The Clockwork Man

by E. V. Odle

The Doctor shuddered slightly, and leaned his head upon his arm. "Consider yourself lucky that you never did see the clock, and that you never had the opportunity of testing its efficiency. It is all very well for you to wax enthusiastic over your theories, but facts are hard masters."

"Precisely," said Gregg, who was beginning to grow impatient with the other's manner, "and since the facts have revealed themselves, what is the use of trying to evade them? Here we have a Clockwork man, a creature entirely without precedent, for there is no record of his having existed in the past, and so far as we know there has been no successful attempt to create such a being in our own times. Everything favours my original hypothesis; that he has in some way, and probably through some fault in the mechanism that controls him, lapsed into these earlier years of human existence. That seems to me feasible. If man has indeed conquered time and space, then the slightest irregularity in this new functioning principle would result in a catastrophe such as we must suppose has happened to the Clockwork man. It is more than probable that a slight adjustment would result in his speedy return to conditions more proper to his true state."

"But this does not explain him," broke in the Doctor, bitterly.

"Wait, I am coming to that. We have to get the facts firmly in our heads. First of all, there is a mechanism, a functioning principle, which causes certain processes to take place, and enables the Clockwork man to behave as no ordinary human being ever could behave. What that functioning principle is we do not yet know; we can only posit its existence—we must do that—and draw what inference we can from its results. Now, the effect of the functioning principle is clear to me, if the cause is hidden. Obviously, the effect of the mechanism is to accelerate certain processes in the purely human part of the Clockwork man's organism to such an extent that what would take years, or even generations, to take place in ordinary mortals, takes place instantaneously. Witness the growth of beard, the changes in appearance, the total collapse. Obviously, these physiological variations occur in the case of the Clockwork man very rapidly; and by adjustment any change may be produced. The problem of his normal existence hangs upon the very careful regulation of the clock, which, I take it, is the keyboard of the functioning principle. But what concerns us at present is the fact that this power of rapid growth makes the Clockwork man able to act in complete defiance of our accepted laws relating to cause and effect."

"We had an argument about that," said the Doctor, dismally. "He tried to explain that to me, but I must say he was no more successful than you are. The whole thing is a complete haze."

But Gregg took little notice of the interruption. "Once you have grasped this idea of a new sort of relativity," he continued, "once you have realised that the Clockwork man behaves in accordance with laws quite different to our own, you can proceed to find some basis for such a phenomenon. The Clockwork man behaves in a certain manner; therefore there must be some cause, however improbable it may appear to us, to account for such behaviour. Now, what is the cause of ordinary human action? It is something equally unaccountable. We can explain it in terms of a system, of a series of processes, but we do not really know what is the secret spring upon which the human animal moves. We can describe the machinery of the human body, but we do not really know what life is, or what is the real nature of the force that produces our actions. So far we know as much about the Clockwork man as we do about ourselves. The difference is confined to processes."

"All this is obvious," said the Doctor, "I have seen enough to convince me of that."

"Precisely. And because you have seen more than I have you are less able to understand the matter than I am. You cannot see the wood for the trees. Again, you were frightened out of your life. Your scientific instincts were stampeded. You saw only a hideous malformation, a neural freak, a preposterous human machine. It was inconceivable that you should have been able to think clearly under the circumstances. Consider the matter in the sober aftermath of reason, and you must agree with me that it is really not more extraordinary that a man should function by mechanical means than that he should function at all."

"I don't agree," retorted the Doctor, with unexpected sharpness. "I think it is far more amazing that a human being should function as he does, than that he should be made to function differently by mechanical means. The Clockwork man is no more wonderful, in that sense, than you or I. He is simply different—damnably different."

Gregg laughed softly. "Well, that is only another way of saying what I have already said. You seem to regard the Clockwork man as a sort of offence; he upsets your sense of decency. To me he is profoundly interesting. I accept him, and all that his curious constitution implies. Think of the triumph for the human brain. For man, thanks to this stupendous invention of the clock, has actually enlarged the universe."