Prev | Current Page 261 | Next

London, Jack, 1876-1916

"Revolution, and Other Essays"

Chadwick fooled and the thousands who were
fooled by the Keeley Motor swindle?
Let us be very humble. We who are so very human are very animal.
Kinship with the other animals is no more repugnant to Mr. Burroughs
than was the heliocentric theory to the priests who compelled Galileo
to recant. Not correct human reason, not the evidence of the
ascertained fact, but pride of ego, was responsible for the
repugnance.
In his stiff-necked pride, Mr. Burroughs runs a hazard more
humiliating to that pride than any amount of kinship with the other
animals. When a dog exhibits choice, direction, control, and reason;
when it is shown that certain mental processes in that dog's brain
are precisely duplicated in the brain of man; and when Mr. Burroughs
convincingly proves that every action of the dog is mechanical and
automatic--then, by precisely the same arguments, can it be proved
that the similar actions of man are mechanical and automatic. No,
Mr. Burroughs, though you stand on the top of the ladder of life, you
must not kick out that ladder from under your feet.


Pages:
249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273