"I would, but there isn't a good Ducktor closer than Venus. Could find a doctor, of course, but they're unreliable. They style themselves doctors because it sounds like Ducktor. Plain disgrace. Ducktor comes from the word _Quack_. Ages old. Even in the dark ages there were plenty of quacks. They had all sorts of diseases then. Yes, sir. Diseases! Little crawley things working around in their blood and flesh. And these quacks would feed these diseases all sorts of medicine! Finally the diseases up and died. Not having any intelligence to burn them out, the people of those days could live as long as they wished. Or at least that's the way it's figured. Once in a while, about every two or three weeks, just as we erase our minds so we won't burn up too quick, those people would get together and begin killing one another. Think of it! We try to live, but they tried to die. Seems they couldn't die fast enough, so they used a lot of fissionable material and burned up everybody that way. Even that didn't satisfy them, so they used fusing material, which was more deadly, and finally completed everything to their total satisfaction. At least they left very little trace of themselves. Man had to begin all over again from the sea, beginning with the amoeba. I wonder if we're going to wind up like that a million years hence." "Not likely," Fillmore said. "Besides, you're wrong. Man didn't begin all over again. The amoeba would have worked in another direction, seeing what a mess man made of things. What actually happened was that quite a few people were left after the hydrogen chain was set off. They lived on one of the nearer planets and returned after earth had cooled again. Then they set up things, or so they claimed, very much like they were before, with the exception that they changed their philosophy. Developed their minds first and everything else naturally followed." "I think it's a mistake," the bald man persisted, "to develop the mind too early. As I mentioned, my two boys are just now entering college. Of course they knew a few things before, such as how to fuel themselves when in the presence of food, and how to walk, and the older one could even speak a few words, and even the younger one could change his own diaper--had been doing it since he was forty-nine--but my wife and I saw to it that they didn't learn too much too fast. That's the reason my people live so long. Don't burn ourselves up in infancy thinking. But that doesn't mean you may not be right in teaching your children, when you have them tomorrow, everything right at the start. With a fourteen power intelligence, your people are by nature compelled to do a lot of thinking, and it's your duty, as a citizen, to begin early. Had any startling thoughts lately?" * * * * *