rcle of reflection from the microscope mirror!)--"your
remarks show that you imperfectly appreciate the situation. This
specimen was mounted yesterday and is hermetically sealed. None of our
oxygen can reach it. But the ether, of course, has penetrated to it, as
to every other point upon the universe. Therefore, it has survived the
poison. Hence, we may argue that every amoeba outside this room, instead
of being dead, as you have erroneously stated, has really survived the
catastrophe."

"Well, even now I don't feel inclined to hip-hurrah about it," said Lord
John. "What does it matter?"

"It just matters this, that the world is a living instead of a dead one.
If you had the scientific imagination, you would cast your mind forward
from this one fact, and you would see some few millions of years hence--a
mere passing moment in the enormous flux of the ages--the whole world
teeming once more with the animal and human life which will spring from
this tiny root. You have seen a prairie fire where the flames have swept
every trace of grass or plant from the surface of the earth and left only
a blackened waste. You would think that it must be forever desert. Yet
the roots of growth have been left behind, and when you pass the place a
few years hence you can no longer tell where the black scars used to be.
Here in this tiny creature are the roots of growth of the animal world,
and by its inherent development, and evolution, it will surely in time
remove every trace of this incomparable crisis in which we are now
involved."

"Dooced interestin'!" said Lord John, lounging across and looking through
the microscope. "Funny little chap to hang number one among the family
portraits. Got a fine big shirt-stud on him!"

"The dark object is his nucleus," said Challenger with the air of a nurse
teaching letters to a baby.

"Well, we needn't feel lonely," said Lord John laughing. "There's
somebody livin' besides us on the earth."

"You seem to take it for granted, Challenger," said Summerlee, "that the
object for which this world was created was that it should produce and
sustain human life."

"Well, sir, and what object do you suggest?" asked Challenger, bristling
at the least hint of contradiction.

"Sometimes I think that it is only the monstrous conceit of mankind which
makes him think that all this stage was erected for him to strut upon."

"We cannot be dogmatic about it, but at least without what you have
ve