leaping with them into the jungle, and there they change once again, into the small, kangaroo-like reptiles we've all seen, fleeing from us among the trees—the things we called the 'hoppers.' The last change is circulatory—from the sauropsid blood system which still permits some mixing of venous and arterial blood, to the pteropsid system we see in Earthly birds, which supplies nothing to the brain but oxygenated arterial blood. At about the same time, they become homeostatic and homeothermic, as mammals are. Eventually, they emerge, fully grown, from the jungles, and take their places among the folk of the cities as young Lithians, ready for education.
"But they have already learned every trick of every environment that their world has to offer. Nothing is left them to learn but their own civilization; their instincts are fully matured, fully under control; their rapport with nature on Lithia is absolute; their adolescence is passed and can't distract their intellects—they are ready to become social beings in every possible sense." Michelis locked his hands together again in an agony of quiet excitement, and looked up at Ruiz-Sanchez.
"But that-that's a discovery beyond price!" he whispered.
"Ramon, that alone is worth our trip to Lithia. What a stunning, elegant—what a beautiful sequence—and what a brilliant piece of analysis!"
"It is very elegant," Ruiz-Sanchez said dispiritedly. "He who would damn us often gives us gracefulness. It is not the same thing as Grace."
"But is it as serious as all that?" Michelis said, his voice charged with urgency. "Ramon, surely your Church can't object to it in any way. Your theorists accepted recapitulation in the human embryo, and also the geological record that showed the same process in action over longer spans of time. Why not this?"
"The Church accepts facts, as it always accepts facts," Ruiz-Sanchez said. "But—as you yourself suggested hardly ten minutes ago—facts have a way of pointing in several different directions at once. The Church is as hostile to the doctrine of evolution—particularly to that part of it which deals with the descent of man—as it ever was, and with good reason."
"Or with obdurate stupidity," Cleaver said.
"I confess that I haven't followed the ins and outs of all this," Michelis said. "What is the present position?"
"There are really two positions. You may assume that man evolved as the evidence attempts to suggest that he did, and that somewhere along the line God intervened and infused a soul; this the Church regards as a tenable position, but does not endorse it, because historically it has led to cruelty to animals, who are also creations of God. Or, you may assume that the soul evolved along with the body; this view the Church entirely condemns. But these positions are not important, at least not in this company, compared with the fact that the Church thinks the evidence itself to be highly dubious."
"Why?" Michelis said.
"Well, the Diet of Basra is hard to summarize in a few words, Mike; I hope you'll look it up when you get home. It's not exactly recent—it met in 1995, as I recall. In the meantime, look at the question very simply, with the original premises of the Scriptures in mind. If we assume that God created man, just for the sake of argument, did He create him perfect? I see no reason to suppose that He would have bothered with any lesser work. Is a man perfect without a navel? I don't know, but I'd be inclined to say that he isn't. Yet the first man—Adam, again for the sake of argument—wasn't born of woman, and so didn't really need to have a navel. Did he have one? All the great painters of the Creation show him with one: I'd say that their theology was surely as sound as their aesthetics."
"What does that prove?" Cleaver said.
"That the geological record, and recapitulation too, do not necessarily prove the doctrine of the descent of man. Given my initial axiom, which is that God created everything from
"But they have already learned every trick of every environment that their world has to offer. Nothing is left them to learn but their own civilization; their instincts are fully matured, fully under control; their rapport with nature on Lithia is absolute; their adolescence is passed and can't distract their intellects—they are ready to become social beings in every possible sense." Michelis locked his hands together again in an agony of quiet excitement, and looked up at Ruiz-Sanchez.
"But that-that's a discovery beyond price!" he whispered.
"Ramon, that alone is worth our trip to Lithia. What a stunning, elegant—what a beautiful sequence—and what a brilliant piece of analysis!"
"It is very elegant," Ruiz-Sanchez said dispiritedly. "He who would damn us often gives us gracefulness. It is not the same thing as Grace."
"But is it as serious as all that?" Michelis said, his voice charged with urgency. "Ramon, surely your Church can't object to it in any way. Your theorists accepted recapitulation in the human embryo, and also the geological record that showed the same process in action over longer spans of time. Why not this?"
"The Church accepts facts, as it always accepts facts," Ruiz-Sanchez said. "But—as you yourself suggested hardly ten minutes ago—facts have a way of pointing in several different directions at once. The Church is as hostile to the doctrine of evolution—particularly to that part of it which deals with the descent of man—as it ever was, and with good reason."
"Or with obdurate stupidity," Cleaver said.
"I confess that I haven't followed the ins and outs of all this," Michelis said. "What is the present position?"
"There are really two positions. You may assume that man evolved as the evidence attempts to suggest that he did, and that somewhere along the line God intervened and infused a soul; this the Church regards as a tenable position, but does not endorse it, because historically it has led to cruelty to animals, who are also creations of God. Or, you may assume that the soul evolved along with the body; this view the Church entirely condemns. But these positions are not important, at least not in this company, compared with the fact that the Church thinks the evidence itself to be highly dubious."
"Why?" Michelis said.
"Well, the Diet of Basra is hard to summarize in a few words, Mike; I hope you'll look it up when you get home. It's not exactly recent—it met in 1995, as I recall. In the meantime, look at the question very simply, with the original premises of the Scriptures in mind. If we assume that God created man, just for the sake of argument, did He create him perfect? I see no reason to suppose that He would have bothered with any lesser work. Is a man perfect without a navel? I don't know, but I'd be inclined to say that he isn't. Yet the first man—Adam, again for the sake of argument—wasn't born of woman, and so didn't really need to have a navel. Did he have one? All the great painters of the Creation show him with one: I'd say that their theology was surely as sound as their aesthetics."
"What does that prove?" Cleaver said.
"That the geological record, and recapitulation too, do not necessarily prove the doctrine of the descent of man. Given my initial axiom, which is that God created everything from
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