THE ARTIFICIAL MAN By Clare Winger Harris [Illustration: Before David’s startled gaze the newcomer placed his right hand to his left shoulder and removed the left arm. He then proceeded to dismember himself until only a torso, head and one arm remained.] [Illustration: Clare Winger Harris] It is well established today that human beings can get along without a number of their usual organs. We have seen men deprived of their arms and legs who could still do useful work. There are men living, and seemingly little the worse for it, who have lost either an eye or a nose, or have only one kidney, and it is now possible even to have an artificial voice in case a part of the larynx and the vocal chords have to be removed through disease. That science will discover more and more how to artificially replace human organs is a foregone conclusion. How far this process may go no one however knows. Recent experiments on animals have shown that it is even possible for a cat to live with an artificial rubber heart. These experiments are all of vast importance to humanity, because we may be deprived of a number of our organs by accident or disease. The author of the present story has taken these thoughts as a basis of a most interesting narrative which is in its entirety based upon excellent science, and there is no telling that an exact counterpart of what she so vividly describes may not come about sooner or later. On the annals of surgery no case has ever left quite as horrible an impression upon the public as did that of George Gregory, a student of Austin College. Young Gregory was equally proficient in scholastic and athletic work, having been for two years captain of the football team, and for one year a marked success in intercollegiate debates. No student of the senior class of Austin or Decker will ever forget his masterful arguments as he upheld the affirmative in the question:—“Resolved that bodily perfection is a result of right thinking.” Gregory gave every promise of being one of the masterful minds of the age; and if masterful in this instance means dominating, he was that—and more. Alas that his brilliant mentality was destined to degradation through the physical body—but that is my story. It was the Thanksgiving game that proved the beginning of George’s downfall. Warned by friends that he would be wise to desist from the more dangerous physical sports, he laughingly—though with unquestionable sincerity—referred to the context of his famous debate, declaring that a correct mental attitude toward life—he had this point down to a mathematical correctness—rendered physical disasters impossible. His sincerity in believing this was laudable, and so far his credence had stood him in good stead. No one who saw his well-proportioned six-foot figure making its way through the opponents’ lines, could doubt that the science of thinking rightly was favorably exemplified in young Gregory.