Chapter 4 CHAPTER IV. Dr. Hedman Stein was affected

Dr. Hedman Stetin lay awake that night, thinking about Mr. Davis's state of mind and his strange idea of ​​Martians invading human genes.The idea felt a little stimulating, a challenge to his intellect. "Pure nonsense!" he exclaimed, though, in fact, he was so annoyed precisely because it wasn't nonsense.The thought had a tenuous but unbreakable tenacity that he couldn't get it out of his head.Using words like "bullshit" is tantamount to throwing stones at a dog that's following you, only to have the damn thing follow again. "If by chance something like this happens..."

He found himself asking himself whether there was any evidence that a new type of human, or even several new types of humans, had arisen on Earth.Is there such a thing as a Martianized mind? "Stupid phrasing," he said, "but quite moving." He went through the relevant examples accumulated in his brain.He is aware of most of the known facts and understands that it is impossible to draw conclusions from these arguments alone.He thought about the question seriously again.Considers the most certain statement that man has changed little since the Neolithic period, and that man has degenerated since the time of Pericles, being either larger or smaller, healthier or less healthy than his ancestors; according to "authorities" to the public Instill the saying that the person becomes more perfect, more detailed and so on.But when you think about it the way he did, it's all dogmatic nonsense.No one has yet invented a way to tidy up the chaotic records.No one is up to the job.Biologists like J. B. S. Handanner are trying to organize a research community in which even those closest to the facts have nothing more than "impressions" and "beliefs," Herdman Steiner .The doctor naturally thought that some people understand this, and some people don't understand it, so that prejudice arises.Dr. Herdman Steading's own unsubstantiated "impressions" happened to come closest to Mr. Davies's whims.He believed that the human brain was undergoing significant changes.He believes that the number of clumsy types is not as large as in the past, and that the population of new intelligent types is increasing.

"But what does that have to do with Mars and cosmic rays?" retorted his common sense, whose answer was "none of them." After that, he was still stuck in thinking about this question. There were advantages and disadvantages in the rambling night thoughts Dr. Herdman Steining was now in.The advantage is that it has a wide range and many changes; the disadvantage is that it may be fanciful and never return to the main idea.For a while, the doctor's thinking almost entered the latter danger.His mind wandered in a labyrinth of contemporary skepticism and youthful willfulness.He knew the minds of medical students better than he knew most of his peers.Sometimes they made him hopeful, and sometimes they scared him.Like all young men since the dawn of man, they were mostly docile and obedient, but despite this, it was evident that they were now more independent and self-aware than ever before.

People with more questions attract more attention. He turned to the remarkable results of medical research, and from that to the general creativity of our time.Human creativity has never been more evident than it is today.Human creativity has been increasing for more than a century.When you say that a thing cannot be created, it appears -- it is created.It's just that no one has thought that it must be related to the emergence of a new type of intelligence.And it is possible. He felt a desire to have another chat with Davis about the whole thing.Where did Davis get his conviction that new and unusual human types were emerging in the world?The obstacle to having another chat with Davis was the doctor's opinion of Davis - perhaps exaggerated - that his brain was not quite right.If he is really in a hallucination, it would be unwise to "encourage" him in this way.Then something suddenly occurred to Dr. Herdman Stein.

"His wife!" Davis emphasized his wife's weirdness and abnormality several times.Dr. Hedman tried unsuccessfully to recall the words he had used.But the apprehension he expressed about the imminent birth must have had something to do with it. "If he starts to think his wife is a Martianized one! . . . There's no way the guy doesn't think so. What does he say? As if our children turned out not to be our own?" Dr. Herdman Stein spent a good deal of the evening trying to figure out as much as possible about the two of them.She was remarkably demure, observant, and clear-headed.If there is anything special about her thinking, it is because she is so clear-headed.Her movements were effortless and graceful, like that of a person free from any trouble or perplexity.Even in her current state, she was; she was one of the calmest and most cooperative patients he had ever encountered. "If she's Martianized," thought the doctor, "then the sooner we're Martianized, the better."

But then he thought, the total number of times he saw her was only a dozen or so times, maybe there were some aspects of her that he didn't understand, and those aspects might explain her husband's attitude and his uneasiness and distrust towards her. The doctor thought again about the relationship between the couple.He liked her, but was slightly disgusted by her husband.The man's quick, unpredictable, poorly regulated brain activity made him uncomfortable.His literary gifts were undoubtedly remarkable, but like many such literary figures, he was more in control of his literary self than his real-life self.He must have been a great ordeal for her, and now, in any case, she should be protected from his erratic ways.The doctor felt that something should be done about it, so he began to think about what could and couldn't be done, but when he suddenly realized that it was through this violation of fairness that non-professional behavior entered the doctor's life, he gave up. .

In the morning, he wrote a letter to Davis very seriously, marked it as "private letter", and sent it to the astronomy club. It was a long, repeated letter.It is too indirect to be quoted in full here, but the gist of the letter is to warn Davis against getting caught up in "fancy fantasies."These little imaginative thoughts are like those horrible creatures that medieval doctors talked about, which look like nothing, but before you know where you are, jump into your mouth and grow into many monsters in your brain , devouring your sanity.No one's mind, the doctor claims, is sufficiently balanced to resist the distraction of a persistent idea.That's why almost everyone who discusses "psychic phenomena" or "remote sensing" or "astrology" or "palmistry" or fortune-telling cards quickly discovers that "it says something."Mr. Davies should stop thinking about it, divert his attention, play chess, play golf, and let his mind get rid of those thoughts. "You're standing on the edge of a thinking slope, the bottom of which is sexual insanity. I'm writing to you with this frankness because right now you're still a perfectly normal human being."

He understood--he understood it as well as I, said Mr. Joseph Davies, "but he was afraid to go on about it..." "I'm going to go on. But I don't know how to do it. Just watch. Meanwhile, those cosmic rays - arrows from the Martians - flying around me without sound - are born here One, one was born there - the human being was - dehumanized."