“Sir,” the American retorted. “You are not talking about evolution but de-evolution. I asked for examples of humanity advancing and you give me anecdotes about lesser races who are clearly accounted for in the bible.”
“The bible mentions the Chinese at no point. This is a moot argument; there is no distinction between evolution and de-evolution, as you put it. Both account for change, change based on adaptability. I’ve posited nothing less. If you believe that the Africans and Chinese have stepped backwards from their origins, then you must admit that they changed and their change was based on the environment they found themselves in.”
“I accept no such thing!”
“Then tell me sir, why are the children of Ham so different? Why are the all the colored men and women of the world built so differently one from the other? Why can’t I rely on my knowledge of the people of India to assist me in dealing with your own red Indian countrymen?”
“They are not my countrymen.” The American was letting anger seep into his voice.
“Why are the Indians of America so different and strange from the Indians of India? They share a name and yet they are each and every one adaptable to their region. I assume you regard them both as children of Ham. The best survived and lived on and passed his genes to the next children based on the requirements of the land. I don’t believe that Ham was the first man of color, but even if I did that would not change my theory of evolution and fitness.”
“Then perhaps God allowed for the survivors to adapt? Perhaps it was God who chose the fittest?”
“I never said he had no place in this, only that I don’t know what his place is. Don’t you see? If God accounts for adaptability then he is the catalyst for evolution, and evolution exists. By God or by chance the creatures of the world, of which man is one, change to conform to the world’s environment. By this very observation all of evolution is proven.”
“Not all evolution. Maybe men lived and changed in the short term, but this does not account for your shameful proposition that man descended from the monkeys.”
“Shameful?”
“Yes, shameful! By biblical calculations the world is no more than six thousand years old and yet you propose that men came from monkeys over the course of millions of years. You claim not to know God’s place but don’t deny his existence. If you don’t deny his existence, how can you deny his history of the world?”
“What’s shameful, sir, is your lack of imagination. Our bible, assuming we’re going by the King James version, says that God made the earth in six days, that Noah lived for over nine hundred years and yet how time is measured has changed and changed and changed. Who’s to say six thousand years to one species can’t be a million years to another. Who says that time cannot be relative?”
“That’s a fools’ argument and I won’t debate with a fool.”
Darwin smiled. He looked so old, like father time himself.
“That’s fine, sir. I hold my belief, you hold yours and we shall live on until the end of our days. If either is wrong, let our father judge.”
“That’s not good enough!”
“Sir?”
“We cannot agree to disagree. There are no more realities than the one. To think a man can hold an opinion that is wrong is blasphemy. Our world is objective and no two men can hold opposing opinions and both be right.”
“Alright, then I’ll claim the right. You are wrong. Logic and evidence support me.” Darwin said.
“Faith and popular sentiment back me,” the American said.
“Then we find ourselves at an impasse, without the means to win except to defame our opponent or stave off and return to our honest fulfilling lives. Good luck, sir.” Darwin held his hand out. The American ignored it. He addressed the audience.
“Can we declare me the winner, then?” He asked the silent and smoky crowd. “Is this my victory to claim?”
No one said anything. Even Darwin was silent. The American shook his head in disgust.
“You will pay for your lack of faith in time. Ours is not a forgiving God, and hell is not a place for splicing words and opinions.” The American turned away from Darwin and ascended the arena stairs.
“Just so we’re clear,” Darwin called to the escaping man’s back. “I think you’re wrong about the Hammites as well. I don’t think God started the colored races with just one man. I think we all started colored and adjusted our colors based on location and time. The only difference between us and them is how we’ve adapted to these surroundings.”
The American stopped, turned, spat on the floor, and proceeded with his exit. All very dramatic. The audience gave a polite applause, and shuffled off to whatever else their days held. Other lectures, other debates, others places to puff the day away in cloudy contemplation. A small group stayed to shake hands and offer platitudes to the venerable academic. I joined this crowd and approached the esteemed naturalist upon his ascent. He dismissed his well-wishers with patted handshakes. His eyes found me in the group and he presented a hand.
“Good sir, pardon me for saying but you look as though you should be under a physician’s care.”
“What, this? Just a scratch.”
I shook his hand.
“I need to talk to you about Dr. James Saxon.”
Darwin showed no surprise. He took my arm for support and waved away the rest of his followers.
“What you should have said is, ‘I’ve got something to gain from you.’ In an honest society that would be the only honest greeting.”
I nodded at this. Darwin’s words had the sound of observations often repeated.
“We say ‘hi’ to gain recognition, or as pretense to gain knowledge or ask a favor.”
The old man guided me to an ornate double door. It looked more like the entrance of a church than the entrance to an academic’s office.
“Mr. Fellows, I have something to gain from you.”
My eyes went wide at that one.
“You know my name?”
The codger smiled and ushered me through the massive doors. Darwin’s office was circular and vaulted like the lecture hall we’d just left. Instead of rows of seats, the upper rings were lined with bookshelves. The stage floor held two oak desks, one empty, the other occupied by a giant bloke who rose at the sight of me. He was dressed the part of an academic secretary; spectacles, gray suit, stripped vest. Aside from his suit, Darwin’s secretary gave me the impression of a circus strong man or bare knuckle boxer. The only hair on his thick-necked cranium was relegated to a fantastic handlebar mustache.
“Mr. Stevens, please see that we are not disturbed,” Darwin said. Stevens looked like he was going to say something, then changed his mind and sat back down.
Darwin guided me to a bookshelf that swung open at the click of a hidden lever. A trap door behind the shelf led into a smaller office. Darwin’s personal sanctuary, I assumed.
The cramped space was made more cramped by stacks of books, mounted insect collections, boxes of unlabeled fossils and bones: the tools of this old man’s livelihood. Darwin removed a stack of books from a King Louis chair and beckoned me to sit.
“Impressive debate, Mr. Darwin,” I said.
Darwin gave me an irritated look. The frail grandfather of science outside had become a wholly different creature in this office.
“No it wasn’t,” he snapped. “Everyday my ideas and observations are questioned and ridiculed and every day I find myself defending what should be obvious to the masses. I didn’t invent evolution or fitness of species, I was simply the first to put it to popular record. Kant, Malthus, Lamark, Wallace, all men who observed the trends of species and applied it to man. But I take the label of father and now have to answer to every fool who comes calling. That man you saw me debate, that’s Dr. Thaddeus Warfeld, a respected theologian from the Harvard School of Divinity. And yet to me, he’s just another fool in a long string of fools, in a lifetime of fools. I could have defeated him with three simple words. ‘Are you sure?’ The burden of genius is not the labor of our endeavors but in sharing the world with fools who don’t know they are fools. Mark my words, the pseudo-intellectual will be the death of us all.”