“Now if, like Cranmer, I were to put my right hand into the fire, to punish it for having done something evil or unworthy (words, by the way, which haven’t much in common with chemistry), if I were to put my hand in the fire, these molecules would uncombine themselves into their constituent atoms, which would then proceed to build themselves up again into other molecules. But this leads me on at once to a set of entirely different realities. For if I were to put my hand in the fire, I should feel pain; and unless, like Cranmer, I made an enormous effort of will to keep it there, I should withdraw it; or rather it would withdraw itself almost without my knowledge and before I was aware. For I am alive, and this hand is part of a living being, the first law of whose existence is to preserve its life. Being alive, this hand of mine, if it were burnt, would set about trying to repair itself. Seen by a biologist, it reveals itself as a collection of cells, having each its appointed function, and existing harmoniously together, never trespassing upon one another, never proliferating into wild adventures of growth, but living, dying and growing to one end—that the whole which they compose may fulfil its purpose—and as though in accordance with a preordained plan. Say that the hand is burnt. From all round the burn the healthy cells would breed out of themselves new cells to fill in and cover the damaged places.” “How wonderful life is!” said Mary Thriplow. “Life....” “Cranmer’s hand,” Calamy went on, “had done an ignoble thing. The hand is part, not merely of a living being, but of a being that knows good and evil. This hand of mine can do good things and bad things. It has killed a man, for example; it has written all manner of words; it has helped a man who was hurt; it has touched your body.” He laid his hand on her breast; she started, she trembled involuntarily under his caress. He ought to think that rather flattering, oughtn’t he? It was a symbol of his power over her—of her power, alas, over him. “And when it touches your body,” he went on, “it touches also your mind. My hand moves like this, and it moves through your consciousness as well as here, across your skin. And it’s my mind that orders it to move; it brings your body into my mind. It exists in mind; it has reality as a part of my soul and a part of yours.” Miss Thriplow couldn’t help reflecting that there was, in all this, the stuff for a very deep digression in one of her novels. “This thoughtful young writer ...” would be quoted from the reviewers on the dust-cover of her next book. “Go on,” she said.