" ‘All this was before the adventure associations sprang up. At the time these associations came into being, the scientists had achieved so high a state of perfection with the device of providing blind persons with sights they did not actually see, that the result was, the blind could be made to see almost anything, even a whole series of nonexistent events.

" ‘In an evil hour, some scientist suggested to the New Zealand government that the people should be offered plays they could witness through their optic nerves, and thus experience them as actual. This would be a substitute for the adventures of the associations. The government accepted the suggestion. It would necessitate removing the eyes of the subjects, and providing them with photo-sensitive cells. A man who trusts his whole life to an adventure association would certainly be willing to submit to the slight Inconvenience of seeing through a mask instead of through his eyes for the rest of his life.

" ‘At first there was no great rush on the part of the people to accept the operation. A few did so, and gave glowing accounts of the results; but to submit to an operation whose results would be permanent for the sake of a few hours or even days of visual pleasure did not appeal to the majority. But it was at once apparent that if electrical impulses could be arranged so that the subject would see things that were not in existence, others could be similarly arranged to reach the senses of smell, and even of feeling, taste or what you will. Like the original operation on the eyes, the process of development was slow; it was over a hundred years from the time when the New Zealand government first offered its citizens operations on the eyes to the date when the completed Adventure Machines such as you have seen were produced in all their complexity. The type of electrical impulse to produce the desired sensation on every nerve had first to be found, then applied, and finally woven into a complex record to he placed in a Machine with other records to provide the Machine Adventurer with a complete series of sensations.

" 'THE final process was that the subject was operated upon by skilled surgeons. Every nerve in the body was laid bare, one after another; eyes, ears, nerves of feeling and taste, nerves of motion. To each was attached the tiny silver wire, and each was given the atomic treatment, then led down with the others to form a cable. During the first part of the operation the subject was placed under anaesthesia, but at the end, until his record was connected up, he experienced no sensations at ail; he merely existed in an inert state, devoid of animation or feeling.

“ ‘As one set of nerves after another yielded its secrets to the scientists, the government Adventure Machines began to grow popular. They had enormous advantages over the adventure associations. The associations offered personal adventure that was often deadly; the Government Machines were absolutely safe. The adventure associations were costly; the Government device cost nothing, for when the subject submitted to the operation he was regarded by the courts as legally dead and his property passed to the Government. The adventure associations could offer only violent, physical adventures; the Government method could give the adventurer whatever he wanted. They could enable him to get the most out of life In whatever way he wished, for records of every sort were prepared, suited to the psychology of the individual.