"Living machines! It is by virtue of that legal fiction that we have denied the Martians even the humanitarian treatment we grant to domestic animals, that we have revived an institution as vile as it is old in order to exploit them, that we have spurned all communion with their gentle minds. Living machines! The Earth's bad conscience is the best testimony to the falsity of that fiction, though even the most confirmed Martian-hater recognizes it. He says, succinctly, 'Bug'.
"But they're soulless, you claim. Inhuman. Without feelings. Well, fellow free-citizens of the World Confederation, I went to preach the Word to those living machines on their home planet. I had to fight Outer Spaceways to get permission to do it; I had to live in a cramped little pressure hut and wear a space-suit whenever I went among them; I had to shiver under their meager sun because fuel supplies were somehow always late in getting to me. But I was happy because I was going to teach the Martians our religion.
"I soon found out, however, that it was they who ought to be teaching me!"
A scene of Martian religious ceremonies followed, one of the few shots that humans had been able to obtain. The speaker's voice continued.
It was one of the few shootings of Martian religious ceremonies that humans had been able to take.
"Lacking their perception and telepathy, it wasn't easy to get in contact with their minds, but we discovered ways. I found out how they live, what they believe in.
"I was going to teach them our Golden Rule. They taught me theirs—the Golden Rule of a telepathic race. 'Do unto others as others would have you do unto them'."