by James Morrow
“And what dish might our Godless petitioner be serving?” asked Malcolm.
“When I put the question to Woolfenden, he told me it would be the most powerful of all such arguments,” piped up Harriet Martineau as she joined Henry Atkinson and George Holyoake on the atheist side of the bench. From her ear bloomed an enormous brass trumpet, which she steadied with one hand whilst the other clutched a copy of her book, Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature, with its brazen insistence that Homo sapiens was not necessarily God’s favorite creature. “We all know what that means.”
Of the freethinking judges, only Miss Martineau exhibited by Malcolm’s lights a subtle mind, hence his resolve to befriend her once the prize was awarded. At a previous Shelley Society gathering, when the Christian contestant had offered up a bundle of cast-off crutches and other evidence of medical miracles, she had flustered him with a question to which Malcolm had yet to form a riposte. If God was so eager to dispense supernatural remedies, Miss Martineau had wanted to know, why were there no recorded instances of His healing an amputee?
“And what does it mean?” Owen inquired.
“Cancers and cataclysms,” replied the squirrelly Mr. Atkinson—Miss Martineau’s co-author—laying a hand on her sleeve. Try as he might, Malcolm could not fathom what virtues Miss Martineau saw in Atkinson, whose contributions to their collaboration must have been perfunctory at best. “Plagues and poxes. Toothaches and earthquakes.”
A shudder traveled through Malcolm’s frame. Of all the classic disproofs of God, the problem of unmerited pain was the one he most feared. Merciful Father in Heaven, deliver us from the Argument from Evil.
“Mumps and mosquitoes,” said Mr. Holyoake, editor of The Oracle of Reason, genially joining the game. “Ticks and rickets. Tubercles and tumors.”
It was obvious why the Byssheans had been drawn to Mr. Holyoake. Two years earlier, during one of his Socialist lectures, he’d noted that Her Majesty’s religious institutions were costing the Government £20,000,000 annually, even as the national debt hung like a millstone about the people’s collective neck. England, Holyoake suggested, was “too poor to have a God,” and it might be prudent “to put the Deity on half-pay until our finances are in order.” In Malcolm’s view the freethinker’s subsequent fate—six months in gaol for blasphemy—was unjust, for his remarks could hardly have offended God Almighty, who was after all not some prickly parson from Swindon but the Creator of the universe.
The judges’ conversation was interrupted by the simultaneous arrivals of Popplewell of the Evening Standard, who took his customary seat in the ancient-history alcove, and Lippert, majordomo of Alastor Hall, who handed his master a slip of paper. Holding his goblet aloft like a torch, Lord Woolfenden rose from his divan—no simple operation, given his girth. (Everything about the man was excessive, his great stomach, froggish eyes, booming voice, prolix poems.) He tossed his mauve silk scarf insouciantly over his shoulder, glanced at Lippert’s note, and faced his fellow sybarites. “Taking the field on God’s behalf, we have the Reverend Terrance Sethington of Berkshire, who will attempt to sway the bench with a version of the Cosmological Proof.”
The cleric in question, a towering figure with eyebrows so bushy they suggested caterpillars inching towards the ark, swaggered into the library pulling a child’s wagon whose cargo lay beneath a gauze veil. Self-confidence radiated from Mr. Sethington like warmth from a winter hearth, and Malcolm speculated that tonight, at long last, the entire bench might come to agree that God had been substantiated.
Reaching under the veil, the petitioner drew forth a croquet mallet and a wooden sphere. “The Cosmological Proof is the soul of simplicity,” he began, setting the sphere on the floor. “As Thomas Aquinas reminds us, nothing moves of its own accord. We can stare night and day at this croquet ball, waiting for it to change position, and it won’t budge by a cricket’s whisker.” Mr. Sethington applied his mallet with a force considerably short of the supernatural but sufficient to send the sphere ricocheting off the dais. “None would doubt that my mallet moved the ball, that I moved the mallet, or that my impulses moved me. Ah, but what moved my impulses? And what moved that which moved my impulses? Learned judges, we have fallen into an infinite regress, an abyss from which we can escape only by assuming the existence of a divine agency. Saint Thomas reasoned that this Unmoved Mover is perforce the Creator-God of Christian revelation.”
“Even when that Creator-God resembles a Berkshire parson playing croquet?” inquired Miss Martineau, eliciting from the Byssheans a peal of contemptuous laughter.
“Saint Thomas pondered not only the problem of movement but also the riddle of causality,” said Sethington, undaunted. He returned to his wagon and yanked the veil away, revealing a wire cage in which a ruffled hen sat atop a clutch of eggs. “A hen can never cause herself, but only her eggs. These eggs can never cause themselves, but only those creatures we call chickens.” The contestant seized the cage and paraded it before the judges. “Once again we find ourselves in the valley of the shadow of infinite regress.”
“Which came first, the chicken or the croquet ball?” said Holyoake.
“To circumvent that void,” Sethington persisted, his voice rising to a crescendo, “we must posit a First Cause—God—the nonphysical being from whom all physical things sprang! Quod erat demonstrandum!”
As the petitioner sat down on the dais, Lady Isadora quaffed champagne and addressed the bench. “Our Christians will now render their verdicts.”
“Bravo, Mr. Sethington,” said Owen. “You have my vote.”
“Quod erat indeed,” said Symonds.
“Although the Cosmological Proof has a venerable history,” said Malcolm, “I cannot believe Saint Thomas would wish to see it illustrated with either poultry or sporting implements, and so I shan’t endorse this presentation.”
“Mr. Sethington, you have favorably impressed two of our Anglican judges,” said Lady Isadora. “If two of our freethinkers are similarly moved, the prize is yours.”
“The Cosmological Proof is famously lucid but notoriously flawed,” said Miss Martineau. “Those who embrace this argument imagine that God Himself is somehow exempt from the infinite regress. But why should that be the case?”
How lamentable, thought Malcolm, that this brilliant woman would ally herself with unbelievers. He wondered if their incompatible theological views would preclude future intellectual congress. Equine of face, stumpish of form, and hard of hearing, Miss Martineau was less than alluring, but never had a person of her sex so fascinated him.
“I fail to follow your reasoning,” said Sethington.
“I shall put it as simply as I can,” said Miss Martineau. “If God created the universe, then who created God?”
“God is by definition uncreated,” Sethington replied.
“Then we might as well say the universe is by definition uncreated and subtract God from the equation,” noted Atkinson. “Aquinas possessed a keen intellect, but his proof proves precisely nothing.”
“Shall I tell you of another crack in your cosmological egg?” said Holyoake to Sethington. “Even if we decide that our infinite regress must terminate in a supernatural being, why assume we’re talking about the God of Christian revelation? The entity in question might be the Hindoo’s Brahma, the Northman’s Odin, the Grecian’s Apollo, or a mystic elephant who defecates planets instead of turds.”
The flâneurs laughed appreciatively.
“We are sorry, Mr. Sethington,” said Lady Isadora, “but it appears you will leave our meeting no wealthier than you arrived.”
The petitioner rose, packed up his Cosmological Proof, and, grasping the handle of the wagon, trundled wordlessly away.
“We shall now indulge in a short intermission,” declared Lord Woolfenden.
Goblets were filled, cigars ignited, witticisms traded, trysts scheduled, and bodices fondled, after which the master of Alastor Hall clapped his hands and called for silence. Receiving his cue, the evening
’s second petitioner—a popinjay in a flowered silk waistcoat—entered the library accompanied by a squat hireling bearing an ancient traveling-chest, the unwieldy burden riding on his back like Quasimodo’s hump.
“Visiting us tonight on behalf of disbelief is Sir Basil Wanderly of Blackthorn Hall,” said Woolfenden, “who means to undermine the consensus concerning God’s goodness.”
As the fop approached the judges, the hireling opened the trunk, revealing a score of wide-mouthed bottles, each packed in straw and filled with a liquid preservative. The receptacles, Malcolm observed, contained all manner of ugly, prickly, slimy, and otherwise untoward things.
“God’s reputation precedes Him,” Sir Basil began. “Omnipotent, omniscient, and, most pertinent to my presentation, omnibenevolent. But if compassion is the Almighty’s sine qua non, then His Creation will necessarily be free of gratuitous cruelty. In my observations, however, something like the opposite is the case. Behold the type of Australian jellyfish known as the sea-wasp.”
Receiving his cue, the hireling produced a bottle containing the pickled remains of a creature resembling a diaphanous parasol outfitted with tentacles. “A sea-wasp’s every limb sports venomous syringes,” noted Sir Basil, “which means an entangled swimmer may anticipate a slow and agonizing death. I cannot but wonder what sort of God would fashion such a beast.”
“A nasty God,” said Atkinson.
“A nonexistent God,” said Miss Martineau.
“Now behold my guinea-worm,” said Sir Basil, “whose modus operandi makes the sea-wasp seem like a saint.”
The hireling set the jellyfish on the dais. Returning to the trunk, he brought forth a specimen suggesting a segment from a child’s kite string, though there was nothing remotely frolicsome about the creature.
“Drink from a river in India or Africa, and you risk ingesting the immature larvae of this worm,” said Sir Basil. “Although the male measures but a few inches, the female grows to the three-foot monster you see before you. Day after day she burrows through her host’s tissues, a migration that normally terminates in the leg but sometimes in the breast, scalp, tongue, or generative organs. When the worm’s head meets the inside surface of the skin, an excruciating blister forms. By immersing the lesion in a cold stream, the victim can gain some relief, as this induces the creature to emerge into daylight and burst, releasing her immature larvae into the water. There now comes the problem of removing the worm’s impacted corpse, more painful than a malignant tumor. The usual method is to wind the thing about a stick.”
“What a ghastly beast,” said Miss Martineau.
“Small wonder Jehovah declines to show His face in public,” said Atkinson.
Next the contestant submitted specimens of the warble fly, “a creature that God in His mercy has instructed to breed in the nasal passages of horses and cattle, so that the maggots will have plenty of cartilage to devour upon hatching.” The subsequent exhibit was a moth called Lobocraspis griseifusa, “which on the counsel of our loving Creator uses its proboscis to irritate the eyes of water buffalo and other defenseless livestock, thus provoking a supply of nourishing tears.” Then came a collection of male bedbugs, “an insect that Heaven has favored with a procreative member so long that he rarely bothers about the female’s genital opening, preferring to stab her and release his seed into her bloodstream.” And so it went, bottle after bottle, invertebrate after invertebrate, until all twenty indictments decorated the dais. “I could offer additional specimens, but I’ve no wish to cause the Supreme Being further embarrassment. Stendhal put it well: God’s only excuse is that He does not exist.”
Lord Woolfenden rolled off his divan, picked his way amongst the horizontal hedonists, and bowed before his freethinking guest. “Our atheists are impressed by your circus of horrors, but I wonder if you’ve rattled those amongst us of a Christian persuasion.”
“Your Lordship, the mere existence of vermin does not give a believer pause,” said Mr. Symonds. “With Adam’s fall came Nature’s corruption. We should not be surprised to find vestiges of that catastrophe in far-flung corners of the globe.”
Malcolm said, “In confronting the phenomenon of evil, we must remember Herr Leibniz’s insight that ours is the best of all possible worlds—emphasis on the possible. The physical stuff that constitutes the universe is ipso facto flawed,” he continued, striving mightily to believe himself, “for if external reality were entirely good, it would not be God’s handiwork—it would be God, full stop. In short, Sir Basil’s worms are the price we pay for tangible existence. Without such blemishes on the face of Creation, we should not have a world at all.”
“I was once privileged to hear John Henry Newman speak to the problem of seemingly pointless suffering,” said Owen. “The great cleric averred that ostensibly unjust tribulations harbor a secret benevolence.”
“Having devoted many hours to pickling God’s sins, and finding not a single hidden harmony therein,” said Sir Basil, “I remain far less impressed by Father Newman than by Abbess Ich-Newman.”
“Abbess who?” asked Lady Isadora.
“The remorseless ichneumon wasp,” said Sir Basil, “who lays her eggs inside a caterpillar’s living body. When the larvae hatch, they eat the caterpillar alive.”
“How unseemly,” said Lady Isadora.
“Alas, Sir Basil, I fear you’ve not persuaded our believers,” said Lord Woolfenden, “but I must thank you for an engaging presentation.”
As the hireling began packing up the exhibits, cushioning each bottle in straw, Malcolm released a moan of trepidation. Although Sir Basil’s monsters had failed to carry the day, sooner or later the Argument from Evil would descend upon the contest in an impossibly potent form—and Malcolm did not want to be there when that disaster occurred.
The guinea-worm was last to enter the trunk. For Malcolm the awful creature evoked an episode from the Book of Numbers: Jehovah punishing the backsliding Israelites by sending fiery serpents to bite and burn them—a plague He lifted only after they’d confessed their sins to Moses. What most intrigued Malcolm was the manner of the Israelites’ cure. Just as a guinea-worm victim could find relief by wrapping the parasite’s corpse around a stick, so were the Children of Israel saved when Moses set a brass serpent atop a pole for everyone to see.
Worm and stick, serpent and pole—was it all mere coincidence? Or was Numbers in fact a catalog of diseases and their treatments, allegorized as a series of encounters between the Israelites and their irascible God? Malcolm imagined that he might one day explore this notion in depth, writing an exegesis to which he would be pleased to put his name, assuming he could keep his pride from devolving into pridefulness.
* * *
Kindly as always and solicitous to the end, Mr. Darwin saw to it that no breath of scandal or whiff of disgrace attended Chloe’s departure from Down House. He told the assembled staff that, having grown weary of “the mute universe of lizards and tortoises,” Miss Bathurst had decided to direct her nurturing instincts “towards a more appreciative audience, notably a brood of human children.” Owing to her charm and intelligence, he added, she would “doubtless soon obtain a new situation.” Indeed, were his own progeny not already under excellent tutelage, he would hire her himself.
With a tremor in her voice and a stricture in her throat, Chloe said good-bye to Master Willy and Miss Annie. The children listened uncomprehendingly as she praised their natural Rousseauian goodness. Later that morning Chloe visited her feathered charges, bidding au revoir to the mockingbirds, flycatchers, and finches. Next she addressed the lizards, telling them that she’d greatly enjoyed their taciturn and unpretentious company.
The giant tortoises occasioned the most difficult farewells. Chloe felt embarrassed to be rubbing their shells and insisting she would never forget them. After all, the ancestors of these creatures had walked the Earth long before the advent of the sympathetic emotions, and when sorrow had at last appeared on the scene, tortoises had doubtless recognize
d it for the softheaded and useless sentiment it was. In their antique wisdom Boswell of James Isle, Isolde of Charles Isle, and Perseus of Indefatigable (whose injured leg was healing splendidly) knew better than to trouble themselves with yearning—but Chloe did not, and so she wept.
As the shadows of evening drew nigh, she climbed aboard the steam train for London. Settling into her seat, she thought of those times in her life when, having fallen into the Slough of Despond, she’d managed to escape. In each case she’d begun by cataloging her present advantages—and so she now made a list. Asset number one: the six pounds from Mr. Darwin. Asset number two: her copy of the transmutation essay, secured in her portmanteau. Asset number three: her incipient scheme, precise as an arrow and simple as a stitch. It called for her to use her severance pay in renting illustrative specimens from England’s zoos. Equipped with these scaled, beaked, and feathered testaments, she would travel to Alastor Hall, present her disproof of God, and set the ghost of Shelley to grinning.
Detraining at Charing Cross Station, she headed towards the Adelphi Theatre in quest of Fanny Mendrick, with whom she hoped to share lodgings once again. For Chloe, such a bargain would hold clear advantages—she could employ 15 Tavistock Street as her base of operations whilst assembling her menagerie—though she feared the arrangement might prove unpalatable to her rooming-companion. No, dear Fanny, during my days at Down House I did not learn to sew, so I shan’t mend your dresses, nor to launder, so I shan’t clean your sheets, nor to cook in the French manner, so you mustn’t expect meals laden with luscious sauces. I can offer you only my camaraderie and, for the immediate future, my half of the rent.