PHILOSOPHIC ANTS 193 



capable of expression in some formula as simple as 

 Boyle's or Avogadro's Law. 



Almost more startling might be the effect of altering 

 the rhythm at which we live, or rather at which we 

 experience events. 



If only I were Mr. H. G. Wells, I could make a 

 mint of money by a story based on this idea of rhythm 

 of living.^ Let us see . . First there would be 

 Mercaptan the distinguished inventor, who would 

 lead me (lay, uninstructed, Watsonish me, after the 

 feshion of narrators) into his laboratory. There on 

 the table would be the machine — ^all but complete : 

 handles, coils of wire, quartz terminals, gauges of 

 rock-crystal in which oscillated coloured fluids, 

 platinum cogwheels . . . dot . . dot . . dot . . dot . . He 

 hardly dared to make the final connections, all clear 

 and calculable though they were. He had put so 

 much of himself into it : so many hopes . . fears . . 

 dots . 



Then there would be the farewell dinner-party — 

 first the inventor's voice on the wireless telephone, 



1 The reading of this paper brought a string of informants 

 eager to let me know that Mr. Wells had already written a 

 story on this theme. I was grateful to them for having caused 

 me to read the Nenu Accelerator^ which by some strange chance 

 I had managed to miss: but Mr. Wells's treatment is so wholly 

 different from that which I have sketched that I feel no scruples 

 in letting it stand : and, if amends are needed, at least I make 

 him a present of the germ of a new tale, and so feel that honour 

 should be satisfied. 



N 



