On the subject of microbes: I think something has happened here too, the way I look at the matter in the meantime: the word "bacterium" has been split by the intake of the word "virus", while at the same time, however, the human mind cannot distinguish these two things at all, because it has only developed an idea for one of the two terms (bacterium), but not for the other (virus).

I remember well when a friend of mine who was training in dental hygiene brought back from class books that had impressive illustrations of the microbes that live on our skin, for example. The images, enlarged many times, could have come straight out of a horror sci-fi flick. One saw all kinds of curious shapes and forms: huge globular creatures with fur-like coatings, scrawny ones with antennae, others with gigantic mouth-grinding tools sticking out of their mouths like wedges, and so on.

She presented me with these pictures full of disgust. I was also impressed by these pictures, but not in the same way as it seems in retrospect. Sure, I too was shaped to be disgusted by insects, but I have been able to overcome it quite well over the years as I gained a better understanding.

The association with insects was there immediately, is what I'm saying.

Seeing such creatures magnified, I think, awakens a primal human fear: that of being devoured. Perhaps deep within us is the common memory of a primate life where the little monkeys saved themselves from hunters by climbing trees. I don't know, but it seems to me to be one of many plausible explanations.

I therefore suspect that the mental conception of a "virus" that has lasted over many decades or centuries is not essentially different. The presence of microbes in the scene that a person so shaped as a researcher observes may lead him to confuse causality with correlation. However, the fact that the microbes present could just as well act like a rubbish disposal, merely taking care of the removal of dead cells and their remains, is always rather unlikely when the primal fear in the researcher is greater than his open-ended curiosity.

I hold my convictions in such a way that I represent them as "decisive for me". I am more inclined to take a positive view than a fear-promoting one.

Does this make sense to you?