The Artificial Man and Other Stories by Clare Winger Harris

Author:Clare Winger Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Published: 2019-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Evolutionary Monstrosity

I.

“I believe you three fellows are going to startle the world yet,” Professor Lewis of the biology department of our college remarked when we three students, who had termed ourselves the triumvirate, gathered in the laboratory at the close of class. “Marston, what was that theory of evolution you hinted at just before the bell rang? It sounded interesting.”

Ted Marston laughed in a slightly embarrassed manner, though modesty was not ordinarily an outstanding attribute of Ted’s character. His environment, judging from the little information we were able to glean from time to time, had been one of poverty and squalor. He was working his way through college and had proved a credit to that institution.

“Oh, it’s a little far-fetched, professor, and I’m afraid my two high-brow pals here will think I’m cuckoo,” and he tapped his head significantly, “but the idea’s been grinding away in my brain for several days now.”

“Out with it, Ted,” said Irwin Staley jocosely. “Remember this triumvirate holds no secrets from itself. All thoughts are shared.”

Irwin was the son of a wealthy New York broker and had been raised with every luxury that the modern age was capable of producing. His was a brilliant mind, too, but it somehow lacked the initiative that necessity had instilled into the being of Theodore Marston.

“Well if you insist,” replied Ted more seriously. “It’s something like this. I wonder if evolution isn’t the result of a certain bacterial growth which slowly and continuously changes the cellular structure of living organisms, causing the formation of new tissue and organs, and breaking down the old.”

“Poppycock and fiddlesticks!” ejaculated Professor Lewis. “Environment must also play a part in evolutionary change, for evolution is adaptability to environment, and Darwin was right in his theory of the survival of the fittest.”

I’ll admit I was dumbfounded by Marston’s assertion, but not so Irwin Staley.

“Ted,” he cried with enthusiasm, “you’ve got the right dope. It sounds so reasonable. But can you prove it?”

“I sure will,” he answered, “if only for the satisfaction of convincing these doubting Thomases,” indicating the professor and myself, who looked our incredulity.

“The only way you can prove it,” I said, “is to develop specimens more rapidly than environment could possibly change them.”

“That is precisely what I intend to do,” he said.

II.

I, Frank Caldwell, could boast of no extremes either in environment or heredity. My people were middle class, my father being a factory owner in a small town in Iowa. My collegiate rank was slightly above the average, though I showed a decided preference for biology, in which study my two friends excelled.

Following graduation I became Professor Lewis’s assistant, after the position had been refused by Marston. It seems the enthusiasm which Ted Marston felt had been shared, as I feared, by Irwin Staley, who placed at his chum’s disposal ample funds for the purpose of developing his theory of evolution. Thus the “triumvirate” dwindled temporarily to two, while I, troubled with no new, fanciful idea, taught my classes with no inkling of what was to come.

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