Mr Blottisham arrived looking unusually satisfied.
"I believe," he announced, "that I've finally understood intelligence."
Professor Quillibrace glanced up from his newspaper.
"Congratulations."
"It solves problems."
"I see."
"That's what intelligence is for."
Miss Stray looked over the rim of her teacup.
"Only that?"
Blottisham smiled confidently.
"What else could it possibly be for?"
Professor Quillibrace folded the newspaper with deliberate care.
"An interesting question."
"I thought so."
"I wonder whether history agrees with you."
Blottisham settled into his chair.
"I expect it does."
Quillibrace regarded him thoughtfully.
"Why was number theory invented?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"For mathematics."
"To solve which practical problem?"
"I've no idea."
"Neither did the mathematicians."
Miss Stray smiled.
"They simply found the questions beautiful."
"Quite."
"And centuries later," Quillibrace continued, "their work became indispensable to cryptography, computing and modern physics."
Blottisham frowned.
"So they solved problems they didn't know existed."
"Precisely."
A brief silence followed.
Blottisham looked faintly suspicious.
"That's rather inconvenient."
"Reality often is."
Miss Stray leaned forward.
"I've always liked telescopes."
"So have astronomers."
"They don't merely let us see farther."
"No."
"They change what there is to look for."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"The microscope behaved in much the same fashion."
"It answered questions."
"And?"
"It created entirely new sciences."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So every good answer produces more questions."
"Frequently."
"That sounds inefficient."
"It is gloriously inefficient."
The room fell into one of those companionable silences that seemed peculiar to old colleges.
Outside, sunlight briefly escaped from behind the clouds before changing its mind again.
Eventually Quillibrace spoke.
"I wonder whether we misunderstand the purpose of intelligence."
"In what way?"
"We imagine it exists to reduce uncertainty."
"Naturally."
"But what if..."
He paused.
"...its greatest achievements increase it?"
Blottisham looked genuinely alarmed.
"Surely that can't be right."
"Can it not?"
"If intelligence keeps creating more uncertainty..."
"...yes?"
"...won't we eventually know less rather than more?"
Miss Stray laughed softly.
"I don't think uncertainty is the opposite of knowledge."
"No?"
"It's often the consequence of discovering how much larger the world really is."
Blottisham considered this.
"So ignorance shrinks..."
"...yes?"
"...but mystery grows."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"A pleasing distinction."
Another silence settled over the room.
Miss Stray glanced at the shelves surrounding them.
"I've noticed something similar about favourite books."
"In what sense?" asked Quillibrace.
"The first time I read them, I looked for answers."
"And the second?"
"I noticed different questions."
"And the third?"
"I discovered I had become a different reader."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"So the book changed?"
"No."
"You did."
"Partly."
She smiled.
"Though sometimes it feels as though the book had been waiting for me to catch up."
Quillibrace nodded approvingly.
"The finest books possess that curious quality."
"They're inexhaustible."
"They continue thinking after we've finished reading."
Blottisham frowned.
"Books don't think."
"No."
"But they continue provoking thought."
"I suppose they do."
Outside, the college chapel bell sounded the quarter-hour.
Its echo lingered briefly across the quadrangle.
Quillibrace looked towards the window.
"I once knew an exceptionally good supervisor."
"What made him exceptional?"
"He rarely answered questions."
Blottisham looked horrified.
"That seems rather poor supervision."
"So one might imagine."
"What did he do instead?"
"He asked better ones."
Miss Stray smiled immediately.
"I've known teachers like that."
"They're unforgettable."
"Why?"
"Because afterwards..."
She searched for the phrase.
"...the subject seemed much larger than before."
Blottisham stared into his teacup.
"I've been assuming education was about reducing confusion."
"It often is."
"But perhaps..."
Quillibrace looked at him kindly.
"...it is also about enlarging possibility."
Another silence.
The afternoon seemed unusually still.
At length Blottisham spoke again.
"I've noticed something curious."
"What is it?"
"When I have a particularly good conversation..."
"...yes?"
"...I rarely leave feeling certain."
Miss Stray nodded.
"What do you leave feeling?"
"Interested."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"An admirable condition."
"I usually have three new ideas."
"Good."
"And six new questions."
"Better."
Blottisham laughed quietly.
"So perhaps the conversation hasn't solved my problem."
"No?"
"It's changed the size of the world."
The sentence hung gently in the room.
No one hurried to improve it.
Outside, a group of students crossed the quadrangle carrying telescopes towards the observatory.
Miss Stray watched them disappear beneath the archway.
"They think they're going to look at the stars."
Professor Quillibrace followed her gaze.
"They are."
"But they'll come back with rather more sky than they expected."
He stood and walked slowly to the window.
"When I was young," he said after a while, "I believed the horizon marked the edge of the landscape."
Blottisham joined him.
"And now?"
Quillibrace looked towards the distant hills beyond the college.
"Now I suspect the horizon has another occupation."
"What is that?"
"It retreats."
Miss Stray came to stand beside them.
"So the purpose of intelligence..."
"...yes?"
"...is not to reach the horizon."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"No."
"It is to keep discovering that there is one."
For a long while, none of them spoke.
The college lay quietly beneath the late afternoon light.
Beyond the gardens, beyond the fields, beyond the hills themselves, the horizon rested exactly where it always had.
Far enough away to invite another journey.
Close enough to suggest there might yet be another world beyond it.
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