Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

‘Aren’t you having anything at all?’

‘I’m not thirsty.’

Daniel spoke with enough emphasis to make Eric glance at him but not pursue the matter. Soon afterwards Eric said, ‘What was this item you were going to raise?’

‘Oh yes. Well, it’s a bit difficult to put neatly. More a feeling.’

‘Some quite important points are that.’

‘Yeah. Well… I’m afraid it rather brings in philosophical things. Things to do with belief. You know, church doctrine.’

‘To me, you can say anything you like about that. It’s one of the great advantages of me from your point of view. But try not to go too fast.’

‘Right.’ Daniel paused again, then nodded to himself. ‘Right. For all your professional pessimism, you’d agree that more and more drugs are being discovered every day and the field of their application is widening all the time.’

‘Yes. Exponentially.’

‘Is there any theoretical limit to their expansion?’

‘I don’t quite know what you mean by that, but if it’s, will there come a time when there are no more drugs to discover, then I haven’t thought about it but it’s certainly a long way off. If it’s, are there going to turn out to be parts of the mind and human behaviour that can never be reached by drugs, then I have thought about that but to little effect. Actually theory doesn’t help much there, because the question takes us outside pharmacology and biology and any other ology and into, what you said, philosophy, where I’m near enough at sea. But you want something more than that.’ Eric poked inconclusively at the slice of lemon in his glass. Then he said rather quickly, ‘Nothing I’ve learnt in the sense of being able to write it down, write it out, none of it tells me there are any areas of consciousness beyond the reach of human modification, and if the resulting prospect displeases you, don’t investigate recent findings on the results of physical interferences with the brain by surgery or accident or both at once. As for gene surgery, I’ve made a personal point of not investigating that.’

‘But,’ said Daniel. ‘At least I hope there’s a but.’

‘Oh, there is, beyond argument and beyond fact. Something tells me, and I mean tells me, not just suggests to me — something tells me that that is not so, that there is a part of each one of us no man could ever touch. I am I and you are you and will remain so. Unalterably. That something is very old, many times older than pharmacology. In my case it goes back at least as far as Abraham. In yours, Daniel,’ said Eric gently, ‘you’ll allow me to say it’s a little more recent than Abraham. But your personal… something… is stronger than mine. God has blessed you, my friend. I needn’t tell you to be grateful for that.’

After a silence, Daniel said, ‘I remember you telling me once that mad or disturbed people whose troubles disappear under the right chemotherapy, that some of them get to feel so well or at least so all right that they reckon they can manage without, and are back to square one in no time. Could anything like that happen to Ruth?’

‘Ah. Well, since she’s not in hospital there’s nothing to stop her cutting her dosage down or even out. But if she does she’ll soon start feeling rotten enough to go back on it off her own bat. Whereas…’

‘Whereas if she doesn’t feel rotten we could be starting to win.’

‘We’ve won the first battle already, but yes. My turn to buy a drink. Another zero for you, or something more substantial?’

‘I… Could I have a glass of water?’

‘Water coming up.’

When Eric was back in his seat, Daniel said to him, ‘Just to sum up, or put it another way: those domains of thought and action traditionally annexed to free will are being more and more encroached upon by the development of drugs and other novelties, and at present no end to this progression is foreseen. Sorry to sound so cut-and-dried, but it’s the way I’m beginning to think these days. Have I left anything out?’

‘But,’ said Eric.

‘I hadn’t forgotten about but,’ said Daniel.

‘It’s just that my Church is more easy-going than yours,’ said Leo.

Daniel shook his head. ‘That can’t be true as things are today. Years ago it probably was.’

‘Even now I doubt very much if your boys and girls would have scraped a helpless, hopeless drunk off the street and not only brought him back all the way but encouraged him, and I mean encouraged, not just put no obstacle in his way but positively begged him to take holy orders.’

‘Well, that’s an excellent description of what our lot did for me only a short time ago.’

‘Oh, great. So here we are with another piece of our lives that’s been pretty much the same for us both.’

‘Part of us that’s the same.’

‘Pretty much the same.’

‘Exactly the same.’

‘Because we’re exactly the same.’

‘Exactly the same.’

Daniel felt comforted by the complete identity of himself with his twin and their complete accord in the matter. As before they sat in the kitchen, at the table. He turned his head away and looked out of the open garden door. Outside it was very bright and very still, with nearer objects in deep shade, paving stones and a stone tablet, evergreen plants and small shrubs in stone urns and earthenware pots, coils of dark-green hosepipe that had left dark puddles and patches of damp. The sight seemed to Daniel to reflect the tranquillity of his life. At the same time it occurred to him that he had not noticed the stone tablet before. He fancied it bore an inscription, but it was too far off for him to be certain of that, let alone to read whatever might have been there. He was about to get up and go and look when he heard a small sound from the far side of the table and turned back towards it.

A replica of himself was facing him. Ears, eyebrows, hair and its length and arrangement, shape of face, ears, everything was as Daniel was used to seeing it in the mirror, although he strongly suspected that that summary could not be true in fact.

‘Who are you?’ he asked curiously.

‘It’s hard to find a single word for who I am,’ replied what he recognized as his own voice. ‘Or what I am. Nevertheless, if you and Leo are twins, you and he and I could be triplets. Quite conceivable, if you’ll pardon the impropriety, vicar. As our brother recently explained to you, monozygotic twins come from a single fertilized ovum that has split into two. When one of those moieties splits again, we’re presented with identical triplets and, as you may have read in various newspapers, there’s no theoretical limit to the number of times that can happen, or be induced to happen. Are you with me so far, Daniel?’

‘Yes.’ Daniel might have added that what was being said to him was also to be heard, with total synchronicity, inside his head, but thought it advisable to keep quiet about that.

‘Whatever their number,’ resumed the being across the table, ‘all the resulting persons or animals or vegetal entities are identical. The artificial process, known as cloning, has long been a botanical commonplace and one day, perhaps quite soon, may be practically as well as theoretically applicable to human beings. Compared with non-uniform organisms, clones offer an untold, unexplored range of advantages and possibilities. Some of these are of course social, even political, indicating a community as simple as an anthill or a beehive. But you and I, brother, aren’t interested in that, in what may or may not actually happen in the future; our concern is philosophical and so timeless. When the uniqueness of the individual is found to be limited and finite, instead of universal and infinite, it ceases to be a usable concept. It follows that any ideas of free choice that may be nourished by a human unit, formerly known as an individual, are illusory and false. Your path to God, Daniel, was already there waiting for you. You had no alternative.’