apparatus, behind whom Jake could now make out two or three or more dim shapes. He could tell there was at least one other person to his left rear but didn't look round. Only the Ghanaian observer was now in full view; he had got in a lot of observing when Miss Newman did her bit and even now was still at it on and off. Jake wanted to tell him to pull up a prayer mat or whatever he fancied and be his guest. He yawned and stretched. It could hardly be that he had broken the machine by overloading it—no, no, here came Professor Trefusis with a satisfied expression.
'Sorry about that.' She picked up the file he had noticed and passed it to him. 'Would you read aloud what it says on the first page? I should explain that the object is to make sure you're turned off after each stimulus.'
'Ah.' He found that the thing was actually a loose-leaf book containing sheets of typescript.' Clear enough. He read aloud,
'Apart from the peculiar tenets of individual thinkers, there is also in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation; and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary to grow more and more formidable. The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow- citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power; and as the power is not declining, but growing, unless a strong barrier of moral conviction can be raised against the mischief, we must expect, in the present circumstances of the world, to see it increase.'
He shut the book and handed it back, aware as he did so that no more observing was going on in his immediate neighbourhood. Whatever was next came out of one of the folders and was held up so that the group near the machine could see it. A moment later the professor was showing him a magazine photograph of one of the business-head-Carter-face sisterhood displaying her giraffe's ear.
'I don't like that,' he said.
It was out of sight in an instant. 'What don't you like about it?'
'It's ugly.'
'You find the model ugly?'
'No, not at all. I mean her .... parts.'
'They repel you?'
'Yes. What I see there repels me.'
She hesitated and glanced momentarily to his left. That must be Rosenberg standing there, perhaps among others, and were those questions his, put on his behalf instead of directly out of what, etiquette? Never mind: with no more said the second exhibit was exhibited after the same fashion as the first. It was much more up Jake's street, a nice-looking girl who also looked nice, possible too in the sense that you met girls like her, and arranged or shown in what might be called 'neo-Zoom' style-advantage taken of some of the freedoms of the last few years without the surrender of decency.
'Better?'
'Fine.'
'Concentrate on it.' Trefusis leaned towards him, lowered her voice and said kindly, 'And remember this: by now nobody's thinking of you as an individual or a person. You're just an object.'
'Thank you.'
He concentrated and quite soon it started being rather a success, nothing to cause any wild surmising at the instrument panel, but still. This part went on for some minutes. Then he was told to forget about that and given the book open at a different page. He read aloud,
'If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.'
The third offering showed two girls being familiar with each other, no more than that, on a piece of very dean and neat garden furniture. That went down reasonably well too. Before his third bout of reading Jake said,
'May I ask a question?'
'Certainly.'
'I'd just like to make it clear'—he resisted the temptation to look over his shoulder—'that what, well, appealed to me there wasn't what they were getting up to really, it was just the fair one, the look of her face and her breasts.'
'I'm sorry, what's your question?'
'Oh. Oh well I haven't really got one, I just wanted to say that.'
There was no reply apart from an undecided nod of the head, which he felt was quite as much as his non- question had deserved. Why had he bothered? Perhaps the same problem was exercising others: he heard whispers from the far side of the apparatus and a murmur behind him. But in a short time he was reading aloud,
'We take care that, when there is a change, it shall be for change's sake, and not from any idea of beauty or convenience; for the same idea of beauty or convenience would not strike all the world at the same moment, and be simultaneously thrown aside by all at another moment. But we are progressive as well as changeable: we continually make new inventions in mechanical things, and keep them until they are again superseded by better; we are eager for improvement in politics, in education, even in morals, though in this last our idea of improvement
