The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-03-13

also. The joke supplies us with all the discomforts of a home, which we know from the point might be palatiai. In the resulting confusion we are up tree' though, unfortunately, not the one rom which we ancestrally descended. We say unfortunately, for there Is where the joke originated. Had nature then made us other than the superior animals which we are, instead of joke there would be joy. pleasure instead or pessim. ism. surpassing splendor in lieu of sordid cares the delight of life as 1t might De- not the defects of life as 1t is.
 It is this condition of things which the experiments mentioned have, or. if they have not, ought to have, in view. For, assuming that from the protoplasm with which they have started they continue on through higher forms of life until the stage Is reached where the joke began, there, if you please, by means Of pro- cesses analogous to grating and inter breeding, little by little there will come species different from our own, ond with, 1t Artificial Man.
 Merits of the Artificial Man.
 The gentleman will walk out Of . laboratory some of these centuries and astonish us all He will not resemble any of us in any way, and that, while not fattering perhaps for us, will be more, agreeable for him. He will have none
 of our vices That is something. He
 will have none of our virtues. That is great deal. Of the advantages of cant and hypocrisy he will be magnihcently unaware.
 It is stupid to be wise all alone. In this magnihcence the. gentleman will not be unique. Behind him there will be others. Behind the others there will be Iadi wi and, with them, fashions such as mortals never dared to dream before. There will be the witcheries of jewelled forms, the bewilderments Of living gems, the beauty of perfection realized at last.
 The defects which make us ridiculous here-"here," as Keats put 1t, where men sit and hear each other groan"- these beings will be spared. They will not have dyspepsia and doctors and the dumps. They will not have bothers and business. Instead of anything of that kind 1t may be that harmonies will be audible to them to which we are deaf; that to them colors will be visible which we do not see; that they will have senses and perceptions which to us are ur- known.
 But these are minor privileges. They will not be constantly losing their illu- sions, their umbrellas and their hair. They will not go out and dine with i'm beetles and be bored by bills on their re- turn. They will not listen to twaddle and exchange views on war. Politics will not disturb them. Ethics they will not know how to spell. They will not be affected by slumps and for dividends they will not care. They will not care a rap for any one of the stupidities for which we care so much. Our gods will not be their gods, or our cooks either. They will have no gods. But at their banquets they will enjoy at its fullest the quintescence of the triple distilled ex- tracts of love, of lucre and of life.
 We Have Deviated.
 They will enjoy that because, by virtue of the elaboration of the experiments mentioned they will differ totally from us, who since evolution took us in charge ! have deviated rather than advanced. It | is not from apes we should have des- | cended, though better. perhaps apes than reptiles It is from a form of life freer and more volatile than these that our , development should have proceeded, form derived not from beasts, but from birds, preferentially from chysalides, and resulting, not in superior animals, but in | living jewels, in human butterflies, sub sisting on dew and desire, with youth, 1 winged and beautiful, for the crown and conclusion of life.
 There Is nature corrected. There is her little joke reversed. There is life as | 1t ought to be, the real thing, the kind | that would fill long felt want and beat the alkahest hollow.
 The people who long ago sought that solvent were rather laughed at for their | pains. But, then. they never attempted or dreamed of attempting to see through
 solids. They never attempted or dream
 ed of attempting to swallow sunlight. ! They never dreamed of telegraphing wirelessly. They never dreamed of tele- graphing at all They dreamed strange
 dreams. but nothing stranger than con | temporary fiction. In their unhoiiest l flights 1t never occurred to them that
 such rubbish could be made to sell. They ] were simple minded. natural folk. with f out an idea that such miracles could be. | Yet they have all come about. So. too.
 perhaps. will artificial man. The gentle
 man. If not as yet precisely in the air, Is.
 assumably. in the future and. with him.
 possibilities more glorious than any elixir