"You're not suggesting spiritualism, are you?" and in Snow's voice was a note of amusement. "Don't laugh at it. If it's never been proved, neither has it been disproved." And that touched off a discussion which went on for two hours. It covered many theories, many beliefs and faiths, all of which Franstein spoke learnedly and with great respect. He talked of reincarnation, spiritualism, the mystery of time, and in this last connection, he paused in the middle of what he was saying and asked: "If this--" and he waved a hand toward the machine--"is a language, and I'm pretty sure it is, how can we be sure that it is a language of the past? Why shouldn't it be one belonging to the future? All languages change with time. We'd probably find it very difficult to understand the English spoken ten centuries ago. What if this is the English that is going to be spoken a thousand years hence?" * * * * * To all of which Snow listened with the skepticism of the exact scientist, and Franstein, quick to notice this, went on: "You think yourselves clever, you exact scientists, and so you are. You can do a lot of things. You can split the atom, measure the stars, estimate the life expectancy of the sun; you have conquered distance, you have surrounded us with miracles like radio, television, invisible rays and all the rest of it. Presently, you will conquer space and colonize the planets, and so it will go until it will seem to you that you will know everything. And you will too, except for one thing--the one final mystery, the last secret of the universe--MAN. And that means you and me, and any human being from a bum of Skid Row to the President. Man is the eternal unknown quantity, and you've never had a more clear demonstration of this than what happened to Richardson this afternoon. Oh, I know what you've found out. You know all about man, his insides, his glands, muscles, nerves, brain, and so on. You can even display him on a table as a bucket of water and little piles of salts and minerals, and you can point to them and say: 'That is what man is made of.' Only the other day I was reading about some scientist who thinks he's on the verge of producing a cell of life in a test tube. You may even do that, and you may find out one day how to put the water and the salts and the minerals together again and make a man. I've always thought the Frankenstein story was a bit of inspired prophecy. But you still won't be able to explain why great music can come from a child of six, or what happened to Richardson this afternoon." He lit his big pipe, which had gone out, and through the puffs asked: "And what do you propose to do about Richardson?" "Run the test again tomorrow with him and see if this happens again, and then decide," replied Snow. "But even if nothing happens tomorrow, you can't ignore this." "That's true. We've got to get to the bottom of it, and that's where you come in. You're the expert on this sort of thing."