theory
799484219195817984
Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 270.
“It is man’s intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly
than the beasts. … Man is impelled to invent theories to account for
what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent
enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he
acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Thus, no
animal is clever enough, when there is a drought, to imagine that the
rain is being withheld by evil spirits, or as punishment for its
transgressions. Therefore you never see animals going through the absurd
and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. No horse, for
example would kill one of its foals to make the wind change direction.
Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the
same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies.
Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the
feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous
folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as
yet, intelligent enough.”—Aldous Huxley
151687979882
“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to
dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the
Unreasoning Animal… In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things
which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my
experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends.
I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a
rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a
squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace;
even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish
Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch
Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek
Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of
Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a
Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole
days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was
all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends
of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh–not a specimen
left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological
detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.”
― Mark Twain
151423621262
Texts and Pretexts (1932), p. 270.
“It is man’s intelligence that makes him so often behave more stupidly
than the beasts. … Man is impelled to invent theories to account for
what happens in the world. Unfortunately, he is not quite intelligent
enough, in most cases, to find correct explanations. So that when he
acts on his theories, he behaves very often like a lunatic. Thus, no
animal is clever enough, when there is a drought, to imagine that the
rain is being withheld by evil spirits, or as punishment for its
transgressions. Therefore you never see animals going through the absurd
and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. No horse, for
example would kill one of its foals to make the wind change direction.
Dogs do not ritually urinate in the hope of persuading heaven to do the
same and send down rain. Asses do not bray a liturgy to cloudless skies.
Nor do cats attempt, by abstinence from cat’s meat, to wheedle the
feline spirits into benevolence. Only man behaves with such gratuitous
folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as
yet, intelligent enough.”—Aldous Huxley