each worthy of veneration, each meaningless without the other. And herein lies a paradox, in which some see tragedy, and others the key to the glory of a species.
But what of reason, asked Brenner. Is it empty, or does it have a content? Is it a way merely to achieve ends, or is it, in its way, an end in itself, or germane to particular ends, more to some than others?
Brenner thought of Rodriguez, who was beside him, to his right.
He is a case in point, thought Brenner. He does not subscribe to what he has been taught, he does not accept uncritically the uncontradicted. Indeed, he seemed genetically disposed to think for himself, a disposition which was rare enough perhaps in any time, but was certainly so in these times. Indeed, in virtue of his weakness for thought, he had encountered difficulties in many matters, almost from the very beginning. He had never been convinced that compliance was reason. Perhaps that was because he thought reason might be required in order to determine with what it might be rational to comply. If reason had an appropriate instrumentality, thought Brenner, rather than merely instrumentalities, surely then one might give some sense to the notion of reason, or better perhaps, to the notion of the “rational.” If reason herself were value-neutral, perhaps rationality was not; and rationality might be indexed to nature. To be sure, this involved an axiological commitment. Who is to say that it is not rational for a creature to starve and injure itself, particularly if this starvation and these injuries were instrumental to its moral improvement, namely, in producing an improvement on nature, a twisted, clipped, crippled organism? I, for one, thought Brenner. And who sees words as tools, and weapons, and cloaks of concealment behind which horrors might be hidden? But tell the difference between things and words. They are not the same. Listen to the wind, to the trees, to your heart. Recollect the forgotten languages, learned in youth, the memory of which lurks within you.
Needless to say, as you can see, Brenner was a very confused young man. Had he paid more attention to the Pons about him, his confusions and puzzlements might have been easily resolved. They provided, in their simplicity, inoffensiveness and innocence, the answer to his questions. Too, did they not stand at the “beginning,” in their way? Were they not the proof that a rational, or protorational, species, could begin in innocence? Perhaps the results of his labors, and those of Rodriguez, would be to provide such an example of basic, fundamental goodness in a rational species as to be not only refreshing to more complex, confused, jaded cultures, but perhaps even reassuring, or therapeutic, in its way, restorative perhaps. Brenner had gathered, from the directress, months ago on the home world, that it was expected that his researches would have some such utilitarian value, that it would be nice if they provided confirmation in their way of what already needed no confirmation, the value structure of the home world. “Anthropology can be good for something,” she had reminded him. Brenner supposed that it would be easy enough to slant the data, and, on a world like that of Abydos, an out-flung world, who would ever know, and, indeed, given the apparent nature of the Pons, it might not even be necessary to slant the data. Presumably they would provide the directress, and her party, through the studies and reports of Brenner and Rodriguez, with exactly what they wished. “Learn from them,” the directress had urged him. “We will all learn from them.”
Yes, thought Brenner. One must stop, and then one must begin again. Reason, he supposed, had indeed no content in itself. But, indexed to the needs of a species, the decision made, it being stipulated that these were to be satisfied, it could have an appropriate instrumentality, an instrumentality appropriate to that end, as indeed, in a sense, it could have instrumentalities appropriate to diverse ends. It is rather like a knife, he thought. It can be used for various things. For example, it could be used in self-defense, and even to attack. There are better things to do with it, thought Brenner, than to open one’s veins.
Brenner looked down at one of the Pons, quite close to him. It, with its small, soft, delicate, gentle, hairy, rather simian face, looked up at him, and blinked.
They are interesting little aliens, Brenner conceded.