-and then the
end?'

Fowler thought. 'We are not sure enough yet to do things like that,' he
said.

'But a day is coming when you will be certain.'

Fowler nodded.

'You make me feel as though I was the last of deformity--Deformity is
uncertainty--inaccuracy. My body works doubtfully, it is not even sure
that it will die or live. I suppose the time is not far off when such
bodies as mine will no longer be born into the world.'

'You see,' said Fowler, after a little pause, 'it is necessary that
spirits such as yours should be born into the world.'

'I suppose,' said Karenin, 'that my spirit has had its use. But if you
think that is because my body is as it is I think you are mistaken.
There is no peculiar virtue in defect. I have always chafed against--all
this. If I could have moved more freely and lived a larger life in
health I could have done more. But some day perhaps you will be able to
put a body that is wrong altogether right again. Your science is only
beginning. It's a subtler thing than physics and chemistry, and it takes
longer to produce its miracles. And meanwhile a few more of us must die
in patience.'

'Fine work is being done and much of it,' said Fowler. 'I can say as
much because I have nothing to do with it. I can understand a lesson,
appreciate the discoveries of abler men and use my hands, but those
others, Pigou, Masterton, Lie, and the others, they are clearing the
ground fast for the knowledge to come. Have you had time to follow their
work?'

Karenin shook his head. 'But I can imagine the scope of it,' he said.

'We have so many men working now,' said Fowler. 'I suppose at
present there must be at least a thousand thinking hard, observing,
experimenting, for one who did so in nineteen hundred.'

'Not counting those who keep the records?'

'Not counting those. Of course, the present indexing of research is
in itself a very big work, and it is only now that we are getting it
properly done. But already we are feeling the benefit of that. Since it
ceased to be a paid employment and became a devotion we have had only
those people who obeyed the call of an aptitude at work upon these
things. Here--I must show you it to-day, because it will interest
you--we have our copy of the encyclopaedic index--every week sheets are
taken out and replaced by fresh sheets with new results that are brought
to us by the aeroplanes of the Research Department. It is an index of
knowledge that grows conti