"You listen: 'This man appears authentic. His very being gives some authority to whatsoever he is saying.' But that is a feeling – you cannot understand what he is saying. At the most you can trust, which is very difficult, almost impossible.

"How to trust? How to trust somebody else about things which you know nothing about? Not only that, but how to trust about things which go diametrically opposite to your experience?

"I was reading a small story the other night.

"A man was walking along, and he saw a snail lodged in a crevice in a wall, and for no particular reason he said, 'Hello snail.'

"And oddly enough the snail could speak, and the snail could hear, and it said, 'Hello.' And it moved its eyes around as best it could on their stalks to try to see what it was that was confronting him.

"So the man said, 'Can you hear me?' And the snail said, 'Yes, of course. Who and what are you anyway?'

"The man said, 'Well, I am a man.'

"And the snail said, 'Whatever is that?'

"So the man said, 'Well, we are something like you. For instance, you have got eyes on stalks and we have got stalks on the other end.'

"The snail said, 'The other end?'

"And the man said, 'Yes – just a minute – it is for putting our feet on, you see, these feet.'

"The snail said, 'Whatever are these feet for?'

"And the man said, 'The feet are for moving along very rapidly on.'

"The snail said, 'Really? You amaze me. Is there anything else about you that is peculiar?'

"And the man said, 'Well, you know how you have got your house on your back?'

"The snail said, 'Yes, yes.'

"And the man said, 'Well, we don't know. You see, we have lots and lots of houses, and we go in and out of them almost at will.'

"The snail said, 'You really are a most astonishing creature. Is there anything else that's strange about you?'

"And the man said, 'Well now, we are men, and a man can take a thing like a leaf; you know, a leaf?'

"And the snail said, 'Yes."