This Simian World | Page 8

least these two qualities:
some quenchless desire, to urge them on and on; and also adaptability
of a thousand kinds to their environment.
The rhinoceros cares little for adaptability. He slogs through the world.
But we! we are experts. Adaptability is what we depend on. We talk of
our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we
respectfully adapt ourselves first, to her ways. "We attain no power
over nature till we learn natural laws, and our lordship depends on the
adroitness with which we learn and conform."

Adroitness however is merely an ability to win; back of it there must be
some spur to make us use our adroitness. Why don't we all die or give
up when we're sick of the world? Because the love of life is reenforced,
in most energized beings, by some longing that pushes them forward,
in defeat and in darkness. All creatures wish to live, and to perpetuate
their species, of course; but those two wishes alone evidently do not
carry any race far. In addition to these, a race, to be great, needs some
hunger, some itch, to spur it up the hard path we lately have learned to
call evolution. The love of toil in the ants, and of craft in cats, are
examples (imaginary or not). What other such lust could exert great
driving force?
With us is it curiosity? endless interest in one's environment?
Many animals have some curiosity, but "some" is not enough; and in
but few is it one of the master passions. By a master passion, I mean a
passion that is really your master: some appetite which habitually, day
in, day out, makes its subjects forget fatigue or danger, and sacrifice
their ease to its gratification. That is the kind of hold that curiosity has
on the monkeys.

IX
Imagine a prehistoric prophet observing these beings, and forecasting
what kind of civilizations their descendants would build. Anyone could
have foreseen certain parts of the simians' history: could have guessed
that their curiosity would unlock for them, one by one, nature's doors,
and--idly--bestow on them stray bits of valuable knowledge: could
have pictured them spreading inquiringly all over the globe, stumbling
on their inventions--and idly passing on and forgetting them.
To have to learn the same thing over and over again wastes the time of
a race. But this is continually necessary, with simians, because of their
disorder. "Disorder," a prophet would have sighed: "that is one of their
handicaps; one that they will never get rid of, whatever it costs. Having
so much curiosity makes a race scatter-brained.
"Yes," he would have dismally continued, "it will be a queer mixture:
these simians will attain to vast stores of knowledge, in time, that is
plain. But after spending centuries groping to discover some art, in
after-centuries they will now and then find it's forgotten. How
incredible it would seem on other planets to hear of lost arts.

"There is a strong streak of triviality in them, which you don't see in
cats. They won't have fine enough characters to concentrate on the
things of most weight. They will talk and think far more of trifles than
of what is important. Even when they are reasonably civilized, this will
be so. Great discoveries sometimes will fail to be heard of, because too
much else is; and many will thus disappear, and these men will not
know it."[1]
[1] We did rescue Mendel's from the dust heap; but perhaps it was an
exception.
Let me interrupt this lament to say a word for myself and my ancestors.
It is easy to blame us as undiscriminating, but we are at least full of zest.
And it's well to be interested, eagerly and intensely, in so many things,
because there is often no knowing which may turn out important. We
don't go around being interested on purpose, hoping to profit by it, but
a profit may come. And anyway it is generous of us not to be too
self-absorbed. Other creatures go to the other extreme to an amazing
extent. They are ridiculously oblivious to what is going on. The
smallest ant in the garden will ignore the largest woman who visits it.
She is a huge and most dangerous super-mammoth in relation to him,
and her tread shakes the earth; but he has no time to be bothered,
investigating such-like phenomena. He won't even get out of her way.
He has his work to do, hang it.
Birds and squirrels have less of this glorious independence of spirit.
They watch you closely--if you move around. But not if you keep still.
In other words, they pay no more attention than they can help, even to
mammoths.
We of course observe everything, or try to. We could