"It said, “Ask, what is man?” Mechanically, he asked it. “Man is a blind alley in evolution, who came too late to compete, who has always been controlled and played with by The Brightly Shining, which was old and wise before man walked erect. “Man is a parasite upon a planet populated before he came, populated by a Being that is one and many, a billion cells but a single mind, a single intelligence, a single will—as is true of every other populated planet in the universe. “Man is a joke, a clown, a parasite. He is nothing; he will be less.”"