‘Exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death and danger dare, even for an egg-shell. Isn’t there something in that?’ he asked, looking up at Mustapha Mond. ‘Quite apart from God—though of course God would be a reason for it. Isn’t there something in living dangerously?’

‘There’s a great deal in it,’ the Controller replied. ‘Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.’

‘What?’ questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.

‘It’s one of the conditions of perfect health. That’s why we’ve made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory.’

‘V.P.S.?’

‘Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It’s the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences.’

‘But I like the inconveniences.’

‘We don’t,’ said the Controller. ‘We prefer to do things comfortably.’

‘But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.’

‘In fact,’ said Mustapha Mond, ‘you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.’

‘All right, then,’ said the Savage defiantly, ‘I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.’

‘Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.’

There was a long silence.

‘I claim them all,’ said the Savage at last.

Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re welcome,’ he said.