When one is in the mood one can reduce the creatures to the amphibian, the fish, the worm, the micro-organism. Or one may vary it by retaining their human shapes but seeing them inwardly as physiological going concerns. Under the skin see the blood-soaked muscles, pumping blood or air or words; or composing themselves to idiotic smiles or affected laughter; or churning food. The bitch, for instance, has a stomach, a muscular bag stuffed now with sandwiches and cocktails, which it assiduously mixes, till the pulp is ripe for passing down through the tangle of tubing that her neat belly conceals. Meanwhile that crumpled muscular hosepipe, seething like a nest of snakes, is probably dealing with a half-digested mess of chops and chips. And further still, the unwanted rubbish is collecting, to be ejected in due course into the socially approved receptacle. The creature also has a brain, a fantastically subtle texture of fibres, which even now are being activated in inconceivably complex and coordinate rhythms. Mentally these neural events have the form of (presumably) a perception of the young male as an eligible mate, and a using of every wile (primitive and sophisticated) to catch him. Meanwhile at the other end of her anatomy, stored in a recess convenient for access by the male seed, her egg is ripe. It is a pinhead; but it is a continent still mainly unexplored by science. Somewhere within its vast yet microscopic interior lie, meticulously located, all the factors for reproduction of her kind, and indeed of her own special idiosyncrasies, even down to that intriguing twist of the left eyebrow. And if ever she is so careless as to have a child, its whole physique and temperament will be an expression of the chancy collocation of genes (hers and her mate's) in the union of sperm and ovum; in conjunction, of course, with the appropriate environment."

"You are very sure," I said. He replied, "There is no certainty, but the probability is overwhelming."

Then he started a new gambit, saying, "Now let us expose the bitch's fundamental structure. It is an inconceivably complex tissue of the ultimate physical particles or wavetrains, say 1012n of protons, electrons, positrons, neutrons and perhaps other units still to be discovered. Thus the bitch keeps her Atalanta figure, her human complexion, her fruity lips; but within their volume, within the contours of breast, buttock and so on, one must conceive a great void, fretted by midges of electromagnetic potency." The young man paused, then concluded, "But in the end the game palls. It is the early moves that stimulate."

*****

His flight of fantasy seemed to have spent itself. Presently I asked him, "Are you a writer? You have a quick imagination, and you seem to care about words." For his ornate and rather stilted speech had puzzled me. "God, no!" he said. "I am a geneticist, but addicted to verbiage off duty." Then with a sidelong look to measure me he added, "A geneticist, you know, is a biologist who studies inheritance." I replied politely that his profession must be indeed interesting, an endlessly enthralling adventure. He laughed deprecatingly, and said, "Counting flies with black tummies or misshapen wings, breeding monstrosities from nature's well-tried normalities is humdrum work." "But," I said, "the significance of it all!" With a sigh he answered, "The minutiae are so exacting that one almost loses sight of the significance. But doubtless we shall someday produce human monstrosities, men with tails or two heads, or tricks like the waltzing mouse, or special lusts for obedience, or coal mining, or cleaning lavatories."

Provokingly I added, "Or perhaps for the life of the spirit?" The words clearly jarred on his scientific mind, like obscenity in a church, or prayer in a laboratory. After a silence he said, "I have no use for words that are mere emotive noises without clear significance."

We both fell dumb. Presently I ventured, "Tell me! What is your real aim in genetic research?" Without hesitation he answered, "To earn a living; and by work that is not too irksome. Incidentally, of course, impulses of curiosity, self-assertion, cooperation and so on find a healthy outlet." I waited for more, then prompted him, "Is that all? Is there no sense of a calling, or participation in a great common enterprise?" After a further silence he said, "No! That is really all. But greater definition is possible. The study of inheritance appears to be socially desirable, for the advancement of our species. And I, as a social animal and humanly intelligent, direct my social impulses to that end--so far as this can be done without frustrating my far stronger self-regard."

The slow swirl of the crowd had swept us into an alcove, and there, cast high and dry on a window seat, we were almost in seclusion.

I questioned, "What precisely do you mean by 'the advancement' of the species?" He lightly replied, "Oh, more pleasure and less pain for its members; and for this end more power over its environment and over human nature itself. That is where we geneticists come in. We seek control of other species for man's sake, and ultimately the manipulation of man's own genetic makeup, so as to abolish disease and all other grave frustrations, and to evoke new possibilities of pleasurable activity." I asked if he would maintain that up to our day science had in fact increased the possibility of pleasure. "Surely!" he answered.