Neville debates an agnostic chemistry professor during a Barbados stay

On a months-long stay in Barbados with his wife and small daughter, Neville met Major Morrison of Trinidad, who was enthusiastic about his teaching, and an elderly retired English professor of chemistry who had come to set up a local soap factory; over cocktails Morrison raised Neville's ideas and the professor declared himself an agnostic, really an atheist, interested only in the physical world.