The Shadow of Great Britain

Capítulo 1206: Chapter 136: Darwin’s Hypothesis (Part 4)

This scene often made the entire ship burst into laughter, and Eld especially enjoyed teasing the two of them until the little devils got annoyed, prompting him to hurriedly bring out supplies he had previously bought at the port to beg for forgiveness. In light of the candies and fresh canned beef, Jamie and the Indian boy would always forgive that guy.

As for the last child from Tierra del Fuego, she was a beautiful little girl. Gentle and introverted by nature, although often somber, she learned things very quickly, especially languages. During our very brief stops in Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo, she managed to learn quite a few Spanish and Portuguese words. As for her English, it was impeccable; if you didn’t look at her appearance, didn’t consider sequence or grammar issues, just listened to her accent, you’d think she was a child born and raised in London.

However, though they all spoke English and understood most of what we were saying, trying to inquire about their fellow countrymen’s habits was still extremely challenging. The reason is that they couldn’t comprehend even the simplest binary questions. Anyone who frequently interacts with children knows that if you ask a child if something is black or white, they can’t answer because the concepts of black and white coexist in their minds. The people of Tierra del Fuego were much the same.

After landing, it was very interesting to observe the reactions of the natives when they saw Jamie Button. They immediately noticed he was different from us and muttered about it for a long time. An elder even delivered a long speech to Jamie, seemingly inviting him to live with them. However, the tribes of Tierra del Fuego appeared to have different languages, so Jamie didn’t understand them well and was rather ashamed of his fellow countrymen.

When York Cathedral disembarked, they were also recognized, and they kindly informed him that he should shave, even though he only had about twenty fine hairs on his face. They carefully examined his skin color and compared it with ours.

Eld had one arm exposed, and they were greatly surprised and praised its paleness. Though I mean no offense to Eld, I must say that the reaction of the natives was akin to our reaction when we first saw monkeys in a zoo.

In our team, there were two or three officers who were rather short and quite comely, and although they too had beards, they were evidently mistaken by the people of Tierra del Fuego as ladies. The tallest local was clearly proud of his height and the attention it garnered. When comparing himself with the tallest sailor, he tried every way to stand on higher ground and tiptoe.

He also opened his mouth to show his teeth and turned his face sideways for everyone to see. All these actions were done with flair, just like those who go to great lengths to attract the attention of ladies at social banquets. I dare say he considered himself the most handsome man of Tierra del Fuego, showing that people with Eld’s personality are not uncommon even among the simple natives of Tierra del Fuego.

What exactly creates such a gap between us and the people of Tierra del Fuego? From behavior and temperament, I really don’t think Eld is much different from this ‘most handsome’ gentleman of Tierra del Fuego. I know many might say it’s because we are God’s chosen people, and thus possess a natural, more advanced intelligence. But I must warn that similar excuses have been used by the Spaniards and Americans to massacre indigenous people.

In my view, the largest difference between people is not due to being God’s chosen but whether or not they have received proper education. This is evident from the significant differences between the three Tierra del Fuego natives onboard and the local ones, as just a few years of proper education allowed them to communicate with us. If they were given a British education from birth, I have no doubt they would become authentic British gentlemen and ladies.

Charles Darwin

January 28, 1833, written on Tierra del Fuego

“Oh! What a remarkable insight,” Heine jested: “If one follows Mr. Darwin’s perspective, the only difference between humans and primitives is whether they have received education.”

Arthur shook his head slightly, “It’s not just that. Charles previously revealed to me in a letter an even more astonishing theory, but due to its shocking nature, we didn’t publish it in ‘The Englishman.’”

Heine leaned in with interest, “What theory?”

Arthur stroked his chin with some difficulty, unsure if the outspoken Heine might cause trouble: “Though there’s no solid evidence yet, Charles hypothesizes that there may be some kinship between humans and monkeys, or in other words, humans might be monkeys that have received too much education.”

Heine was initially taken aback by this, but then slapped his thigh and laughed heartily, “If that’s really the case, if one day monkeys learn to speak, they might say: humans are just transformed monkeys, man is a corrupted version of monkeys, just as German to the Dutch is a corrupted form of their language. But if humans are indeed derived from monkeys, those monkeys are really clever, perhaps smarter than us, for giving up on speaking to avoid being caught and forced to work like humans.”

Arthur hadn’t expected Heine to accept the idea so quickly, but looking back, it made sense, given that Heine’s religious beliefs weren’t firm, so to him, it was merely an intriguing topic.

Arthur knew full well that this topic would cause quite a stir in the entire naturalist community; its impact would not be confined to just the field of natural philosophy but might even reach the Archbishop of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and even His Holiness in the distant Vatican.

Because years ago, when Charles Lyell of the London Geology Society estimated that the Earth’s age could be in the millions of years in “Principles of Geology,” the Church launched a massive attack.

Before Mr. Lyell dared to propose the theory of geological uniformitarianism, academia mostly adhered to the viewpoint from James Asher and John Lightfoot’s calculations based on the ‘Bible,’ positing the Earth to be 6000 years old.

In the Church’s eyes, Lyell’s uniformitarianism, though masquerading as geological research, was essentially undermining theological foundations and denying God’s creation.

And Mr. Darwin’s perspective was clearly even more grievous because it outright denied divine creation.

Arthur was grappling with how to handle this problem when suddenly there was a knock on the door.

“Your Excellency, Mr. Faraday from the Royal Society and others have arrived. Should we go over to entertain them?”