OUR ANIMAL HERITAGE
If the biological
view helps us to appreciate the beauty and rhythm of life, it also shows our
ludicrous limitations. Human nature has
its roots in our animal ancestry.
IN
THE IMAGE OF MONKEY
Balfour ought to go down to posterity on the strength of his one saying
that “human brain is as much an organ for seeking food as the pig’s snout.”
When man creates
a civilization of his own, he embarks upon a course of development that
biologically might terrify the creator himself.
So far as adaptation to nature is concerned, all nature’s creatures are
marvelously perfect, for those that are not perfectly adapted, she kills off.
But now we are no longer called upon to adapt ourselves to nature,
we are called upon to adapt ourselves to ourselves, to this thing called
civilizations. All instincts were good,
were healthy in nature, in society, however, we call all instinct savage. Every
mouse steals and he is not the less moral or more immoral for stealing. Every dog barks, every cat doesn’t come home
at night and tears everything it can lay its paw upon, every lions kills, every
horse runs away from the sight of the danger, every tortoise sleeps the best
hours of the day away, and every insect, reptile, bird and beast reproduces its
kind in public.
Now in terms of civilization, every mouse is a thief, every dog
makes too much noise, every cat is an unfaithful husband, when he is not a
savage little vandal, every lion or tiger is a murderer, every horse is a
coward, every tortoise a lazy louse, and finally, every insect, reptile, bird
or beast is obscene when he performs his natural vital functions.
ON BEING
MORTAL
It is so amazed that we are born, we see old grandfathers, who die
in the course of time and when we become grandfathers ourselves, we see other
tiny tots being born. Perfect
arrangement “A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps
upon a bed of five feet” or sixty inches.
In respect of wealth, of this life, “everybody has a share, bad no one
owns the mortgage”.
We are not permanent tenants upon this earth, we are transient
guest. No one really owns a house and no
one really owns a field.
A poet says,
What
pretty, golden fields against a hill !
New comers
harvest crops that others till.
Rejoice
not, O new comers at your harvest,
One waits
behind – a new newcomer still ?
Every funeral procession, carries a banner upon which are written
the word, “Equality to Mankind”, life is essentially but a dream, while we row,
row our boat down the river in the sunset of a beautiful afternoon, that
flowers cannot bloom forever, the moon waxes and wanes, and human life itself
joins the eternal procession of the plant and animal worlds in being born,
growing to maturity and dying to make room for others. Man began to be philosopher only when he saw
the variety of this earthly existence.
Life, is really a dream and human beings are like travelers floating
down the eternal river of time, embarking at a certain point and disembarking
again at another point to make room for others waiting below the river to come
aboard. We are like actors playing our
parts.
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