genesis.

people often ask, as an idle question, whether the process of evolution began with the chicken or the egg. was there an egg out of which the first chicken came, or did a chicken lay the first egg? I am in a position to say that the first thing created was the egg. when God had manufactured all the eggs out of which the fishes and the serpents and the birds and the mammals and even the duck-billed Platypus would eventually emerge, He called the embryos before Him, and saw that they were good. all embryos look very much the same. they are what you are before you are a born – and whether you’re going to be a tadpole or a peacock or a giraffe or a man, when you’re an embryo, you just look like a peculiarly repulsive and helpless human being. the embryos stood in front of God, with their feeble hands clasped politely over their stomachs and their heavy heads hanging down respectfully, and God addressed them. He said: “now, you embryos, here you are, all looking exactly the same, and We are going to give you the choice of what you want to be. when you grow up you will get bigger anyway, but We are pleased to grant you another gift as well. you may alter any part of yourselves into anything which you think would be useful to you in later life. for instance, at the moment, you can’t dig. anybody who would like to turn his hands into a pair of spades or garden forks is allowed to do so. or, to put it in another way, at present you can only use your mouths for eating. anybody who would like to use his mouth as an offensive weapon, can change it by asking and be a corkindrill or a sabre-toothed tiger. now then, step up and choose your tools, but remember that what you choose you will grow into, and will have to stick to.” all the embryos thought the matter up politely, and then, one by one, they stepped up before the Eternal Throne. they were allowed two or three specializations, so that some chose to use their arms as flying machines and their mouths as weapons, or crackers, or drillers, or spoons, while others selected to use their bodies as boats and their hands as oars. badgers thought very hard and decided to ask three boons. they wanted to change their skins for shields, their mouths for weapons and their arms for garden forks. these boons were granted. everybody specialized in one way or another, and some of them in very queer ones. the asking and the granting took up two long days – they were the fifth and the sixth – and at the very end of the sixth day, just before it was time to knock off for Saturday, they had got through all the little embryos except one. this embryo was Man. “well, Our little man,” said God. “you have waited till the last, and slept on your decision, and We are sure you have been thinking hard all the time. what can We do for you?” “please, God,” said the embryo, “I think that You made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourself, and that it would be rude to change. if I am to have my choice, I will stay as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which You gave me, for other and doubtless inferior tools, and I will stay a defenseless embryo all of my life, doing my best to make myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron and the other materials which You have seen fit to put before me. if I want a boat, I will try to construct it out of trees, and if I want to fly, I will put together a chariot to do it for me. probably I’ve been very silly in refusing to take advantage of Your kind offer, but I have done my very best to think it over carefully, and now hope that the feeble decisions of this small innocent will find favor with Yourself.” “well done,” exclaimed the Creator in delighted tones. “here, all you embryos, come here with your beaks and whatnots to look upon Our first Man. he is the only one who has guessed Our riddle, out of all of you, and We have great pleasure in conferring upon him the Order of Dominion over the Fowls of the Air, and the Beasts of the Earth, and the Fishes of the Sea. now let the rest of you get along, and love and multiply, for it is time to knock-off for the week-end. as for you, Man, you will be a naked tool all your life, though a user of tools. you will look like an embryo till they bury you, but all the others will be embryos before your might. eternally undeveloped, you will always remain potential in Our image, able to see some of Our sorrows and to feel some of Our joys. We are partly sorry for you, Man, but partly hopeful. run along then, and do your best. and listen, Man, before you go…” “well?” asked Adam, turning back from his dismissal. “We were only going to say, God bless you.” it is true that Man has the Order of Dominion, and is mightiest of the animals – if you mean the most terrible one – but I have sometimes doubted lately whether he is the most blessed. if he were to go for a walk beside a river, not only would the birds fly from him, but the very fish would dart to the other side. they don’t do this for each other. Man may be the king of animals (or ought one to say the tyrant?) but we have to admit that he has a quantity of vices. Homo Sapien is almost the only animal which wages war on its own kind. true warfare is rarer in Nature than cannibalism. don’t you think that is very unfortunate?