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BION Suppose there is a physical disease, such as asthma, possessing physical components which remain to be discovered. There may be a mind (personality) that fears discovery of the asthma. I regard that as the mental aspect of the personality from which he retreats. Or he may want to develop his existing capacity to a higher pitch. This development could show itself in a man who was unaware of the physical pain caused by a scarcely existent hepatic cancer becoming able to feel pain though previously incapable of experiencing it. But suppose it was not wished or not practicable to foster a development indistinguishable from an approach to hypochondriasis. Without any change in the personality, could one elaborate an instrument no more to do with the personality than a measure of length or height would have to do with the personality that wished to use it to find out how tall he was; or a system of lenses relates to the personality wanting to observe a distant scene? We might fit to his mind an instrument which made him, without any more disturbance than a pair of spectacles, aware of physical pain which he could not detect unaided.
WATSON What about fitting him out with a questionnaire which he could be required to fill in? Then, according to the pattern displayed by his completed form, it would be possible to ‘see’ the pain.
SHERLOCK Brilliant, Watson! I could hardly have done better myself.
BION So you fictitious characters have turned up again.
WATSON Not Mycroft; only Sherlock and I.
SHERLOCK Since you want to have a hunch – which you can deny if it turns out wrong – I suppose we have to stand in for your missing integrity. Is that it?
BION Not quite. But certainly I want to be able to repudiate it if it should seem unsuitable for rigorous application.
WATSON I see the idea. I wish you could have my Jezail bullet.
ROSEMARY (brightly) What about fitting a woman – me, for example?
ALICE Or even me? Could not that augment – without it costing you any change in your person