Are We Not Men?

Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?

Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?

Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?

Not to claw Bark of Trees; that is the law.  Are we not Men?

Not to chase other Men; that is the Law.  Are we not Men?

Hmm.  I’d like to say that 4 out of 5 ain’t bad.  And yet, I know I stand condemned of violating the Law.  Does this make me less than human?

H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau has this recitation of the Law.  The Beast Folk use it to remind themselves what it is to be Human.  The echoes of Leviticus run strong.  And this is where Wells runs into a serious difficulty in his book—well, more properly, this is one of the places Wells runs into difficulty in his book.

(The plot for those who don’t know:  Dr. Moreau vivisects animals, turning them into men.  The experiments are not terribly complete, and the animals still retain some remnant of the beast.  So the Law is put in to make them know how to behave.  The beast learn to think of Moreau as God, punishing violations of the Law.  Things do not go well on the island.)

Wells clearly wants us to think that the law is silly, that Moreau is capricious and cruel (His is the house of Pain).  We are meant to be struck with horror at Moreau.  Yet, is the Law really all that bad?  Imagine you were a beast, with a beast’s nature.  Would not your life be better if you could overcome your nature and live a higher life?  Why should we celebrate the nature of the beast?  Well, actually that isn’t a thought experiment at all; just think about your own life.  Who can honestly say that he has committed no sin?  And right now you object that the question is wrong-headed because it presumes someone who gets to decide what is a sin.  But, set that aside for now—use your own definition of sin—think of all the thing you have done that you think are wrong. Not to do those things; that is the Law.  Are you not a man?  And then you realize that, well, maybe you are a bit of a beast after all, not even living up to your own standard of righteousness.

Now Wells seems to be suggesting that the whole idea of the Law is the problem; that it is absurd to turn beasts into men.  But is it?  Is it absurd to turn bad men into better men?  Should we all just revel in our own depravity?  Why shouldn’t we be grateful for a standard of behavior that shows us how Men should behave?

But, this isn’t the sort of question Wells wants us to ask when reading his book. 

In my tutorial we spent a lot of time talking about Moreau’s whole experiment.  Is it wrong to turn animals into men?  If I could create dog-man, would that be good?  Should Mount Holyoke embrace diversity by admitting dog-woman and cat-woman and cow-woman?  Would we all be happier meting these new beings?  There was instinctive revulsion when the question was raised—which is pretty interesting when you think about it.  What would be so wrong with meeting a being which was born a pig and has been modified so that it can walk and talk like a human?  Would you marry pig-man?  Or ape-man?  Is there something fundamentally morally wrong with the idea of creating such a being?  Are there limits, ethical limits, to such things?

All in all, for a schlocky sensationalistic trashy novel, there are quite a few things worth discussing in it.  Did Wells then write Great Books?  I have a hard time thinking he did.  Yet, here we are 118 years after this book was published reading and talking about it.  That may well be the most troubling thing about this whole book. 

The obvious music video.  Amazon had the Best of Devo (don’t laugh) as a cheap download some time ago.  I bought it, partly for nostalgia and partly, truth be told, because I knew it would really annoy the kids.