This superfluous energy has gone to his brain and to his muscle. He has become too strong to be controlled by her bodily, and too imaginative and mentally vigorous to be content with mere self-reproduction.
He has created civilization without consulting her, taking her domestic labor for granted as the foundation of it.
ANA. THAT is true, at all events.
THE DEVIL.
Yes; and this civilization! what is it, after all?
DON JUAN.
After all, an excellent peg to hang your cynical commonplaces on; but BEFORE all, it is an attempt on Man's part to make himself something more than the mere instrument of Woman's purpose.
So far, the result of Life's continual effort not only to maintain itself, but to achieve higher and higher organization and completer self-consciousness, is only, at best, a doubtful campaign between its forces and those of Death and Degeneration.
The battles in this campaign are mere blunders, mostly won, like actual military battles, in spite of the commanders.
THE STATUE.
That is a dig at me.
No matter: go on, go on.
DON JUAN.
It is a dig at a much higher power than you, Commander.
Still, you must have noticed in your profession that even a stupid general can win battles when the enemy's general is a little stupider.
THE STATUE. [very seriously] Most true, Juan, most true.
Some donkeys have amazing luck.
DON JUAN.
Well, the Life Force is stupid; but it is not so stupid as the forces of Death and Degeneration.
Besides, these are in its pay all the time.
And so Life wins, after a fashion.
What mere copiousness of fecundity can supply and mere greed preserve, we possess.
The survival of whatever form of civilization can produce the best rifle and the best fed riflemen is assured.
THE DEVIL.
Exactly! the survival, not of the most effective means of Life but of the most effective means of Death.
You always come back to my point, in spite of your wrigglings and evasions and sophistries, not to mention the intolerable length of your speeches.
DON JUAN.
Oh come! who began making long speeches? However, if I overtax your intellect, you can leave us and seek the society of love and beauty and the rest of your favorite boredoms.
THE DEVIL. [much offended] This is not fair, Don Juan, and not civil.
I am also on the intellectual plane.
Nobody can appreciate it more than I do.
I am arguing fairly with you, and, I think, utterly refuting you.
Let us go on for another hour if you like.
DON JUAN.
Good: let us.
THE STATUE.
Not that I see any prospect of your coming to any point in particular, Juan.
Still, since in this place, instead of merely killing time we have to kill eternity, go ahead by all means.
DON JUAN. [somewhat impatiently] My point, you marbleheaded old masterpiece, is only a step ahead of you.
Are we agreed that Life is a force which has made innumerable experiments in organizing itself; that the mammoth and the man, the mouse and the megatherium, the flies and the fleas and the Fathers of the Church, are all more or less successful attempts to build up that raw force into higher and higher individuals, the ideal individual being omnipotent, omniscient, infallible, and withal completely, unilludedly self-conscious: in short, a god?
THE DEVIL.
I agree, for the sake of argument.
THE STATUE.
I agree, for the sake of avoiding argument.
ANA.
I most emphatically disagree as regards the Fathers of the Church; and I must beg you not to drag them into the argument.
DON JUAN.
I did so purely for the sake of alliteration, Ana; and I shall make no further allusion to them.
And now, since we are, with that exception, agreed so far, will you not agree with me further that Life has not measured the success of its attempts at godhead by the beauty or bodily perfection of the result, since in both these respects the birds, as our friend Aristophanes long ago pointed out, are so extraordinarily superior, with their power of flight and their lovely plumage, and, may I add, the touching poetry of their loves and nestings, that it is inconceivable that Life, having once produced them, should, if love and beauty were her object, start off on another line and labor at the clumsy elephant and the hideous ape, whose grandchildren we are?
ANA.