The Food of the Gods

“We’re getting together a sort of report.”

“For the Royal Society?”

“Yes.”

“Hm,” said. Winkles, very profoundly, and walked to the hearth-rug. “Hm. But–Here’s the point. Ought you?”

“Ought we–what?”

“Ought you to publish?”

“We’re not in the Middle Ages,” said Redwood.

“I know.”

“As Cossar says, swapping wisdom–that’s the true scientific method.”

“In most cases, certainly. But–This is exceptional.”

“We shall put the whole thing before the Royal Society in the proper way,” said Redwood.

Winkles returned to that on a later occasion.

“It’s in many ways an Exceptional discovery.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Redwood.

“It’s the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject to grave abuse–grave dangers, as Caterham puts it.”

Redwood said nothing.

“Even carelessness, you know–”

“If we were to form a committee of trustworthy people to control the manufacture of Boomfood–Herakleophorbia, I should say–we might–”

He paused, and Redwood, with a certain private discomfort, pretended that he did not see any sort of interrogation….

Outside the apartments of Redwood and Bensington, Winkle, in spite of the incompleteness of his instructions, became a leading authority upon Boomfood. He wrote letters defending its use; he made notes and articles explaining its possibilities; he jumped up irrelevantly at the meetings of the scientific and medical associations to talk about it; he identified himself with it. He published a pamphlet called “The Truth about Boomfood,” in which he minimised the whole of the Hickleybrow affair almost to nothing. He said that it was absurd to say Boomfood would make people thirty-seven feet high. That was “obviously exaggerated.” It would make them Bigger, of course, but that was all….

Within that intimate circle of two it was chiefly evident that Winkles was extremely anxious to help in the making of Herakleophorbia, help in correcting any proofs there might be of any paper there might be in preparation upon the subject–do anything indeed that might lead up to his participation in the details of the making of Herakleophorbia. He was continually telling them both that he felt it was a Big Thing, that it had big possibilities. If only they were–“safeguarded in some way.” And at last one day he asked outright to be told just how it was made.

“I’ve been thinking over what you said,” said Redwood.

“Well?” said Winkles brightly.

“It’s the sort of knowledge that could easily be subject to grave abuse,” said Redwood.

“But I don’t see how that applies,” said Winkles.

“It does,” said Redwood.

Winkles thought it over for a day or so. Then he came to Redwood and said that he doubted if he ought to give powders about which he knew nothing to Redwood’s little boy; it seemed to him it was uncommonly like taking responsibility in the dark. That made Redwood thoughtful.

“You’ve seen that the Society for the Total Suppression of Boomfood claims to have several thousand members,” said Winkles, changing the subject. “They’ve drafted a Bill,” said Winkles. “They’ve got young Caterham to take it up–readily enough. They’re in earnest. They’re forming local committees to influence candidates. They want to make it penal to prepare and store Herakleophorbia without special license, and felony–matter of imprisonment without option–to administer Boomfood–that’s what they call it, you know–to any person under one-and-twenty. But there’s collateral societies, you know. All sorts of people. The Society for the Preservation of Ancient Statures is going to have Mr. Frederic Harrison on the council, they say. You know he’s written an essay about it; says it is vulgar, and entirely inharmonious with that Revelation of Humanity that is found in the teachings of Comte. It is the sort of thing the Eighteenth Century couldn’t have produced even in its worst moments. The idea of the Food never entered the head of Comte–which shows how wicked it really is. No one, he says, who really understood Comte….”