Time of parted men"
(Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
The march undertaken by Monkey Glass and his group, after the hail of the stones, came to be epic. It exceeded even the Long March led by Mao-Tse-Tung, both in extension and grandeur. And it did not fail to overcome it also in painfulness. However, the beauty of the ways the friends trod, the exotic sensations they experienced and the extent of the discoveries they made redeemed all penalties. The reader will understand why.
When approaching a point where the trees began to thin and a bald plateau replaced the jungle, the four friends met with a Peacock showing its multicolored tail with all nattiness.
- Hail, eminence! greeted the Monkey Glass. What are you doing in these parts? Why are you not inside the forest, which has plenty of trees where you can hide?
- I don’t intend to hide. It never interested me. We, the Peacocks, impose ourselves by the exuberance of our size. The superiority of our plumage, its colorful feature are worth flaunting. Seven feet, I repeat, seven feet is the height we reach with this adornment!
–But what advantage can confer so heavy a tail? Don’t you feel oppressed by its weight? asked Monkey Potsherd, as if he himself cleft under that weight.
–Have you heard of sexual selection? A Man named Darwin showed that, in certain situations, animals have to fight for possession of the opposite sex. Mainly males for females. The result of that clash is sexual selection. Only the most beautiful can conquer the opposite sex, said the Peacock holding up his head with pride.
- Darwin, but Darwin, the great scientist! Potsherd remembered.
– Great, it’s true, retorted the Peacock, with an attitude that could be said of respect or of contempt. Anyway, he continued undaunted:
– Great indeed. But mostly hard working. Men deduce in a strange way. They fancy too much. Darwin was no exception. We, animals, are otherwise. We always think concretely. Therefore, what we conclude is invariably more useful than the vain human reasonings.
–You don’t do justice to men, opposed Monkey Tile. Humans and animals have different modes of reasoning. Neither is superior to the other. The perfection of human thinking is the abstract, the generic. The perfection of animal thought is the concrete and individual.
And he added in the same breath, not to allow the conversation drift from the chosen issue:
- Darwin showed the role of natural selection in evolution. But why is your tail an example of that process?
- Our tail is not preserved by natural selection, but by sexual, corrected the Peacock. They are different things. Some species gain advantage in the struggle for survival, while others are extinguished. Some of the advantages they gain are reproductive, as in the case of the Peacock’s tail, which is infallible in attracting females. That’s the meaning of sexual selection.
- Something intrigues me in your tirade, intervened Earthenware, who had been pondering the assertions and claims of the others. Don’t the species become extinct by major disasters like falling meteors, volcanism, gases released from sea sediments? What was the role either of natural or sexual selection in the definition of the species that survive, under such circumstances?
- In cataclysms, species loss does not occur in the same manner as that of individuals. Individuals are victimized instantly. Species become extinct much more slowly, not due to the disasters themselves, but to environmental changes that follow. So that selection, natural and sexual, not disasters, is what determines the species that survive and those that leave the scene.
- I understand, Earthenware said, just to shoot the discussion in an unexpected direction:
- If environmental transformations cause the extinctions, natural selection cannot work by the struggle for survival. That struggle implies that species deprive each other of the means of survival, as Darwin said: "More individuals are born than can survive." But environmental transformation does not work that way. It introduces mesological conditions unfavorable to all or almost all, which make livelihoods scarce and destroy the species, regardless of their struggle.
By now, the Peacock stated, with the air of one who dismisses a crowd at the conclusion of a ceremony:
– Evolution is conducted within a framework of harmony, not of fighting. The species compete, it’s true, but they also help each other. The forest on whose threshold we are is the best proof of what I say: the beings who live there are not dispersed throughout the world, because gathering together and cooperating with others lead them to thrive.
– The harmony which you mean is not seldom associated with the idea of a Creator, pondered Monkey Glass oblivious of the ceremonial visage of the Peacock. Nature is harmonious because it was designed, created and is maintained by God. But if so, why did men develop their idea of evolution apart from God, or with intent to deny his existence?
- Thank you for reminding us of these things. And for the lesson you taught us...
- You're welcome, the Peacock bluffed, hoping to be rewarded with some insects to devour as a pay for his lecture.
– My explanation was remarkable indeed, continued the Fowl. Honestly, don’t you think I am worthy of one of those honorific awards that human Universities are pleased to grant? I have done more for world culture than many PhD’s!
- Mr Peacock, better consider what you say. You do have merits, but do not grow them beyond the measure, corrected Monkey Tile.
– As a matter of fact, I’m notorious! replied the other.
Definitely, excessive humility was not a defect of the Peacock. As well as he compared his own plumage with that of other beings and found it superior, by a strange kind of extrapolation, he also compared his intellect with those of others and concluded exactly the same. That strange addiction somehow damaged his wits. It hindered him from reasoning, at least in certain directions. So that the Monkeys thought it useless to continue the dialogue with him. They preferred to say goodbye and continue their march.
When leaving, Glass whispered to another:
- The mission we're in is not for whole people. Those who are keep on the forest’s threshold.
And when he said it, they resumed marching.
The dangers of the icy regions peeped at them.
