Reply #95: "Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"

[norml]

"Say the words," said the Ape Man, repeating, and the figures in the doorway echoed this, with a threat in the tone of their voices. I realized that I had to repeat this idiotic formula, And then began the insanest ceremony. The voice in the dark began intoning a mad litany, line by line, and I and the rest to repeat it. As they did so, they swayed from side to side, and beat their hands upon their knees, and I followed their example. I could have imagined I was already dead and in another world. That dark hut, these grotesque dim figures, just flecked here and there by a glimmer of light, and all of them swaying in unison and chanting:

"Not to go on all-Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

"Not to suck up Drink; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

"Not to eat Flesh or Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

"Not to claw the Bark of Trees; that is the Law. Are we not Men?

"Not to chase other Men; that is the Law. Are we not Men?"


—H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau (Chapter 12, "The Sayers of the Law"), 1896. New York: Bantam Books, 1994, pp. 64-65.