“Horrible!” I cried out. “Each of these slaughtered Italians on whom that man fired down from his safe position above had a mother and a sweetheart at home, and was himself no doubt reckoning on his opening life.”
“My dear, all of them were enemies, and that alters the whole point of view.”
“Very true,” said Dr. Bresser; “as long as the idea of a state of enmity between men is sanctioned, so long the precepts of humanity cannot be of universal application.”
“What say you, Baron Tilling?” I asked.
“I should have wished for the man a decoration to adorn his valiant breast, and a bullet to pierce his hard heart. Both would have been well deserved.”
I threw the speaker a warm, thankful glance; but the others, except the doctor, seemed affected unpleasantly by the words they had just heard. A little pause ensued. As the French say: “Cela avait jeté un froid.”
“Have you ever heard, excellency, of a book by an English natural philosopher named Darwin?” said the doctor, turning to my father.
“No, never.”
“Oh yes, papa, just recollect. It is now four years ago since our bookseller sent us the book, just after its appearance, and you then said it would soon be forgotten by the whole world.”
“Well, as far as I am concerned, I have quite forgotten it.”
“The world in general, on the contrary, seems in a pretty state of excitement about it,” said the doctor. “There is a fight going on for or against the new theory of origin in every place.”
“Ah, you mean the ape theory?” asked the general on my right. “There was a talk about that yesterday in the casino. These scientific gentlemen hit on strange notions sometimes—that a man should have been an orangutan to begin with!”
“To be sure,” said the Minister nodding (and when Minister ⸻ said “to be sure” it was always a sign that he was making himself up for a long talk), “the thing sounds rather funny, and yet it is capable of being taken seriously. It is a scientific theory built up not without talent, and with the apparatus of an industrious collection of facts; and though, to be sure, these have been satisfactorily controverted by the specialists, yet like all adventurous notions, however extravagant they may be, it has produced a certain effect, and finds its defenders. It has become a fashion to discuss Darwin; but this will not last long—though the word Darwinism has been invented—and then, to be sure, the so-called theory will itself cease to be taken seriously. It is a pity that people get so hot fighting over this eccentric Englishman; his theory thus acquires an importance to which it has no claim. It is, of course, the clergy who especially set themselves in array against the imputation, which, to be sure, is a degrading one, that man, created in the image of God, should now all of a sudden be thought to be derived from the race of brutes—an assumption which, to be sure, is very shocking from a religious point of view. Still it is notorious that ecclesiastical condemnation of a theory which introduces itself in the garb of science is not capable of stopping its dissemination. Such a theory does not become harmless till it has been reduced ad absurdum by the representatives of science, and that in respect of Darwinism, to be sure—”
“But what nonsense!” broke in my father, fearful, as it seemed, that another long string of “to be sures” might weary the rest of his guests, “what nonsense! From apes to men! Surely what is called the ordinary healthy common sense is enough to refute all such mad notions—scientific refutation is hardly wanted.”
“Well, I can scarcely regard these refutations as so perfectly and demonstrably certain,” said the doctor. “They have, it is true, awakened reasonable doubts of it; but, still, the theory has much probability in its favour, and it will take some little time to bring men of learning to unanimity about it.”
“I think these gentry will never be unanimous,” said the general on my left, who spoke with a harsh accent, and generally used the Viennese dialect; “why, they live by disputing. I have also heard something of this ape business. But it was too stupid, to my mind, to suit me. Why, if one bothered oneself about all the chatter that the stargazers and grass-collectors and frog-dissectors use to make us believe that X is Y, one should lose one’s ears and eyes. Besides, a little while ago, in an illustrated paper, I saw the visage of this Darwin, and that is itself so apish that I can well believe his grandfather was a chimpanzee.”
This joke, which pleased the speaker mightily, was followed by a burst of laughter, in which my father joined with the affability of a host.
“Ridicule is, to be sure, a weapon,” said the Minister seriously, “but it does not prove anything. It is possible, however, to meet Darwinism—I may use this new term—and conquer it, with serious arguments resting on a scientific basis. If one can oppose to an author of no authority such names as Linnaeus, Cuvier, Agassiz, Quatrefages, his system must fall in pieces. On the other hand, to be sure, it cannot be denied that between men and apes there is a great similarity of structure and that—”
“In spite of this similarity, however, the cleft is miles wide,” broke in the quieter general. “Can you imagine an ape capable of inventing the telegraph? Speech alone raises men so far above beasts—”
“I beg your excellency’s pardon,” said Dr. Bresser, “speech and artistic inventions were not originally congenital in mankind. Even today a savage could not construct any sort of telegraphic apparatus. All this is the fruit of slow improvement and development.”
“Yes, yes, my dear doctor,” replied the general. “I know ‘development’ is the cant word of the new theory. Still you cannot develop a camel out of a kangaroo, and why does not one at
