That is the Law; Are We Not Men?

Hmm. I’d like to say that 4 out of 5 ain’t bad. And yet, I know I stand condemned of violating the Law. Does this make me less than human? This recitation of the Law is in H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau. The Beast Folk (described below) use it to remind themselves what it is to be Human. You can hear the echoes of Leviticus.

The plot for those who don’t know: Dr. Moreau vivisects animals, turning them into men. The experiments are not successfully complete. The animals still retain some remnant of the beast even when they seem more like Humans.

So the Law is put in to tell them know how to behave. If you recite the Law often enough, maybe those habits will get ingrained. You’ll stop going on all fours and clawing the bark of trees and trying to eat the other newly created humans. The beasts learn to think of Moreau as God, punishing violations of the Law. His is the house of Pain. It will shock you to hear that things do not go well on this island.

Wells clearly wants us to think that the Law is silly, that Moreau is capricious and cruel. We are meant to be struck with horror at Moreau. But (Allegory Alert!), Wells is not simply wanting you to think about Moreau and his animals. Moreau is God who creates these beings and then gives them the Law in the hopes that they will behave better than their nature induces them to behave. When the created beings disobey the Law, Moreau causes pain. The created beings thus have to deny their true natures to conform to a painful process of becoming something they are not. And Wells wants you to read this allegory and realize that the entire Christian narrative is fundamentally cruel.

Yet, is the Law really all that bad? Imagine you were a beast, with a beast’s nature. Would not your life be better if you could overcome your nature and live a higher life? Why should we celebrate the nature of the beast? That isn’t a thought experiment at all; just think about your own life. Who can honestly say that he has committed no sin? Who can honestly say that they are not better than they would be in the absence of any Law or moral codes restraining their baser instincts?

Think of all the things you have done that you think are wrong. Not to do those things; that is the Law. Are you not human? Then you realize that, well, maybe you are a bit of a beast after all, not even living up to your own standard of righteousness. Wells seems to be suggesting that the whole idea of the Law is the problem; that it is absurd to ask beasts to behave like men. But is it? Is it absurd to turn bad men into better men? Should we all just revel in our own depravity? Why shouldn’t we be grateful for a standard of behavior that shows us how Men should behave?

But, this isn’t the sort of question Wells wants us to ask when reading his book. 

I once spent a merry couple of hours talking about Moreau’s whole experiment with a group of students. Is it wrong to turn animals into men? If I could create dog-man, would that be good? Should a firm embrace diversity by hiring cat-woman and cow-man? Would we all be happy working with these new beings?

There was instinctive revulsion among my students when the question was raised—which is pretty interesting when you think about it. What would be so wrong with meeting a being which was born a pig and has been modified so that it can walk and talk like a human? Would you want to have dinner with pig-man? Or marry ape-woman? Is there something fundamentally morally wrong with the idea of creating such a being? Are there limits, ethical limits, to such things?

All in all, for a schlocky sensationalistic trashy novel, there are quite a few things worth discussing in it. Did Wells then write Great Books? I have a hard time thinking he did. Yet, here we are a century and a quarter after this book was published reading and talking about it.

That may well be the most troubling thing about this whole book.