4. Mama’s Nice Little Man

Well, what I have been trying to say is: The similarities between the Older Theology and the Newer Biology, in respect to Man, are much more numerous than their disagreements. In any case, the difference between them isn’t worth a fight; certainly not by people who like to think of themselves as Christians.

I hope I have not wearied you with this lengthy dissertation on Primitive Man and his probable relation to the Other Animals. To me it has always been a fascinating subject. Had I ever been able to afford such an expensive avocation, I should have bought a shovel and given some time to Anthropology.

Before we leave this intriguing riddle, let me make one more observation about Man and the other intelligent Animals. It concerns Foreign Policy.

What I mean by Foreign Policy, in this connotation, is the attitude of one genus in its effort to live with other genera in the same world. The four-footed Animals, we say, are directed by Instinct, while Man, at liberty to choose his course of action, arrives at his decisions by a process of Trial and Error. In the main, this is true enough for all practical purposes; but there are many examples of Animals who have practiced Trial and Error.

When the horseless carriage graduated from its experimental phase and became a swift and murderous monster, you used to see a few dead chickens along the road in the vicinity of farmhouses. The hen is, by nature, a highly emotional animal. Instinct had never provided her with anything like a Foreign Policy in regard to motorcars. It is a rare occurrence, today, to find a dead hen on the road; the reason being that only the hens which adopted the policy of keeping off the road when the automobile hove in sight survived. Their posterity inherited this valuable legacy.

But, generally speaking, the four-footers have it all over Mankind in this matter of Foreign Relations. The deer, when menaced by the wildcat, takes to his heels. Once upon a time, the early ancestors of this deer probably had short legs; but a pair of them, somewhat taller than their fellows, decided to make a run for it when a wildcat tried to take over; and escaped. Other long-legged ones made similar ventures without success; but it soon became a stern problem of survival. Only the longer-legged ones remained to reproduce their kind. Today, the deer has a definite Foreign Policy: he runs away: he always runs away and keeps on running! He does not stop en route and try to hide.

The rabbit, menaced by the fox, sits still. He knows that he cannot even place or show in a race with a fox. He sits still, very, very still indeed, as did his parents and grandparents before him. He does not get stampeded, at the last minute, and make a dash for it. No, sir; he makes himself as unobtrusive as possible. No vain exhibitionist is our modest little rabbit. He has a passion for anonymity (if one may venture to put a neat, but retired, phrase back into circulation).

But look at Man! With all his alleged superiority of intelligence, as compared with that of the quadrupeds, how well is he doing in the field of foreign relations?

If any of the other species of the genus homo object to testifying in this unofficial investigation, let us restrict our examination to our own beloved land, as of today, in midsummer of 1950. Have we a Foreign Policy?