"What with the radio, the cinema, improved travel and so on." I added to his list improved warfare, industrial servitude, modern engines of oppression and mass production of stereotyped minds. But he protested that all this was the consequence not of science itself but of man's foolish use of science. "Man's purposes," he said, "are in the main still primitive. Little by little science itself will change them. For science will become man's wise ruler instead of his misused slave. At present the affairs of the species are directed by scientifically uneducated politicians, charlatans whose policy is determined merely by the need to pander either to the money magnates or to the ignorant swarms in the trade unions."

I commented, "So you would have the scientists themselves rule society." He answered, "Social affairs should of course be directed by the relevant experts in each field." "And who," I demanded, "is to control the experts?" "Why, of course," he said, "the scientifically educated public. And scientists will have to see to it that the whole really educable population is educated scientifically. Surely that is the reasonable goal. Meanwhile, we must pin our faith to the gradual spread of the scientific spirit."

I challenged him, "Are you really confident that science has increased men's pleasure and reduced their pain? Are you quite sure that the mediaeval peasant's life was less pleasurable and more distressful than the modern industrial worker's?" With an affectation of patience, he replied, "All that we actually know is that the wretches were undernourished, undersized, crippled by disease, hard-driven by the landlords and the priests, tormented by religious superstition. Perhaps they enjoyed their condition, but it seems unlikely." "On the other hand," I suggested, "their environment was perhaps more appropriate to their biological nature than the industrial environment. They seem to have enjoyed the round of the seasons and all the varied processes of tillage. And they were securely anchored to the conviction that--well, that goodness mattered." "Goodness," he retorted, with some exasperation, "is another of those emotive noises that mean nothing. And surely it is well known that today primitive peasants all over the world (and they must be very like the mediaeval sort) are only too eager to give up their primitive ways and enjoy the amenities that science offers." I answered, "Oh yes! The poor creatures are given alcohol and the cinema, and soon ' they crave these drugs, and succumb to them."

Evidently my companion felt that he had proved his case, for he ignored my reply, and said, "But to return to the motives of the geneticist. He is mainly kept going by sheer lust of discovery. Intelligence, you see, clamours for exercise, even if only in crossword puzzles. But there is another motive. We crave power; and, being highly social, we crave it not merely in competition with others but also in the cooperative service of our species. At the back of all our minds, I suspect, is this sublimation of the crude lust of power." I provoked him by enquiring if the will to serve the species could be satisfied merely by providing it with more gadgets, amenities, titillations. He shot a wary glance at me before replying, "In the last resort, I suppose, what we want to give our species is not just pleasure, just any sort of pleasure, but the pleasure of power, the satisfaction of the cunning and resolute animal conquering its environment. Evolution favours in the long run the more developed types, those that show more versatility and adaptability in securing power over the environment. Yes! We want to give man greater power over his environment. We want him to be master of his world, and perhaps of other worlds; and of his own nature and destiny."

"But tell me!" I insisted. "What is he to do with his power? What destiny should be choose?"

The young man shrugged. "That," he said, "is not really my affair. Presumably he should choose to make the most of himself and his world, to impress himself as vigorously as possible on the universe. You see, between organism and environment there is constant action and reaction. Through the pressure of man's actual environment the universe makes man what in fact he is; and since, through automatic natural selection, it has made him sensitive, intelligent and versatile, he reacts strongly and effectively on the universe. What in the last resort he should choose depends, I suppose, on what his nature finally demands for fullest satisfaction, what in the last resort he pleases to do." I said, "For you, then, the final criterion is always the feeling of pleasure. The question, what ought man to please to do, is meaningless. Have I understood you?" He paused before replying, and again he shot a wary glance at me.