profit, and to store up germs.” “Are we? For a long time it has been my theory that we are here solely for the welfare of the Man we inhabit; that our food and our enemies are elements inimical to him; we remove them in his behalf.” “Vile agitator!” The financier-corpuscle, coursing round again, was so agitated that he nearly dropped a germ. “Let him speak!” urged the studious corpuscle. “His views differ from mine, but I will be tolerant! I have arguments that will silence him soon. Now, then, my friend, if our reason for being is such as you describe, and you liken men to us, these many men you speak of must occupy a relation to their Earth similar to ours to this Man. Do they pounce upon and destroy every organism malignant to their creature?” “I have no doubt of it!” cried the old corpuscle. “I believe that, existing with those that are workers, are others, similar to them but idle or weak, or, at any rate, of no value to the Earth. I do not say that these worthless ones are pounced upon and eaten, but I do believe that in some way those of no value are forced out of existence; perhaps, besides weak and idle individuals, there are whole tribes who are being exterminated, unable to survive in the struggle with the fit.” “What industrious, unselfish beings these Men must be to do so much for their Earth!” sneered a doubter. “Now, let him speak!” urged the tolerant philosopher. “I have arguments that will destroy his views, in a moment. Let there be freedom of speech, by all means!” “Industrious and unselfish?” repeated the old corpuscle. “Are we? Industrious, yes; but unselfish, no! For our own existence we are working in this Man’s behalf. We are not philanthropists. For the necessities of life we perform our appointed functions, most of us never dreaming that we are laboring in the interests of the Man we inhabit. So it is, I believe, with them! I can’t quite imagine what their beneficent tasks are, but perhaps they till the soil, as we till the soil of this Man, keeping the Earth’s system in good order, doing everything in the belief that they are working only for themselves.” “Pursue your analogy!” cried the rival philosopher. “If we populate a living creature, then the creature inhabited by Man must itself be a corpuscle floating in the system of something inconceivably vaster. We are leucocytes to Men; Men are to the Earth; then hordes of Earths are to a Universe? You speak of many Men. Are there hordes of Earths?”