"Why, it's insane!" Dutton exclaimed.
Pollard smiled. "The old cry," he commented. "Never an attempt. has been made yet to tamper with nature's laws, but that cry has been raised."
"But Dutton's right!" I cried. "Pollard, you've worked here alone too long — you've let your mind become warped—" "You are trying to tell me that I have become a little mad," he I said. "No, I am sane — perhaps wonderfully sane, in trying this."
His expression changed, his eyes brooding. "Can't you two sees what this may mean to humanity? As we are to the apes, so must the; men of the future be to us. If we could use this method of mine to take all mankind forward through millions of years of evolutionary development at one stride, wouldn't it be sane to do so?";
My mind was whirling. "Good heavens, the whole thing is so crazy," I protested. "To accelerate the evolution of the human race? It seems somehow a thing forbidden."
"It's a thing glorious if it can be done," he returned, "and I know that it can be done. But first one must go ahead, must travel on through stage after stage of man's future development to find out to which stage it would be most desirable for all mankind to be transferred. I know there is such an age."
"And you asked us up here to take part in that?"
"Just that. I mean to enter the cube and let the concentrated rays whirl me forward along the paths of evolution, but I must have someone to turn the rays on and off at the right moments."
"It's all incredible!" Dutton exclaimed. "Pollard, if this is a joke it's gone far enough for me."
For answer Pollard rose. "We will go to the laboratory now," he said simply. "I am eager to get started."