born of the law"
(Carlos Drummond de Andrade)
While the Apes talked about the manuscripts, the sentinel of hunger sent them constant warnings. At first, they did not give heed, but the watchman gently managed to make them understand, by repeated suggestions, that thought is circumscribed by nature, like civilization by the wilderness, not the opposite.
The warnings of hunger finally convinced them that it was no longer enough to palliate it with Insects. In order to be able to continue the investigation that had been opened, they needed to solve the increasingly urgent problem of their livelihood. What meant they needed to reach the coastal woods.
In the meantime, Shard’s former idea returned to his brain: why had they not persuaded the Donkey to provide them a shuttle? If had done that, they would already have consummated the crossing of the vast arid element. And that without ailments. But this time, Shard combated the seduction with the thought that, for rational beings, to live involved looking at others and seeing them. Or to apply the principle to the case, though the circumstances of the pilgrimage were adverse, it was not right to evade the Donkey, with flattery or trickery, to transport them to the woods. It was not fair to lower their suffering by increasing that of another being.
Repentance, however, only dissipated totally, when they went back to the manuscripts and discovered more useful helps than the Donkey could furnish them. The scroll with six columns spoke of consolations, instilled hope and enabled them to pull forces not only from other forces, but even out of weaknesses. Thus, the way the wind had led them to the manuscripts, the logos emanating from these, setting in the core of their souls, proved the supreme power of raising their scarce energy and of giving them resources completely new.
So they proposed to continue the march, though with the belly stocked only with Insects that together, shaken and pressed down, did not equal the mass of a single feather. And after another night's sleep, they left the ruins toward the woods.
On the way, Glass asked his fellows:
- The incredible energy that propelled us while reading the manuscripts, the dynamo that made us enough for this crossing, is not the sense of the sacred?
– I also feel its move, said Tile. But don’t stop wondering if the feeling is not produced by some illusion. I ask myself if, as the brain of an exhausted wanderer produces mirages of oases and water, ours doesn’t flood our heart with illusory consolations and vain hopes. And if this mixture of deceit and comfort is not what Men call religion.
Shard was on the way to form a different opinion and expressed it:
- Perhaps these Siamese faces of religion, consolation and illusion, are only a moment of it. So long is the existence of religion in the world, so protracted is the worship that Men rise to the divine that people have difficulty to accurately perceive them. Take one moment as if it were the entire extent of the phenomenon. Closer observation would induce the understanding that religion changes shape, so that we shouldn’t judge it only by its prime moment, when its power of consolation and "illusion" focuses and bends upon itself. We’d better judge it by its whole becoming, that is, by the full process of transformation religion undergoes.
- And how is that process? asked Tile.
- This is the central question to be answered about religion. All other ones are secondary, when compared to it. However, religion is too complex. I can’t give a description of it without shortcomings or failures. Confine myself to say that religious "illusion" is an interpretation, not a datum. And like all interpretations, it’s not the only conclusion that can be drawn from religious experience. Remember the dreams we had last night?
- Yes, and I wonder if religion is not itself a conscious dream, a kind of dream you dream awake.
- I think it is, Shard admitted, or at least it’s analogous to a dream. However, neither dreams nor religion are strictly illusory. When we dream, our mind doesn’t delude us. I mean we don’t see, hear or smell something, and then try to represent it in dreams. Dreams aren’t synthesized to represent actual objects. They are rather responses of the imaginative mind to the emotional needs of the individual. So they aren’t true or false. What conveys the meaning of both dreams and religion is their function, not the representation of the world they bring forth. The function of religion is to protect the person from the extreme risk of living.
While discussing these things, the friends began the descent of the cliff between the desert and the sea. The initial part of the huge formation consisted of bare rocks, among which bushes rose. That day, however, the escarpment was shrouded in a mist that seemed to enter the Monkeys’ eyes. And to further complicate the descent, it rained. So the four friends walked cautiously and, from time to time, stopped to locate. In one of these moments, Tile told Glass:
– You said that religion has not the purpose of representing the world. But doesn’t it produce representations of objects and facts? In Hindu mythology, for example, the world is not described as a Turtle called Kurma? Do you propose that Hindus never understood that myth as a description of the universe?
- No. Of course they did, and that’s one of the possible interpretations of the myth in question. But the same minds that created the interpretation doubted it. That’s why they conceived the alternative interpretation that the Turtle is a metaphor, a symbol, not a literal description of the world. The important thing is that religion per se doesn’t solve the impasse it creates between literal and symbolic interpretations of myth.
Ware could not help joining the conversation at this point:
- From religion’s "illusions" that help overcome challenges of life and death, people go to mythic representations of the world. And do so because the solution, the remedy that religion provides to the problems of life, tends to make the world part of the problem. The world is a threatening place for him who has administered the medicine of religion to himself. It seems to contradict and threaten religion. So, to reconcile religion and the world, societies create the worldviews we call myths. But myths, though reducing the gap between religion and the world, tend to be appropriated more as new drugs than as antidotes to the "illusions". So they are prone to enlarge religion’s dysrhythmia.
- Yes, Shard completed. But the more methods of rational thought are developed, such as philosophy, mathematics, natural science and techniques, more people move to a critical state that allows them to overcome religion’s "illusion". In this process, they tend to break the deadlock between the literal and the symbolic interpretations of myths, resolving it either in favor of the one or of the other, depending on the historical circumstances.
Ware recalled:
- That's what happened with the great Greek philosophers and Roman writers, who questioned the ancient myths. And also with the Jewish rabbis and Christian theologians, which deepened religious thought in rational directions.
– Undoubtedly, Shard nodded. Religion itself begins to question myths, by creating different interpretations of them. However, the continuation of the questioning depends on the help of other forms of rational thought. This process, which can be termed critical, is extremely cruel to religion’s "illusions", for it reduces them to pieces. Carried far enough, it can even cancel the “illusions”. Only then, the cycle of transformation of religion is completed.
It came to be Ware’s turn to agree:
- Yes, but there are things outside the cycle that also help to understand the phenomenon. For example, the extinction of the groups that have not developed religion. Piety and feelings connected to it were so successful, in Natural History, that only groups which cultivated them arrived at the present age. So it’s necessary to observe the various stages of development of the phenomenon we’re debating, without neglecting the contrast between the religious and the non-religious populations.
Tile listened with utmost thoughtfulness. At the end, he noted:
- You suggest that religion should be judged by its entire development, not just by the moment we apprehend as illusion...
- Precisely, said Shard. We're in a survey, perhaps the hardest ever held about the origins of Apes. We have learned that the origin of our species is linked to those of other beings, and that all these origins, intertwined, are governed, in part, by laws such as natural selection. However, this viewpoint, which is usually called scientific, doesn’t make religion illusory. It rather warrants it, since religious people have reached the highest degree of evolutionary success. Consider the case of Men. They emerged long before religion. However, the groups which have turned to transcendence were exactly those that survived. Human evolution allows us to conclude, therefore, that the abandonment of religion is an involution, an evolutionary reversal that is unlikely to succeed.
While debated these ideas, the Monkeys reached a stretch of the sea cliff studded with abundant and lush trees. When breathed the fresh air that pervaded the place, a secret pleasure raided them. It was clear that, from that point on, the fauna would include animals increasingly diverse, sources would multiply, and trees would become lavish in fruits. Lakes, rivers and waterfalls would also be seen with increasing ease. And to their great luck, the mist dissipated quickly. What seemed to mean that they were safe from the enduring risk of death that had accompanied them on the glacier and in the desert. And they were so glad that, inspired by Genesis, named the place Garden of Eden.
They couldn’t but resume the descent increasingly animated. And after two more hours of walk, they came to a lake of serene waters, where a handful of Swans glided. Glass addressed them:
- Hail! What a beautiful place! Is it your home?
- Yes, it is, since we are a family, said one of the Fowls. If we aren’t, it won’t be.
- How so? asked the Ape.
- The exuberance of this environment only makes a home, a haven, if we live as a family. This is my family, he added, referring to the peers who sailed the waters with him.
- Well, I understand it... said Glass. So gallant a family should be one of the pinnacles of the evolution of Fowls!
- What evolutionary ancestor do you come from? Tile asked, unable to avoid the disquieting issue.
- Offspring is too complex a subject to be covered in a question so restrictive, replied the Fowl. We are not obliged to construe it as a synonym for origin from one and the same ancestor trunk.
That last sentence sounded familiar to the Monkeys, especially to Glass, who asked:
- But isn’t it possible for you to mention at least the strongest candidates to be your ancestors?
- Take heed: if life was engendered many times and in many ways, why its spontaneous origin, which science describes, and its divine creation, proposed by religions, can’t be both true? And if they are, the answer to your questions will never be found in an investigation limited to the framework of Evolution.
Once more the Fowl’s response sounded familiar. When heard it, Ware could not help exclaiming:
- Let's lengthen the views of our intellect, let’s lengthen them extremely!
Suddenly, the others understood, as Ware had done, that the Swan quoted sentences uttered during the survey.
- The rules of conceptual thought, continued the inhabitant of the paradise, are subject to a practical imperative of higher order. The ancients made Astronomy a kind of Astrology. They gave it a practical meaning. Today’s Men have lost touch with the harmony of knowledge and its practical principle.
The Monkeys were paralyzed by a sudden stupor. The Swan’s last sentences were no less than quotes from the Donkey!
- When science becomes bragging, from stones, God can raise children to Abraham, added Swan.
Thus, the meeting of the four with the Swans became an exhibition of the entire movie of the survey. Or at least of its main scenes. In that paradise, they felt touched by the deepest sense of truth. A sense like that which the wind had communicated them in the desert.
- The pitch of the wind, the Swan kept saying, is like the voice of a prophet, which echoes when all mouths were gagged, and cultural order varies. And as to passion for science and passion in general...
- Are they not the false Lyrics? completed Monkey Glass, who had passed from stupor to ecstasy. He asked the Swan:
- What conclusion, what end do these sentences suggest to our survey?
- Why not that evolution has multiple sources, which science, because of its limitations (or you think it doesn’t have them?), can know only in part? And why not also that among those sources, there is one that guides most of the evolutionary process? And that you’re manuscripts composed by that supreme source? Yes, manuscripts like the ones you found and that so inspired you...
Glass was stunned with the piercing science and the higher wisdom he found in that Animal. Dared ask him:
- Why don’t you proclaim these things to the world?
- Because the world is governed by appearance. And when looking at mine and my peers’, it dislikes us. It finds us ugly.
Glass looked around and saw only beauty. The fog had dissipated completely. The weather had opened in flower. He was raptured by the scene of the white Swans roaming the dark waters of the lake. Realized that they were seven. And asked them:
- Tell us how you call yourselves.
At that very moment, the Swan who had quoted the sentences flew away elegantly. And the others went after him.
- Ugly Duckling! Potshard cried.
- Yes, Ugly Duckling! the others repeated, as if waking from a sleep. And kept shouting: "Ugly Duckling, Ugly Duckling!" But the Swan did not return. And they sorrowed.
The floor was covered with lilies of most beautiful hues.
