Club, which is a sanctuary of middle-class professional common sense and cautious conservatism. I had expected the idea to be ridiculed as nonsense. To my surprise and interest some people, but only some people, reacted to the idea with convulsive violence. They practically lost their tempers - with a poor inoffensive idea. 'What would happen to their chances of promotion?' , ran their argument, 'If it ever happened, it would turn society upside down, and destroy the secure world to which they had grown accustomed'. I couldn't answer that; they were so obviously right. But the thought did flash through my mind, before I let the matter drop, that this was the same kind of hatred that led to calvary: a hatred of goodness, a hatred of the goodness and richness of life. As I reflected afterwards, it seemed to me that normally intelligent men would not react like this, unless deep down inside them they feared that the idea might be true. Children are not alarmed by fairy-stories, which they recognise as fantasy, however gruesome. It is only when the story becomes sufficiently true to life, that they are afraid. So with grown-up children, I thought, they would not be frightened either, unless they realised that there was a horrible possibility of the fairy-tale coming true! If they were willing to envisage it coming true, why shouldn't I, I asked myself?
Not everyone does react like this. The medical profession must be toying with the idea. Surgeons, with their perpetually renewable transplants, must be wondering if there is any limit to their technique. One or two psychologists have voiced the idea that there is immortality inside a man's head waiting only to blossom and flower, if what one reads in the papers is reliable. And amongst molecular-biologists there must be a few who are desperately searching through the structure of DNA to find the genes that control the mechanism of aging. Good luck to them! It has been known for long enough that if you starve and feed the American flatworm, you can extend its life to fifty times the normal…