"Charles L. Harness - The Rose" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

"Three things," replied Bell. "OneтАФEarth's atmosphere has enough carbon dioxide to grow the
forest-spawning grounds of man's primate ancestors, thereby ensuring an unspecialized, quasi-erect,
manually-activated species capable of indefinite psychophysical development. It might take the saurian
life of a desert planet another billion years to evolve an equal physical and mental structure. TwoтАФthat
same atmosphere had a surface pressure of 760 mm of mercury and a mean temperature of about 25
degrees CentigradeтАФexcellent conditions for the transmission of sound, speech, and song; and those
early men took to it like a duck to water. Compare the difficulty of communication by direct touching of
antennae, as the arthropodic pseudo-homindal citizens of certain airless worlds must do. ThreeтАФthe
solar spectrum within its very short frequency range of 760 to 390 millimicrons offers seven colors of
remarkable variety and contrast, which our ancestors quickly made their own. From the beginning, they
could see that they moved in multichrome beauty. Consider the ultra-sophisticate dwelling in a dying sun
systemтАФand pity him for he can see only red and a little infra red."

"If that's the only difference," snorted Grade, "I'd say you psychogeneticists were getting worked up over
nothing!"

Bell smiled past him at the approaching figure of Ruy Jacques. "You may be right, of course, Colonel, but
I think you're missing the point. To the psychogeneticist it appears that terrestrial environment is
promoting the evolution of a most extraordinary beingтАФa type of homo whose energies beyond the
barest necessities are devoted to strange, unproductive activities. And to what end? We don't
knowтАФyet. But we can guess. Give a psychogeneticist Eohippus and the grassy plains, and he'd predict
the modem horse. Give him archeopteryx and a dense atmosphere, and he could imagine the swan. Give
him h. sapiens and a two-day work week, or better yet, Ruy Jacques and a no-day work week, and
what will he predict?"

"The poorhouse?" asked Jacques, sorrowfully.

Bell laughed. "Not quite. An evolutionary spurt, rather. As sapiens turns more and more into his abstract
world of the arts, music in particular, the psychogeneticist foresees increased communication in terms of
music. This might require certain cerebral realignments in sapiens, and perhaps the development of
special membranous neural organsтАФwhich in turn might lead to completely new mental and physical
abilities, and the conquest of new dimensionsтАФjust as the human tongue eventually developed from a
tasting organ into a means of long distance vocal communication."

"Not even in Ruy's Science/Art diatribes," said Mrs. Jacques, "have I heard greater nonsense. If this
planet is to have any future worthy of the name, you can be sure it will be through the leadership of her
scientists."

"I wouldn't be too sure," countered Bell. "The artist's place in society has advanced tremendously in the
past half-century. And I mean the minor artistтАФwho is identified simply by his profession and not by any
exceptional reputation. In our own time we have seen the financier forced to extend social equality to the
scientist. And today the palette and musical sketch pad are gradually toppling the test tube and the
cyclotron from their pedestals. In the first Renaissance the merchant and soldier inherited the ruins of
church and feudal empire; in this one we peer through the crumbling walls of capitalism and nationalism
and see the artist...or the scientist...ready to emerge as the cream of society. The question is, which one?
"

"For the sake of law and order," declared Colonel Grade, "it must be the scientist, working in the defense
of his country. Think of the military insecurity of an art-dominated society. IfтАФ"