Illusions of Immortality by Edmond Haraucourt

Author:Edmond Haraucourt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2012-06-16T00:00:00+00:00

III. The Gorilloid

That moving scene, in exciting the nervous tension of the auditorium, had been well-designed to prepare a feverish welcome for Professor Sffaty’s conclusions: anticipated conclusions, discounted by some, revolting to others, impatiently awaited by the combativeness of all.

Suddenly, a relative tranquility emerges throughout the hall; silence is gradually reestablished, and that very silence resembles an injunction finally to formulate those subversive conclusions, against which some are waiting to protest indignantly.

The lecturer, who senses that public preoccupation and is not at all apprehensive about it, collects himself momentarily before he resumes speaking. Then he extends his right hand, and in a firm but unprovocative voice, he says:

I would have finished, Messieurs, if it were not still necessary for me to touch upon, if only briefly, the thorniest part of this study, and to reach the conclusion you expect of us. I indicated it at the beginning of this talk, and public opinion, with adverse passions, has already asked the question. Are Gorillas descended from Humans?

Movements.

I am only too well aware that the hypothesis alone has raised indignant protests, and that we have been accused of attacking the self-respect of our race, which God created and fashioned in his own image. I am only too well aware of how difficult and scabrous the question is from social, religious and mundane viewpoints. Messieurs, from the scientific viewpoint, it is not; we study life in its multiform aspects, we study it without preconceptions and without fury, in order to extract, insofar as it is possible, the great laws that preside over the progression of beings. In any case, in order to reassure the most legitimate scruples. I will immediately tell you my personal and categorical response to the question posed:

No! Gorillas are not descended from Humans.

Various movements.

The reason is simple. Humans have disappeared, and we have just contemplated their ruination. Now, if they were truly our ancestors, they would still exist, since they would exist in us, by means of us, who would represent their perpetual life down here. So, since it pleases some people to consider that descendancy as a humiliation for us and an abasement of our dignity, let us discard the hypothesis, Messieurs. I consent to that, and I assert it.

But if we are not descended from Humans, does that mean that they and we are not descended from a common ancestor? If they are not our ancestors, does that mean that they are not our kin—elder brethren of a sort?

Agitation. Ironic laughter.

You would laugh even louder if I told you that once, in the Quaternary centuries, the human species was able to smile as you are doing, and become indignant, too, at the mere idea of a kinship with us! Then, it was radiant in all its glory, while we were still struggling in the limbo of animality, striving with great difficulty to bring forth our consciousness. It was doubtless scornful of us, refusing to recognize any link between itself and us, seeing us as nothing but beasts, and—who knows?—perhaps putting us in cages.

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