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Naturalness Is the Natural Preferable to the Artificial
Dieter Birnbacher
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Intelligence is not Artificial A History of Artificial Intelligence and Why the Singularity is not Coming any Time Soon Expanded Edition Piero Scaruffi
Natural and Artificial Computation for Biomedicine and Neuroscience International Work Conference on the Interplay Between Natural and Artificial Computation
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Biomedical Applications Based on Natural and Artificial Computing International Work Conference on the Interplay Between Natural and Artificial Computation
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Preface
I am grateful to all those colleagues with whom I have discussed naturalness and artificiality in the past few years. I am particularly grateful to Dorothee Brockhage, Carmen Kaminsky and Holmer Steinfath. I would like to thank the German Research Federation for their financial support in two projects, the results of which have in part made their mark on the chapters which follow. Chapter 6.4 is to a significant degree the result of collaborative work with Jeantine Lunshof, especially the insights into the central themes of the contemporary discussion on sex selection in the Netherlands. Finally, I would like to thank Bernward Gesang, Leonore Kottje-Birnbacher and Felicitas Krämer for critically reviewing my manuscript and offering valuable suggestions.
The material used in a few chapters has already been published elsewhere:
The material from ch. 6.4. in Dieter Birnbacher und Jeantine Lunshof: “Riguardo ad alcuni argomenti contra la selezione della prole,” Bioetica 12 (2004), 622-633;
The material from ch. 6.5. in Dieter Birnbacher: “Human cloning and human dignity,” Reproductive BioMedicine Online 10 Supplement 1 (2005), 50-55, with permission from Elsevier.
Chapter One
Natural and Artificial
Introductory
Distinctions
1.1 NATURALNESS AND ARTIFICIALITY AS POINTS OF ORIENTATION
Our orientation in the world is dependent on several fundamental distinctions. In order to come to terms with the world (and discover our place in it) we separate the variety of phenomena we are confronted with into nominal categories, place them into verbal compartments and thus make them available to us mentally. One of the most important distinctions for our orientation in the world is between those belonging to our own species and those things belonging to other natural species. Just how fundamental this distinction is becomes evident when this distinction is put into question; for example when the creation of a hybrid being, consisting of a human being and an animal, is made possible. Yet this is already evident when dedicated advocates of animal rights have us consider that we should refer to animals as “he” or “she” instead of “it,” which is usually reserved for people. Indeed, not only to pets, to which there are quasi-human relations, but also to higher mammals. Even if we do not think it possible to metaphysically justify the antagonism many feel at hearing animals referred to in this sense, it may nevertheless be a symptom of the fundamental significance we attribute to the distinction between the human species and the rest of the world. This is a result of our cognitive socialization, but is possibly also simply a result of categories set out in our language.
It is no less central to our orientation in the world that the distinction between what has developed in the rest of the world owing to human influence, and what would exist without the human being and precisely as it is,
i.e. between what has “become” and what has been “made.” In the ideally typified sense “what has become” is that which exists prior to and independent of the human being and has a certain property independent of human beings. “What has been made” (if we ignore a honeycomb, termite mound and other products manufactured by non-human beings in the world ) is what exists only by virtue of the human being or has a certain property as a result of the human being. We notice just how important this distinction is to us, whenever we see, even at a distance, one of those florists that specialize in the sale of artificial flowers. Since the semblance of naturalness on the current level of technology is often so consummate that the artificiality of what is offered can often only be recognized by tactile indicators, we are at times only then aware, once we have touched what is on offer, what it is we are dealing with. We note, however, in our response to this phenomenon, just how important it is for us to be clear on whether it is nature or art. We view the natural differently to the artificial. Our entire perspective, our approach to things changes with an alteration in the category of the thing. For this reason, we experience a shock when something which was considered natural just as with an extremely realistic figure in a museum proves to be artificial, or when something which was considered artificial as with the rigid upright attendant at Madame Tussauds proves to be natural.
Just how important a distinction is can be measured, amongst other things, by how difficult it is to conceive of a world in which the distinction in question can no longer be made. Can we envisage a world which contains the human being and yet where everything else is untouched by him? Can we envisage a world in which everything which is not the human being is however produced by human beings? Both of these extreme worlds are equally fantastical. As long as the human being is dependent on metabolic processes of the natural world, he alters the natural world. Animate beings are open systems that do not leave their environment unchanged. The astronauts on the moon will have left traces of their presence there even without hoisting the Stars and Stripes, and every production which results in real and not merely ideal products is dependent on material from which it is created, which the human being cannot unravel out of himself, but must garner from his natural environment. Yet this does not mean, as Richard Norman pointed out (Norman 1996:3), that what the individual discovers in the world, in order to utilize it as a point of departure for intervening and making alterations, has not itself been produced. It is “given” to the individual insofar as it is available to him through his environment or his own physical constitution. Yet this given thing may for its own part be the result of human intervention, our own or others. Even the genetic roots of our own existence have not come about without human intervention. What itself is a mere contingency for the individual, has traces of the result of a choice of partners in a long
succession of generations. What for the individual is an absolutely unalterable natural basis of his life and his lifestyle is itself the result of choice.
In other words: the polarity between what has become and what has been made, which is the basis for our orientation in the world, is only valid proximately, not absolutely. Every alteration and every choice presupposes a backdrop of something given relatively, which at least for a time, remains unaltered. An alteration or a choice is only possible on the basis of given materials and alternatives. This does not mean that they do not themselves derive from humanly influenced alterations and conscious choices made by human beings.
Just how fundamental the perspective is, which divides the world into what has become and what has been made, can also be seen in how difficult it is to adopt metaphysical perspectives which reduce one thing to another and either allow everything that has been made appear as if it has become or everything that has become appear as if it has been made. Both these extreme perspectives are so foreign to us that we can only adopt them (or perhaps at best simulate them) for short periods of time, like passing dreams. A perspective that reduces the world “artificially” to what becomes, is that of Schopenhauer’s “clear eye of the world” (Schopenhauer 1988a: 219) a position of pure contemplation where the world presents itself as something purely given, as a magnitude that cannot be influenced by human willing or action, comparable to the sequence of natural numbers, which can be researched and described, but not altered. From this “will-less,” purely receptive perspective of letting-things-be, things which are made as well as the actions of others are molded together into mere occurrences. What is cultural, technological and artificial also appears as pure nature; a flower and book are both, as in Rilke’s sonnet, “relaxed” (Rilke 1955: 745). But the opposite perspective is also difficult to maintain, the perspective of Fichtean idealism and Sartrean existential philosophy. For them, what appears to be given, is a result of the choices of will, at least of constitutional productions of the subject. From this perspective, the contingency of what is given in the world is mere appearance. What is given in appearance and apparently caused by something from outside is also the result of an action (even if it be the result of an unconscious action) and is therefore the subject of attribution and responsibility. What is apparently natural is essentially “of our own spirit,” and what is apparently foreign is essentially a manifestation of what is most familiar to us.
In both distinctions the distinction between the human world and the rest of the world, and the distinction between what has become and what has been made we use the expression “natural,” in order to separate that which is further away from the human being and that which is closer to him. Nevertheless, the same expression cannot conceal the fact that both distinctions function very differently. The opposition nature vs. human functions
differently to the opposition nature vs. human production. The distinction between what is natural and what is human, in the sense of belonging to a species, does not allow for an intermediary domain and at least until now leaves little room for doubt. Even if it were biologically possible to create inter-species-hybrids between humans and apes and therefore in real terms to merge the explicit boundary between the species, there have, to date, been no reports of any such experiment. In xenotransplantation, i.e. the transplantation of animal cells, tissue and organs to human beings, the animal cells spread across the entire human organism very shortly after transplantation. But these foreign admixtures are of such minor importance that attributing the whole organism to the species human being is not queried any more than in the case of parasites and symbiotes that typically house in the human organism. The structures that develop in the so-called motility test of human sperm, used in reproductive medicine, in which the fertilization potential of sperm is tested on hamster eggs, are closer to real hybrid formation between the human being and foreign genera. Of course, in order to prevent the development of inter-species-hybrids, the process is discontinued well in advance of the possible commencement of different stages of development towards a mixed-embryo.
While we do not know of doubtful cases, as regards what is non-human, in the distinction between what is human and what is natural (and as far as possible avoid them), a number of things in the world in the intermediary domain are discarded in the distinction between what is natural and what is man-made; included in this are almost all things which we confront in our immediate everyday lives. Among the things which we come into direct contact with during our lifetime, what is purely artificial is just as rare as what is purely natural. The “flawlessly” natural and the “flawlessly” artificial are more like imaginary poles which actually belong to a spectrum where we only know the intermediary domain. More or less all the things that confront us in our everyday experience belong to a large range of nuances, even in the case when we, wrongly or without further consideration, attribute them to the “natural” pole. Nicole Karafyllis has suggested the term “biofacts” for artificial living beings which we mistakenly attribute to the realm of the natural. Biofacts are, according to this definition, living beings where there are directly or indirectly anthropogenic influences effective in their generation or development, yet which are no longer determinable on the basis of their appearance or are at least not generally recognized:
One does not see the artificial part and will not perhaps even discover it on a substantial, molecular level, even though the living subject was induced to grow artificially or was at least prepared technologically. (Karafyllis 2003: 16)
Not only artificial, but also natural flowers that I buy in the (real) florists are not natural in the “pure” sense, but rather merely predominantly so. The “natural” flowers may not have grown in natural surroundings, but instead in an “artificially” heated greenhouse or under a synthetic tarpaulin, which retains the heat. They may not have grown in natural topsoil, but instead in a nutrient vial with the addition of artificial fertilizers and synthetic pesticides. And perhaps the entire species owes its existence to breeding for aesthetic appeal, durability and economy. Even in absence of genetic engineering their “nature” is a largely artificial product, its genome a product of targeted human manipulation.
On the other hand, artificial flowers I buy at the “fake” florists are not artificial in the “pure” sense, but only predominantly so. The artificial material of which they consist is not found in nature, in the way it would exist without the addition of the human being. Yet even the polymers that afford the stem and blossoms their rigidity are made up of constituent elements found in nature. They are not made by man from nothing, but instead are for their part processed nature. The raw materials that were introduced into their production millions of years ago come from an underground reservoir which was formed without human intervention. And their form is also derived of nature; they would not exist were they not copied from the outward appearance of “real” flowers. Flowers would only exist immaterially if they were mere thoughts without anything actually natural, and even then, owing to their similarity with the real archetypes, the traces of what is natural in it will not have vanished entirely. Even in the most developed technologies the naturalness of its material is not entirely eliminated, but instead the ratio of the composition has been adapted in favor of the artificial. Even in Baudelaire’s poem “Rêve parisien,” the dream of a cityscape formed entirely “artificially” and in strict accordance with human standards, several natural materials still survive: “marble and metal and water.” Even gene technology, which is often accused of having caused a “dedifferentiation” of what is technologically made and what has come about by nature (Habermas 2001: 83) needs pre-existing biotic material which it gradually alters over time. The production of the principal components of the biotic cell or even the genome from non-biotic materials is for the time being utopian. For the rest, Francis Bacon, who otherwise did not lack technical fantasy, foresaw in his “House of Salomon” only the artificial transmutation of a biological species into another, not the entirely artificial creation of a new species (see Bacon 1960: 207).
The expression “natural” and its linguistic cognates behave like semantic chameleons: they adapt their tones to the particular environment. Anytime there is talk of “natural” it is about placing a contrasting element into view and distinguishing between what is natural and its specific opposite. The content of this opposite, the non-natural, can turn out to be very different
depending on which contrary concept is intended: the supernatural, the unnatural, the cultural, the technical, the fake or the coerced. And just as the example of the contrast between humans and the rest of nature on the one hand and the contrast between the natural and the artificial in the non-human world on the other have shown, the semantic shifts which occur with the change in the particular contrary concept are so profound that these pairs of contraries logically function completely differently: “naturalness” functions in the first sense as a classifying concept; “naturalness” in the latter sense as a comparative concept. While the first pair of opposites classifies the phenomena such that all that exists fits neatly in one of the two categories, the second contrary is more akin to a mixture ratio. The question whether something is “natural” can, as a rule, not be answered with yes or no, but instead with a more or less.
Admittedly, the conclusion that there are gradations between what is natural and artificial is in itself not particularly informative. It is already intuitively evident. What we want to know is how these gradations behave on different levels and whether the gradations that we intuitively decide upon all lie on the very same dimension. Is there only one dimension of naturalness or can we gradate “naturalness” into several different concepts of naturalness? In the former case every statement of the type that x is more natural than y is clearly determined in terms of its significance. In the latter case, every statement of the type that x is more natural than y is elliptical. It presupposes a reference not named explicitly. In more detail it would have to state: “ x is more natural than y with respect to z, ” and in this case the truth of the statement would be consistent with the truth of the statement that the same x is in a different sense less natural than y.
Indeed, we cannot avoid this complication. The concept of the natural is multi- and not one-dimensional. The distinction between respects, in which something is more natural than something else, already appears evident in the language we use in connection with more or less natural materials. Hence we have spoken for a long time of flavorings “identical to nature”; materials that are produced artificially, but where their constitution cannot be distinguished from other materials that are found in nature. If we did not know that they were produced artificially, these materials, in analogy with “biofacts,” would be “chemofacts.” But although the flavoring identical to nature is essentially produced from natural elements, it in fact contains unmistakable attributes which in terms of the intuitive scale of relative naturalness and artificiality places it a lot closer to the artificial pole: its industrial production in commercial plants, the dependency of this production on an advanced state of the art in chemical analysis and chemical technology, not least the development and creation of artificial aromatic flavorings intended to be as perfect a copy of the natural material as possible. An earlier analogy of today’s materials “identical to nature” and an example of a perfected “biofact” is perhaps the
English garden, defined according to one of its leading protagonists Christian Hirschfeld as: “an area reproduced by art in order to strengthen its natural effect” (Gaier 1989: 151). In this case, nature becomes the object of a systematically planned production, which, besides other things, is bent on concealing its traces and to make the area which has been artificially recreated appear as if it had grown naturally. Even if the forms, which the English garden presents, are seldom in a nature that has not been touched by human intervention, these forms are sufficiently similar to untouched nature to give the impression of having grown naturally. In any case, the excess of natural beauty, the excessive “strengthening” of the natural effect, betrays the artificiality of the area similar to how the excess aroma in milk products and the aesthetic perfection of the artificial blossom betrays its artificiality.
1.2 GENETIC AND QUALITATIVE NATURALNESS
The expression “artificial naturalness” appears at first sight to be a paradox. But this preconception is proven false as soon as we distinguish two ways in which one can differentiate something natural from something artificial. Following on from a terminology which I proposed in a different context (Birnbacher 1995: 714), I would like to suggest differentiating between a genetic and a qualitative naturalness, or artificiality. In the genetic sense “natural” and “artificial” express something about how something originated, in the qualitative sense they express something about its actual constitution and appearance. “Natural” in the genetic sense is what has a natural origin, “natural” in the qualitative sense is what does not differ from that which is to be found in nature. The flavoring, identical to the one found in nature, and the English Garden are both equally artificial when it comes to how they were created, and equally natural when it comes to their constitution. They have been made by man, but at the same time cannot be distinguished from things that have been created without human involvement, as regards their appearance and other qualitative characteristics. Taken in their genetic sense, naturalness and artificiality are historical terms; they are related to the past. To term something natural in this sense, one has to reconstruct how it came about. In a qualitative sense naturalness and artificiality are phenomenological forms of description; they relate to the way something actually appears and are related to the present. In order to attribute naturalness and artificiality to something in this sense, one has to examine whether it is similar or dissimilar to what has come into being through the influence of the human being. In this distinction at least as far as naturalness is concerned one might experience an echo of the scholastic distinction between natura naturans and natura naturata. The genetic concept of naturalness concerns the aspect of natura naturans, that of productive nature; the qualitative concept concerns
the aspect of natura naturata, i.e. that of nature constituted in such and such a manner.
It will not have escaped the attentive reader that the two distinct meanings of “natural” and “artificial” are not entirely independent of each other. It is possible that something is artificial in a genetic sense and at the same time natural in a qualitative sense (see the section on flavoring that is identical to nature), but it is not possible that something is natural in the genetic sense and at the same time artificial in a qualitative sense. The reason for this is that the qualitative pair of opposites is determined from the onset by their relationship to the genetic.
A further consequence of this conceptual distinction is that it is dependent on the particular state of natural historical knowledge (taking this term in the literal sense of a historiography of nature). Whether something is natural and artificial in a qualitative or a genetic sense can change with the development of this knowledge. For example, the process of splitting atoms of certain isotopes of uranium could only be looked upon as an exclusively “artificial” process in a qualitative sense until it was discovered that physically identical mechanisms in certain subterranean uranium mines in Africa must already have taken place within geological time scales. With regard to other artificial substances, taken in a qualitative sense, such as bronze, polyethylene or Americium and especially with regard to technical inventions such as wheels for locomotion or the transfer of cell nuclei in denucleated ova (as with cloning using the “Dolly-method”) we are fairly certain that they are unknown to pre-human and non-human nature. But even in this context surprises cannot be ruled out entirely.
Despite semantic distinctions, both types of naturalness and artificiality contain an array of similarities. In particular, these concern their gradation and the fact that these gradations relate to several different dimensions.
1.3 DIMENSIONS OF NATURALNESS IN THE GENETIC SENSE
We have already established that genetic naturalness and artificiality can be gradated: nothing which can be found in the outside world is as opposed to pure constructions of thought completely and entirely artificial as long as it needs a physical substrate. On the other hand, only very little in our world is completely and utterly natural. Even most areas described as “natural landscapes” are, at least in Europe, not entirely untouched by human beings. Nevertheless, it is difficult to provide a comprehensive and consistent measure for the extent to which the human being intervenes in nature. These interventions concern a series of different dimensions, and it appears questionable whether one can evaluate these dimensions in an inter-subjective
manner that can be agreed upon and aggregated into an overarching measure of relative naturalness and artificiality.
A first dimension of the artificiality of something can be viewed in terms of the extent of the intervention The extent of the intervention can be assessed according to which level the human being changes natural structures and processes. Creating new strains in plants and genetic changes to plants occur on a more basic level than the cultivation of plants with the purpose of producing foods and the improved extraction of their substances through heating. In this sense, wild strawberries are “more natural” than garden strawberries and the jam from them “more artificial” than from the processed “raw” strawberries. Iron ore is “more natural” than iron and this in turn “more natural” than rolled steel and the products that are produced from them. A log cabin that has been constructed by using coarse pine logs is “closer to nature” than a house made up of wood from wooden boards or panels, and they in turn are “closer to nature” than something constructed from chipboard, again a house made of natural stone “more natural” than a house constructed of brick or cement.
A second dimension, independent of the first, is the density of the interactions between the natural substrate and culture. Crops, decorative plants, livestock and small pets have typically not come about through direct human intervention on a genetic level, they have been subject to breeding in their historical development and to optimization with a view to particular qualities. A similar thing applies to technical materials and landscapes that are used intensively, for example through opencast mining or lumbering. The human being has thereby not only affected nature, he has also allowed nature to affect how it is affected, for example by adapting his techniques for utilizing nature to the constitution and potential of nature or indeed adapting them to the results of his effects on nature.
A third dimension of the “artificiality” or “culturality” of human interventions in nature can be judged based on the extent of the intentionality of these interventions the extent to which these interventions were consciously willed and targeted. The thought of a cultural restructuring and recreation of nature initially makes us think of targeted interventions, such as breeding, cultivation, landscaping and development. But a large part of the restructuring of nature occurs in an unplanned and untargeted fashion, as welcome or unwelcome side-effects of intentional interventions, for example where cultivation (in a welcome fashion) increases the number and diversity of the biological species or when industrialization (in an unwelcome fashion) unfavorably changes climatic and other environmental conditions. A large proportion of the plant and animal species, which we are familiar with and that make up the natural environment, are constituted of the “culture successors,” which would not exist if human civilization were not here. Thus, in Central Europe, the largest diversity of species, ecological systems and landscapes
did not exist in prehistoric times, but rather around the year 1700, at a time of small-scale intensive agriculture and as a side-effect of a highly differentiated utilization of nature. As opposed to today, agriculture did not only bring about a plethora of different biotopes (with a large number of different cultured plants), but instead encouraged a large number of neophytes which were originally non-resident (see Buderath/Makowski 1986: 83 f.). The large-scale changes in the biosphere that industrialization has caused since the 18th century, for example the increase in CO2 levels in the atmosphere, are also side effects of intentional actions. Owing to their size, it is difficult to classify them as directly intended actions of individual subjects. Many and perhaps the most far reaching alterations in nature cannot be viewed as the result of the side effects of intentional behavior, but instead as non-intentional, spontaneous and in this sense more likely “natural” behavior, for example population growth.
There is a further aspect of the influence on nature that can be attributed to the dimension of “intentionality”: the extent to which intentionally motivated changes in nature and adaptations of nature are specifically oriented towards cultural models. The classic French garden is evidently based on the cultural model of geometric symmetry, just as the classic English garden is on landscape painting. The ideal prototype of the correct disposition of natural elements, considered harmonious, did not come out of nature, but instead out of the idealizations of geometry and art. This is also true of the English garden, which is apparently created in close semblance to nature: the ensemble of the artfully arranged trees, shrubs and surfaces was not primarily intended to put the lover of nature at rest, but instead to please the lover of art who is familiar with specific cultural motifs. It is therefore not surprising that for Prince Hermann of Pückler-Muskau this ensemble did not only include natural components, but also shepherds and agricultural laborers, who were included in the composition from the onset. The model for a composition of nature was not “wild nature,” but instead the compositions of Poussin, Claude Lorrain and other painted idylls. In the same way as the agricultural laborers or excursionists also belong to the artistic staging of nature, the visitors to parks who tread the carefully developed paths, were integrated into the overall composition. Even if he does not know it, the modern day visitor to the park is a part of a work of art (cf. Gaier 1989: 145).
The different dimensions of naturalness and artificiality in the genetic sense are mostly independent of one another. Hence, on the basis of the criteria of intentionality an entirely different gradation of the scale of naturalness vs. artificiality emerges in comparison to that based on the criteria of the denseness of the interaction between the two. The anthropological changes for example of the earth’s climatic system are based on the dimension of intentionality close to the pole of naturalness, in the dimension of the denseness of their interaction, close to the pole of artificiality. Older artificial
products and materials that have not been changed for a long time are, as regards the dimension of the denseness of their interaction, “more natural” than those that have been further developed, for example spelt as compared to wheat and maize or brass as compared to plastic and steel, even though they are equally artificial as regards the extent to which they have been intervened with. Landscapes such as mudflats are “more natural” than the brown coal field of Niederlausitz or the vineyards of the Kaiserstuhl, insofar as they have not completely, but to a significantly higher degree, been unaffected by human intervention. In the same sense as naturalness, the process of “artificialization” cannot be undone, but yet as far as the direction it is taking is concerned, it can be reversed; for example through reintroduction to the wild. “Reintroduction to the wild” means that a plant or animal species which can be traced back to human intervention is once again subjected to natural evolution, with the possible consequence that it is henceforth difficult to distinguish it from other species that cannot be traced back to such intervention. A forest that can be traced back to something similar to a cultivated park landscape, such as the Reinhartswald in North Hessen, can be left untended for such a long period of time that for later generations it is considered a primeval forest; a feature which at most applies to it in a qualitative sense, but certainly not in a genetic one.
The example of a “supposedly primeval forest” shows that something, which is to a large degree artificial in the genetic sense, is compatible with something largely natural in the qualitative sense, i.e. something distinctively similar to nature. An animal species which is in close interaction with human civilization, such as the sheepdog, possibly differs less from the original form of a wolf, than as a less intensively bred dog, which is however more obviously distinct from the original form of a wolf and which in a qualitative sense is a more unnatural dog. Furthermore, not every intensive anthropogenic alteration of the natural substrate is necessarily evident in the phenotype, which is the measure of naturalness and artificiality in the qualitative sense. A “deep-lying” alteration in the natural source material, for example a mutation contingent upon anthropogenic radiation, can leave the phenotype of a plant mostly unaltered and therefore allow the plant to appear no less natural than a plant that has been radiated for the purposes of breeding (cf. Roughley 2004: 145). Indeed, an intervention can be directed towards the imitation of natural substances in their natural, original form, such as for example the restoration of a moor or the renaturation of streams. Deep-lying interventions in nature are directed in this case towards the production or reproduction of a new or original and certainly, even if only in a qualitative sense, entirely “natural” nature. But the opposite is equally true: interventions, which on the scale of genetic artificiality do not attain particularly high values, can nevertheless alter the constitution of nature massively and irreversibly. An example of this is the destruction of the vegetation of the Mediterranean coast
through excessive wood harvesting during ancient times. This human intervention was neither particularly deep-lying (dimension 1) nor continual (dimension 2) nor intentional (in the relevant sense) (dimension 3). Nevertheless, it undeniably and permanently influenced the physiognomy of the Mediterranean landscape.
1.4 DIMENSIONS OF NATURALNESS IN THE QUALITATIVE SENSE
In many anthropogenic alterations of nature the traces of human intervention can only be established with considerable effort or not at all, especially when the deliberate obliteration of these traces was, from the outset, part of the plan. This was undertaken not just to mask the artificial from the natural and make it appear identical with its natural form, but also to make it difficult to reconstruct its causal and historical development. Doping officials know how difficult it is, owing to rapidly changing and ever more skilful doping techniques, to trace back the origins of enhanced performances of athletes, which continue to increase at an astounding rate. Controls shortly before or after competition are no longer sufficient, but instead, on order to reconstruct which aids have been used for the “artificial” enhancement of performance (unannounced), tests during the training period are also necessary if the conditions of the performance are to remain fair. The future possibility, which appears to be on the horizon, of a perfected form of gene doping, in which the “artificial” manipulation of the physical sporting performance can no longer be proved in any manner whatsoever, would signify that elaborate attempts at drug testing would be made redundant (cf. Wehling 2003: 96; Miah 2004). An athletic body that has been perfected through gene doping, the application of methods of somatic gene therapy for non-therapeutic purposes that enhance performance, would only differ “historically,” according to the conditions of their development, from a less artificially perfected one. The difference would only be demonstrable through possible traces of the “artificiality” or through a confession by the athlete concerned. If there are other athletes’ bodies that have the same level of performance without the artificial manipulation, the body of the athlete would, in a phenotypicalqualitative sense be entirely “natural.”
In accordance with our everyday language, naturalness and artificiality can be graded in a qualitative sense in the same manner as naturalness and artificiality in a genetic sense: something is “more natural” than something else if it is more similar to the natural, i.e. to what has come about without the intervention of man. Since this similarity can relate to a series of different attributes, a multitude of implicit scales and variants relating to this begin to emerge. The “deceptively real” artificial reproduction can be as close to the
natural in terms of form as might be possible, while in a material sense, for example if it has been created from a “synthetic” and therefore “artificial” raw material, it can be as “artificial” as anything might possibly be.
Form, composition, function and temporal-spatial dimension belong to the most important aspects in which things can be gradated in terms of their qualitative naturalness and artificiality. A highly bizarre imaginary blossom is, according to its form, for example as part of a chinoiserie, “more artificial” than the exact reproduction of a blossom existing in nature. The flat and right angled surfaces of industrially produced furniture are “more unnatural” than the “rough edges” of crude wood. The face of an eighty year old woman that has been “rejuvenated” through lifting and wrinkle treatment, and which therefore appears as a mask, is in the same dimension equally “unnatural” as, in the extreme case, the face of a “synthetic” pop star like Michael Jackson, which is not only wrinkleless and ageless, but also appears “vacuous,” sexually ambiguous and impersonalized (cf. Bräunlein 2000: 121). Yet the composition is in fact more important for the judgment on whether something is “artificial” than the form. A bonsai can clearly be seen from its relation of size to be “artificial.” Yet because, according to its composition, it is made up of the same lignin as a normal tree, it can without doubt be judged to be more “natural” than an ornamental tree out of plastic, which according to its form correlates more strongly with a natural tree. In the same way, a fish which through gene-technical alteration has the capacity to become fluorescent would probably be judged “more unnatural” than a fish that has been bred to have more flesh on it. The decisive point in this case is that the fish, by virtue of the intervention, has been equipped with a new and additional property, which does not otherwise exist in fish. It is “more artificial” than other fish that have been bred, insofar as it has a function not otherwise known in fish born naturally. After all, a hyper-giant mouse which would have a considerably larger body mass than the giant mouse, which was developed several years ago through the integration of the human growth hormone gene into the mouse genome, would, according to its physical dimensions, without doubt be “more unnatural” than the examples of the artificial species of giant mouse living today.
Technical products usually distinguish themselves by the fact that they, in various dimensions of qualitative artificiality, are almost the extreme value of the entirely artificial: they have unnatural forms, are constituted of unnatural materials, have unnatural functions and surpass, in those instances where they mimic natural processes, their physical dimensions. The feeling of alienation, which several authors describe between the human being and his technical productions, seems to be caused by this artificiality. This, as a rule, makes these productions easily identifiable within natural surroundings; a machine whose function we do not understand appears to be more foreign to us than a plant, whose function we understand just as little. Ernst Bloch
mentions in a passage of his early text “The fear of an engineer” the “terrifying aspect” of machines that lives “in nothing of nature” (cf. Bloch 1965: 351). In a time like ours in which bionics (the technical adoption and simulation of natural functions) is experiencing a boom, only few technical devices are, according to their form, derived from their natural counterparts. Technical objects are typically right-angled geometrical shapes (not, for example, robots, which are becoming ever more similar to humans) rather than organic irregular shapes. They are generally composed of “synthetic” materials which do not exist in this purity in nature, as with metals and artificial materials and their function is typically different to those of the natural mechanisms they replace. They typically also differ in their size. In the philosophy of technology this “unnaturalness” of technical objects is often termed “technicity.” The more a technical object differs from nature, the higher is its technicity index. An electric train is in this sense “more technical” than a steam engine, since in the steam engine (with the exception of letting off steam) the piston rod still at least has similarities with trotting horse feet; a factory building is “more technical” than a farm with stables surrounded by trees, which is similar to a natural grove or a cluster of mushrooms; dry cooling towers and computer chips are in view of their size “more technical” than technical devices in dimensions of tools, such as a bread knife or a sewing machine. This is of course only true as a rule and not universally. In most fields of technology the development, whether it be desired or undesirable, has developed towards making the objects which have been produced, formed and altered technically to more closely mirror natural forms, structures, types of function and dimensions. This is the case, for example, with gliders, which at a distance cannot always be distinguished from birds of prey; radio masts, that in some South African cities are shaped similarly to oversized palm trees; or “intelligent” artificial limbs that in their function have become ever more similar to their natural originals.
In the gradations of naturalness and artificiality in the qualitative sense it would appear difficult to aggregate the different dimensions of being closer or further away from nature on a unitary scale. I assume at least that intuitive judgments in this sense are also not obvious enough and presuppose too many different implicit emphases of varying dimensions, in order to allow for an “objective” scale of artificiality in the world we live in. However, in this sense, the difference between natural and artificial is neither questioned nor completely left to the contingencies of cultural perspectives and individual choices. In this sense the notion that the “natural-cultural-distinction” is always only drawn “within a culture” and within the scope of cultural (i.e. not entirely objectifiable) interpretations (Vieth/Quante 2005: 211) should be rejected. Both the question as to what extent human intervention is responsible for the existence and constitution of an object, as well as the question as to what properties it has in common with naturally occurring objects are
empirical questions that can be investigated using scientific methods and with results that are inter-subjective and binding, even if these results can only ever be determined provisionally and are not immune to revisions. Only when the attempt is made to aggregate these empirical findings into a global measure of naturalness and artificiality, do cultural and individual relativisms come in, no less than in aesthetics and morality. Even if one puts aside the dimension of knowing something or being familiar with something which is present in many everyday judgments of naturalness and attempts to measure only the historical-genetic and the qualitative naturalness of something, the differing dimensions of its definition seem too diverse and too instable in their subjective weighting on an intra- and interpersonal level to allow for a measure of naturalness that is both “objective” and intuitively adequate.
Chapter Two
Naturalness as a Value
2.1 HAS NATURALNESS BECOME DISCREDITED AS A NORMATIVE PRINCIPLE?
Examining the ethical discourse of the last century, one is immediately led to the impression that naturalness, as a principle of value (at least in the academic treatment of ethics) has been discredited once and for all. As a principle for the judgment of human behavior, naturalness has not, for a very long time, played a role worth mentioning. Instead of serving as a guide for human behavior, every attempt to establish naturalness as a moral criterion has on the contrary to be prepared for criticism and anticipate the objection that any such attempt involves the illegitimate derivation of an “ought” or “must” from a mere being and is therefore subject to a “naturalistic fallacy.” Even if these judgments are often pigeon holed too promptly and indeed thoughtlessly, the attack usually achieves its goal, namely, to successfully silence those who refer to nature for a basis of their judgment. In addition, an ethical appeal to nature has lost much of its credibility owing to a series of discredited arguments, and is suspected of being a systematic ideology. This is the case, on the one hand, when the arguments of the Magisterium draw on ideas of scholasticism, which, with formidable conviction, reject practices such as birth control by “artificial” means as being “unnatural,” even if they have been accepted for a long time by the majority of believers. This is also the case, on the other hand, with Social Darwinism, which was politically highly influential in the 19th Century and which views the prevailing “right of the stronger, or survival of the fittest,” occurring in nature, be it real or perceived, as a model for society. This culminated in Nietzsche’s eugenic fantasies of the selection and creation of a master race by “cultivation and breeding” (Nietzsche 1980: 126).
The arguments against referring to the term “naturalness” as a principle of value or a normative principle are so diverse that it is advisable to first align them in a systematic order. It makes sense to distinguish the critical approaches by the kind of principles of argumentation they draw on: metaethical arguments depart from the logical and semantic deficits of naturalness arguments; ethical arguments from their normative foundations; pragmatic ones from effects, which are brought about or can be brought about by arguments based on nature and naturalness in social practice.
Two objections in particular are among the most important metaethical objections to arguments of naturalness: the objection of a “naturalistic fallacy,” according to which “ought” demands cannot be derived from mere descriptions of being; and the objection of ambiguity and multi-functionality in the terms “nature” and “naturalness,” which invite confusion and pseudo argumentation. Since “nature” and “naturalness,” depending on the context, are used to make markedly different contrasts and polarizations in an argument, these concepts are only acceptable if it is made clear which nature and what kind of naturalness they are based on. However, this is (according to this objection) lacking in most naturalistic arguments.
I will address the argument of the “naturalistic fallacy” in relation to ethical naturalism in more detail later (Section 3.2). As for the objection that the diverse meanings of “nature” and “naturalness” more or less inevitably lead to confusion and arbitrariness, it must be said that the validity of this objection as regards naturalistic arguments in the history of practical philosophy can only be denied with difficulty. While some of the philosophes of the 18th Century, such as d’Holbach, drew on the “Code of Nature” (d’Holbach 1978: 600), in order to exercise radical criticism of the institutions of the ancien régime, Edmund Burke, during the same period, defended the political system of constitutional monarchy against the French Revolution, with the assertion, amongst other things, that it is “in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world” (cf. Burke 1910: 31). Logical fallacies are still widespread today as are, paradoxes, often elegantly sounding, which result from the fact that “nature” on the one hand is understood in the sense of non-human nature, on the other in the broadest sense of nature, which includes human beings. Typical of this are the apocalyptic warnings of C. S. Lewis, written at the same time as Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment, and entitled The Abolition of Man: “Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man” (Lewis 1943: 41). Not the nature which man subdues, is to subdue man, but the natural aspect of man is to subdue the cultural side of man. An equivalent quid pro quo is already found in Francis Bacon’s often quoted paradox “Natura enim non nisi parendo vincitur” (Bacon 1899: 192). Clearly, the nature which one overpowers is not the same as the nature one yields to. What we overpower is non-human nature, whose inauspicious processes are
adapted to human needs and desires, while the laws of nature, which one thereby makes use of (and which one in this sense “yields” to), are unchangeable and apply equally to non-human and human nature. To infer from these types of examples that one should abstain entirely from the concept of nature in practical philosophy would, however, be unreasonable. From these examples we can garner that anyone who wishes to put forward arguments using the concepts of nature and naturalness should proceed with necessary caution.
A further metaethical argument against appealing to nature and naturalness is that, given the openness of the concept of nature, the appeal to “nature” and “naturalness” is used by many ethicists and moralists as a “free license” to project their respective personal moral intuitions into nature and to interpret nature in precisely those normative contents that they consider correct either way and possibly for very different reasons. In a similar way as how God serves as a function in religious ethics, the appeal to the external instance of nature is then merely an amplifier and “constant reference point” for any type of assertion. Because examples of every possible form of behavior, be it the most philanthropic or the most misanthropic, can be found in non-human nature, appealing to “nature” or “naturalness” gives every possible ethical opinion the opportunity to surreptitiously justify itself by appealing to a seemingly higher instance. As Garrett Hardin states: “Nature is a fiction created by the human psyche, when we seek to avoid responsibility for the Hearts’s decisions: The voice of Nature is a human voice” (Hardin 1976: 16). But what has just been said also applies to this argument: projective notions of nature can only cause confusion or mislead to the extent to which they are not as such understood for what they are. Both evils can be avoided if one distinguishes clearly enough between the different meanings of “nature” and “naturalness” and discloses in their respective concepts of nature the possible values and normative meanings contained in them.
The striking objection which most modern ethicists have to naturalness as a practical orientation is not a metaethical but a normative-ethical one: reference to the fact that non-human nature is not only morally indifferent, but so entirely destructive and wasteful that it is scarcely suitable for serving as a role model for man’s actions. This argument, which is also put forward by such diverse thinkers as Arthur Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, Albert Schweitzer and William James, is supported among other things by the fact that conceptions which elevate naturalness to an ethical principle tend to idealize what is natural unreasonably and thereby also bring upon themselves the metaethical reproach of a more or less projective understanding of nature.
Indeed from this point of view, even the early Stoics who were the best known of all philosophical schools propagating the naturam sequi, i.e. “living in harmony with nature,” as an ethical ideal, had a view of nature which was highly problematic. The Stoics could only support this ideal in good
conscience because they viewed nature as pervaded by cosmic reason, which in their view was simultaneously the source of the purposeful constitution of natural things and the processes of nature. However, this idealized interpretation of nature already contained heroic traits: they clung to this notion even though they did not tire of simultaneously bemoaning the irrationality of the world’s course. Furthermore, a critique of idealized images of nature was not unheard of in the ancient world. As early as ancient pastoral poetry the idealization of the “natural” way of life, associated with the idyll of country life, was accompanied by an ironic stance on naturalness, as a projection of frustrated urban intellectuals who in the face of the noise and the strife of city life longed for the apparent self-sufficiency, tranquility and simplicity of the lifestyle of the countryside. Similarly, social criticism of the 18th Century, for example that of Shaftesbury or Rousseau, idealized the proximity of the human being to nature and naturalness. They went in search of the “inspired peasant”: the artless-artistic poet, who, like the singer in Goethe’s poem of the same name “sings like a bird sings” and discovered him, ironically, in the Ossian poems (amongst others), which are attributed to a mysterious naturebard. Yet these poems were cleverly adapted to the archaic primitive taste of the times by the contemporary poet James Macpherson.
Idealized images and metaphors of nature are to be found in particular in more recent academic papers on the ethics of nature; for example the topos of a “natural equilibrium,” which has been disturbed or endangered by human intervention. In these papers it is as if nature were a static system that does not itself constantly cause destruction and catastrophic turmoil one might for example consider the eruption of the volcano Mount St. Helens in 1980 or the tsunami in 2004. In a sense, as an overreaction to the contempt of nature in the main tradition of Western philosophy, non-human nature is often personalized as a “partner,” nature and non-human living beings often theologized as “creation” and “creatures” and plants often zoomorphized by ascribing to them terms such as “interest,” which have their exclusive sense when applied to beings endowed with consciousness. Nature as a whole is associated with the deceptive connotation of being a peaceful and harmonious community.
Problematic idealizations are nevertheless present even in our everyday language of “partnership,” “solidarity,” “peace” and “reconciliation with nature” as goals of an ecological shift in consciousness. “Partnership,” “peace,” “solidarity” denote structurally symmetrical relations, while the relationship between man and nature is structurally asymmetrical. The human being alone is the subject of actions and responsibilities with respect to nature. The human being alone is the cognizant subject that probes and questions his “partner” methodically.
After all, arguments that are based on natural differences are in many cases met with criticism, also for pragmatic reasons, especially when they
threaten to confirm widespread prejudice or one has to fear that in a sociopolitical context they may result in discrimination or perpetuate existing discriminatory tendencies or even strengthen them. Owing to the fact that on the basis of historical experience these effects are to be expected in those fields, existing research on “natural” differences between sexes, races and ethnicities are often rejected as politically incorrect out of fear of social consequences. It is no coincidence that reservations of this type are particularly widespread in equality-oriented political cultures, such as the United States of America. Even if, in substance, little or nothing follows from natural inequalities regarding the eligibility of normative inequalities, the fear is not unfounded that on the basis of descriptive statements concerning existing inequalities, normative conclusions might be drawn on the legitimacy of inequitable behavior.
2.2 THE NATURALNESS BONUS IN EVERYDAY MORALITY
These fears are not to be neglected for the simple reason that again and again and in different contexts it has been shown that the distinction between natural and artificial in everyday moral thinking is given much more legitimacy than in academic ethics. Neither at the level of non-moral evaluations (i.e. considerations of what is worthwhile, desirable or good) nor at the level of moral evaluation (i.e. considerations of what is right, necessary or appropriate), are the categories of natural and artificial considered irrelevant. On the contrary, the natural is consistently preferred to the artificial, what is given preferred to what is made. That which exists by nature is given systematic priority over that which has been made or brought about by man.
One of the phenomena in which this “naturalness bonus” manifests itself is in the variously observed tendency, observed in social-psychological risk research, to tolerate natural ills and dangers more readily than anthropogenic ills and risks, and to consider the prevention of natural ills and dangers less relevant than precautions against ills and dangers that stem from humans. Natural ills are more readily accepted than those caused by human beings and the attempt to prevent natural ills is much less common than measures to prevent anthropogenic ills.
To what extent our assessment of where anthropogenic and natural states differ from each other, regardless of the quality of these states, can be seen in the evaluation of psychological states. Many tend to “upgrade” negative states of consciousness such as severe depression if they are based on natural conditions (and cannot for example be understood as a response to anthropogenic trauma) in a way which they would never do with negative states of consciousness that come about through anthropogenic causes. There is a common consensus that the torments which come about through torture,
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CHAPTER XXII
AFTER WILD FLOWERS
For a moment or two Russ did not know whether or not Laddie was joking. The little fellow often played tricks, and this might be one of these times. But when Russ looked at Laddie’s face the older Bunker boy felt sure there must be something wrong.
Still, before getting excited about it, and, perhaps, unnecessarily frightening Rose, Margy, Mun Bun and Violet, it might be well to make sure. So Russ asked:
“Which way is he coming, Laddie?”
“Right across the lots,” was the answer. “I saw him when I was after cattails. He’s coming right this way!”
“Then we’d better hide behind a fence,” advised Violet. “The other day, when we saw the old mad bull pawing in his field and making a noise like thunder, mother said we should hide behind a fence.”
“There isn’t any fence here to hide behind,” said Mun Bun, who was beginning to understand what it was all about.
“Did you hear the bull make a noise like thunder?” asked Violet. You might be sure she would put in a question or two, no matter what was happening.
Before Laddie could answer, and while Russ and Rose were thinking what was best to do to get their younger brothers and sisters out of the way of the powerful beast, there came from the near-by meadow a rumbling sound.
“There he goes!” cried Laddie. “I mean here he comes, and he’s bellowing like thunder!”
Certainly it was a fearsome sound.
“I want my mamma!” wailed Margy
“So do I!” joined in Mun Bun.
“We’ll take care of you!” quickly said Rose, putting her arms around the two younger children. “Oh, Russ!” she whispered, “what are we going to do?”
“We ought to have something red to shake at the bull!” cried Violet. “Red makes bulls go away.”
“It does not!” declared Laddie. “It’s just different. Red makes ’em run at you! Has anybody got any red on?” he asked anxiously.
He looked quickly at the others. To his relief no red was to be seen, and Laddie was glad. As yet the bull was not in sight, for the children were on one side of the brook and on either bank was a fringe of bushes and cattails, and these hid the oncoming animal. But if he was not seen he was heard, and once more his loud bellow sounded.
“Come on! Run!” screamed Violet.
“Yes, we’d better get away from here,” agreed Russ, looking about for a safe place.
Laddie, who had picked up a stone, perhaps intending to throw it and, maybe, hit the bull on the nose, dropped the rock. Rose had started on ahead with Mun Bun and Margy, and Russ now took the hands of Violet and Laddie, for he felt he could help them run faster this way. Then Rose, who was a little distance ahead, cried out:
“Oh, there’s a good place to hide!”
“Where?” asked Russ.
“In the old hen-house! We can go in there and lock ourselves in. Come on!”
She pointed to an old and rather ramshackle sort of building that had been used as a hen-house by Farmer Joel before he built a better one nearer the barn. This old hen-house was down near the bank of the brook, and the children had often played in it. Now it seemed just the refuge they needed.
“The old bull can knock that house down!” said Laddie. “It’s almost falling, anyhow.”
“It’s better than nothing,” Russ declared. “And there isn’t any fence to hide behind. Come on to the hen-house, everybody!”
Behind them came the bellowing bull. They could hear him “roaring,” as Mun Bun called it, and, as he looked back over his shoulder, Russ saw the powerful animal splashing his way across the brook.
“He’s surely coming after us!” the boy thought. He had hoped that perhaps the bull might wander off somewhere else.
“Oh! Oh!” screamed Margy. “He’ll hook us!”
I do not really believe the bull at first had any notion of running after the children. He had merely gotten out of his pasture and was wandering about when Laddie saw him. He came to the brook to get a drink.
Then, after splashing into the water and quenching his thirst, he saw the six little Bunkers and actually ran toward them. But they had a good start and hastened toward the hen-house.
With a bellow the bull took after them, his tail out stiff in the air, his head down and his hoofs making the dirt fly. There were, perhaps, more reasons than one why the bull chased the children. He might have thought they had salt to give him, for often Farmer Joel and his men gave this dainty to the bull and the cows in the fields. Or the bull may have been just playful. Or perhaps his temper was just ugly. It is hard to tell sometimes the difference between playfulness and temper. Bulls are strong and like to show off their strength, sometimes butting their heads against a fence just for fun, it seems.
At any rate on came this bull after the children, and Russ and Rose hastened with their younger brothers and sisters toward the open door of the hen-house.
They reached it some little distance ahead of the charging animal. In they ran. Russ closed the door and placed against it a strong stick he found on the floor. The hen-house was deserted except for one
chicken that had strayed in to lay an egg, and she flew off the nest, cackling in surprise, as the children entered.
Mun Bun and Margy laughed at this, and Rose was glad, for she did not want them to be too frightened. She and Russ expected every moment to hear the bull dash against the hen-house door. The boy was afraid, if this happened, that the shaky door would be broken so the bull could get in.
But, to his surprise, a moment later Laddie cried:
“Look! He ran right past here!”
And that is just what happened. The bull, charging head down, had carried himself well past the hen-house, but could be seen to one side rushing around.
That is one difference between a bull and a cow. A bull charges with his head down and cannot well see where he is going, so that if one is very active he can leap out of the way. But a cow rushes at you with head up and “takes better aim,” as Laddie expressed it.
So this is how it happened that the bull rushed past the hen-house without doing any damage. Rose breathed a sigh of relief, and she said:
“Now don’t make any noise and maybe he won’t know we’re here. Keep still!”
And you may be sure the four small little Bunkers did—very still.
Through the window the children watched the bull. He stopped running and looked about. He bellowed, he pawed the earth, and he seemed puzzled. Perhaps he was wondering where those children went to, and how thankful they all were that they were in the henhouse!
“But if he bumps into it he’ll knock it over,” whispered Laddie.
However, the bull did nothing of the sort. Perhaps he thought the hen-house was a barn, and may have imagined if he “bumped into it” he would have to stay in, and he would rather be out in the fields. So
he wandered about the hen-house, muttering and bellowing, as if daring any one to do anything to him.
Of course the children dared not come out while the bull was there, and they did not know what to do. But they were glad of one thing, and this was that the animal did not try to come in after them.
“But maybe he will come,” suggested Laddie, in a whisper, when Rose and Russ talked about how lucky it was that the bull hadn’t tried to butt down the old hen-house.
“No, I don’t believe he’ll come in now,” said Russ.
“Shall we have to stay here all night?” Violet wanted to know, when they had been in the hen-house nearly ten minutes and the bull had shown no likelihood of going away soon.
“I don’t like it here. I want to go out and play!” said Mun Bun, but he was careful not to speak above a whisper, for he could see the bull through the dirty windows of the place.
Perhaps it was well that the windows were dirty, for the bull could not look in through them and see the children.
“No, I don’t believe we’ll have to stay here all night,” said Russ, though he had no idea how they would get away nor how soon.
However, help was on the way. Adam North, walking down toward the brook, heard the low, muttering bellows of the bull, and then saw him moving about the old hen-house.
“Hello, my fine fellow, how did you get out of your pasture?” asked Adam, speaking to the bull as one might to a dog. “You’ve been up to some mischief, I’m sure. I wonder——Bless my stars! The children!” cried Adam North. “Have you been chasing the six little Bunkers?”
Adam looked about but could see no sign of the boys and girls, so he felt pretty sure they were safe, wherever they were. But he knew the bull must be shut up in his pasture or he might do some damage.
Calling another hired man, and each of them taking a sharp pitchfork, of which the bull was much afraid, they drove him away
from the hen-house, back across the brook, and into his pasture, where the broken fence was made secure.
Then, when Adam and his helper came back after having driven away the bull, out of the hen-house rushed the six little Bunkers. They had watched Adam and the other man drive away the animal, but had not dared come out until everything was all right.
“Were you in there all the while?” asked Adam North.
“Yes,” answered Russ. “We ran in there when the bull chased us.”
“Well, it was the best thing you could have done. My! I’m glad nothing happened to you. The old bull may have intended just to play with you, but even to be tossed in fun on a bull’s horns is no joke.”
“I should say not!” agreed Russ.
So that happening ended safely.
“People talk about the quiet life on a farm!” Mrs. Bunker said to her husband when she came home that evening and heard what had taken place. “This far our vacation has been anything but quiet.”
“The children seem to enjoy it, though,” said Mr. Bunker. “Even being chased by a bull appears to agree with them. I never saw them with such appetites,” for this talk took place at the supper table.
“Oh, they can always eat,” laughed Mrs. Bunker. “I’m glad of that.”
Farmer Joel made sure the next day that the bull’s fence was made so strong that he could not again get out, and all the hired men were told to be very careful if they opened the gate to make positive that it was fastened.
“What are you children going to do to-day?” asked Farmer Joel at the breakfast table the next morning. “Are you going to chase any more bulls?”
“Oh! Why, we didn’t chase him! He chased us!” exclaimed Violet, looking at her mother in surprise.
“Farmer Joel is only joking, my dear,” said her mother, and then Violet saw the twinkle in his eyes.
“If you have nothing special to do,” went on Mr Todd, “you might gather some wild flowers. There’s going to be a church sociable, and my sister generally gathers flowers to decorate. But as she isn’t here now——”
“We’ll get the flowers for you,” quickly offered Mrs. Bunker. “Come, children, we’ll go to the woods and get flowers for the church.”
They were soon on their way to a place where, Farmer Joel said, many kinds of wild flowers grew. All six of the little Bunkers went with their mother.
They strolled through the field, and in a distant pasture saw the old bull that had chased them. But he seemed good-natured now, for he was lying under a tree asleep.
“Oh, I have a riddle!” suddenly cried Laddie. “When is a bad bull a good bull?”
“After he gets whipped, maybe,” suggested Russ.
“After they give him salt,” said Rose, when Laddie had said Russ was wrong.
“No, that isn’t it,” the riddle-giver replied. “A bad bull is a good bull when he’s asleep.”
“He’s like some children I know,” said Mrs. Bunker, with a smile.
Then they reached the place where the wild flowers grew and began to pick them. There were many and beautiful blossoms. Rose was reaching over to gather a red bloom when suddenly she heard a queer sound near her.
“Oh, Russ!” she cried. “It’s a rattlesnake!”
CHAPTER XXIII
A MEAN BOY
Rose dropped her bunch of wild flowers and ran toward her brother. As for Russ, he hardly knew what to do. He, also, had heard the buzzing, rattling sound and he had heard stories of how poisonous rattlesnakes are.
“Don’t let him get me! Don’t let the snake bite me!” Rose cried.
“I don’t see any snake,” Russ answered, looking down in the grass. His mother and the other children were some distance off.
“I don’t see it, but I heard it,” Rose exclaimed, very much excited.
Then Russ heard again the queer sound and at once it came to his mind what it was. He had often heard it before, back in Pineville on hot, summer days—just such a day as this was—toward the end of the season.
“That isn’t a rattlesnake, Rose,” said Russ. “Don’t be a baby!”
“What was it then?” she asked. “It sounded just like a rattlesnake. I mean like I think one would sound, for I never saw any.”
“It was a locust,” answered Russ. “I guess it’s on this tree,” and he pointed to one near which they had been gathering flowers. “Yes, it’s on this tree, I see it!” he added, as the sound came again. “Come and watch how funny it does it, Rose. It jiggles itself all over.”
“Are you sure it isn’t a snake?” she asked.
“Of course I am!” said Russ. “Why, I’m looking right now at the locust. It’s low down. I never saw one so low. Most always when they sing out like that they’re high in the trees. Come quick, before it flies away.”
Rose came over to Russ’s side. She looked to where he pointed and saw a curious winged insect that, just as Rose arrived, began to
give forth its queer song. And, as Russ said, the locust seemed to “jiggle” all over. Its wings and legs trembled with the force of the noise it made.
“Will it bite?” asked Rose.
“I don’t know,” Russ answered. “I’m not going to put my finger near enough to find out. I heard Farmer Joel say the locusts ate up most of his garden one year, so I guess they must bite some things. Anyhow, it isn’t a rattlesnake.”
“I’m glad of it,” answered Rose, with a breath of relief, as she picked up her scattered wild flowers.
“Is anything the matter over there?” called Mrs. Bunker, as she saw Rose and Russ moving about the tree.
“Rose thought she heard a rattlesnake, but it wasn’t,” Russ laughed.
“What was it?” Violet wanted to know.
“A locust,” Russ replied, and then all the children wanted to see the insect, watching it vibrate itself on a tree and make that queer sound.
“I wonder what he would do if I tickled him?” said Laddie. And when he tried it, gently pushing the locust with a small twig, the insect quickly flew away.
“I guess there are no rattlesnakes around here,” said Mrs. Bunker, when the excitement had died away. “Now go on with your flowergathering, children. We must get some fine bouquets for Farmer Joel.”
The wild flowers made a grand display in the Sunday-school room of the church, which was decorated with them for the annual festival. The six little Bunkers attended for a short time and had lots of fun.
Mun Bun spilled his dish of ice cream in the lap of a lady next to whom he was sitting, and Margy tipped over her glass of lemonade, letting it run down the neck of her dress. This so excited her that she cried:
“Oh, I’m getting drowned! I’m getting drowned!” But of course she wasn’t. It made some excitement, though.
The lady in whose lap Mun Bun spilled the ice cream was very kind about it. She said it was a last year’s dress, anyhow, and now she would have a good reason for getting a new one.
When the six little Bunkers went home from the church festival Laddie tried to make up a riddle about Margy’s getting wet with the lemonade.
“I want to make a riddle about her but I can’t think just how to do it,” said the little fellow to Russ.
“Why not ask, When is Margy like a goldfish?” Russ suggested.
“What would the answer be?” inquired Laddie.
“Oh, you could say when she tried to swim in lemonade,” replied Russ.
“I guess I will,” decided Laddie, and he had that for a new riddle, though it was not as clever as some he had thought up all by himself.
There were many happy days spent in the woods and fields about Farmer Joel’s by the six little Bunkers. Every morning when the children arose there was the prospect of happy times ahead of them. And nearly always these happy expectations came true. Even when it rained, as I have said, the children could play in the big barn on the pile of fragrant hay they had helped put in.
One fine day when Farmer Joel drove into town with Mr. and Mrs. Bunker, who wanted to do some shopping, the six little Bunkers were left in charge of Norah and Adam North.
Russ, Rose and the others played about the house and yard for a while, Russ putting some “improvements” as he called them, on his water wheel, and Rose helping Norah bake a cake.
Then Laddie and Violet, who had been playing with Mun Bun and Margy in the swing under the tree, came to the house asking:
“Can’t we go to the woods and have a picnic?”
“Oh, we couldn’t have a picnic without mother,” objected Rose.
“Just a little one,” begged Violet. “Couldn’t you give us a few cookies, or something like that, Norah? We could go off to the woods, near the place where we picked the wild flowers, and eat there.”
“Yes, you may do that,” Norah agreed, for she liked the children to have fun. “You had better go with them, though, Rose and Russ,” said the faithful cook.
“Oh, yes, we’ll go,” promised Rose.
A little later, with small boxes and baskets of a simple lunch, the six little Bunkers set off for the woods once more. They were laughing, singing, and shouting, having a fine time, and they had no idea that there would be trouble.
Russ found a place where a little spring bubbled up, and it was decided they would eat their lunch there when the time came, as, from past experience, Russ knew the children would be thirsty as soon as they had eaten. And nothing so spoils a picnic in the woods as not being able to get a drink of water when you need it.
Rose and Russ put the lunch away on top of a stump and then the smaller children began playing about under the trees. Rose had brought along a partly finished dress for one of her dolls, and she was sewing on this, while Russ cut a stick and began to make a whistle.
“Though I’m not sure I can make it,” he said, puckering up his own lips to send forth a shrill tune.
“Why not?” asked Laddie.
“Well, the bark doesn’t peel off so well now as it does in the spring,” Russ answered. “But maybe if I pound it long enough I can slip it off.”
An hour or more passed pleasantly, the children busy at their different means of having fun, and then Mun Bun came toward Rose, saying:
“I’m hungry now. I want to eat.”
“So do I!” added Margy, who generally wanted to do whatever she heard Mun Bun say he wanted to do.
“Well, I think we can have lunch,” decided Rose. “Ho, Russ!” she called.
A loud whistle answered her, for Russ had succeeded in stripping the bark from a tree branch and had whittled out a whistle that was louder than the one formed by his lips.
“Come, we’re going to eat!” called Rose, and soon all six little Bunkers were walking toward the stump where the lunch had been left.
But when they reached it—the lunch was gone!
“Who took it?” demanded Rose.
“I didn’t! You needn’t look at me!” declared Laddie quickly. He sometimes did play jokes like this—if you call them jokes.
“Are you sure we left it on this stump?” asked Russ.
“Of course I’m sure,” said Rose. “Look, you can see some of the crumbs. Oh, Russ, some one has eaten the lunch!”
“Maybe it was a bear!” suggested Violet, with a little shiver of mixed delight and fear.
“There are no bears here,” Russ replied impatiently.
“Then maybe it was a squirrel,” suggested Laddie.
“A squirrel couldn’t carry away the boxes, baskets, and everything!” declared Rose.
Suddenly, from behind the bushes, came a chuckle in a boy’s voice. At first Russ thought perhaps Ralph Watson and his dog Jimsie had come along, and that Ralph had hidden the lunch for fun. But a moment later the ugly face of the peddler boy looked out from the bushes.
“I took your lunch!” he said. “I ate it! I ate it all up!”
CHAPTER XXIV
STUNG
For a moment or two the six little Bunkers could hardly believe this dreadful news. In fact the two youngest did not quite understand what the peddler boy said. Then Rose exclaimed:
“Oh, you couldn’t! You couldn’t eat all our lunch!”
“Ha! Ha!” chuckled the mean peddler boy. “Yes, I did! I was terribly hungry, and I ate it all! You took your strawberry shortcake away from me, but you can’t take this lunch away, because I ate it all up! Ha! Ha!”
“You horrid boy!” cried Rose. She said afterward she just couldn’t help calling him that name, even though it was not very polite. But, then, he wasn’t polite himself, that peddler boy wasn’t.
“You—you——” began Laddie, spluttering somewhat, which he often did when he was excited. “Did you take my apples?” For Laddie had put up in the lunch a special little basket of apples.
“I have the apples in my pocket!” boasted the shoe-lace boy. “I ate one of ’em, and I’ll eat the others when I get home. But I ate all the rest of your lunch. I haven’t any of that in my pockets.”
“Look here, you—you rascal!” cried Russ. He didn’t know what the peddler’s name was, but “rascal,” seemed the right thing to call him. “I’m going to tell my father and Farmer Joel on you, and they’ll have you arrested!” threatened Russ.
“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” boasted the peddler, though he had run once before when told that this would happen to him.
Russ did not know what to do. The shoe-lace boy was larger and stronger. Once Russ had been knocked down by the lad, and Russ did not want this to happen again.
Still Russ was no coward. He never would have gone after Violet’s doll that day when the truck was about to run over it if he were a coward. So Russ made up his mind he must do something.
He couldn’t get the lunch back—he knew that—but he might punish the lad who had taken it. So Russ doubled up his fists, and Laddie, seeing him, did the same, for Laddie had an idea.
“If we both go at him at once we can fight him, Russ!” whispered Laddie. “You go at him on one side and I’ll go at him on the other.”
Of course this was the proper way for two small boys to fight one large one. But Russ did not like to fight—especially when Rose and the other children were there.
“You’re a mean coward, that’s what you are!” cried Russ. “You sneaked up and took our lunch when we weren’t there. You wouldn’t dare take it when we were around.”
And this was true. The peddler boy was a coward, and he had watched his chance to sneak up to the lunch when the six little Bunkers were some distance from it.
“Pooh! I don’t care! I got your lunch, anyhow, and it tasted good and you can’t get it back!” boasted the boy.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Mun Bun, who didn’t quite understand what it was all about. “I’m hungry!”
“So’m I,” wailed Margy
“I’m sorry,” said Rose, “but the mean boy ate up all the lunch.”
At last Laddie seemed unable to stand it any longer. He felt that he must do something.
“Come on, Russ!” he cried. “Let’s fight him!” And Laddie, all alone, rushed toward the boy, who was standing on the edge of the woods.
Russ knew it would not be wise to let Laddie get near the bigger boy. Laddie might be knocked down as Russ was, so Russ started after Laddie. This looked to the peddler as though he were going to be attacked. And though he boasted of not being afraid, he was. He felt that if Russ and Laddie, to say nothing of Violet and Rose, all
went at him together, big and strong as he was, he would be knocked down and beaten.
“Ho! Ho! You can’t catch me!” he cried, turning to run. “I ate all your lunch! Ho! Ho! I ate all your lunch!”
Away he ran, toward the woods.
“Coward! You’re a coward!” shrieked Violet tauntingly.
“Come on! Let’s run after him!” begged Laddie.
Russ looked toward the fleeing boy.
“No, Laddie,” he said, “it wouldn’t be any good chasing after him. He’d get away. But he’s a coward just the same.”
“He’s horrid mean—that’s what I say!” declared Rose. “To take our nice picnic lunch! Now we’ll have to go home.”
“I’m going to tell Farmer Joel about him,” announced Russ.
“Maybe he’ll have him arrested,” suggested Violet. Suddenly Laddie pointed to the boy and exclaimed:
“Look how funny he’s acting!”
“What makes him do that?” asked Vi.
“Oh, listen to him yell!” ejaculated Russ.
Indeed, the peddler lad was acting strangely. He was in the woods now and he was jumping up and down, waving his arms about, slapping his hands on his head and legs, and at the same time crying aloud.
“What’s he saying?” asked Rose.
“Hark!” advised Russ.
They all listened, and from the jumping boy came the words:
“Oh, I’m stung! I’m stung! Take ’em away, somebody! Take ’em away! I’m stung!”
Then Rose cried:
“Bees! Bees! A lot of bees are after him!”
“Yes, and there are some buzzing around here!” said Russ quickly. “He must have run into a hornet’s nest or something, and some of ’em are flying around here. I heard ’em buzz!”
“So did I!” added Violet.
“But they aren’t hornets,” said Laddie. “Look! There’s one,” and he pointed to a yellow-banded insect lazily flying in the air above them. “That’s a honey bee, like those Farmer Joel has.”
“And look at the lot of ’em around that boy!” cried Rose. “Oh, what a lot of bees!”
She pointed to the woods where the rascally lad was still leaping about, slapping himself with his hands, and now and then lying down in the dried leaves to roll about.
“Come on! We’d better run!” advised Russ. “These are honey bees all right, but they sting as badly as hornets. A swarm must have gotten away from Farmer Joel’s and this boy ran right into ’em. Come on, we’ll go before they get after us.”
As yet only one or two bees had flown toward the six little Bunkers, but they started away, nevertheless, for there was no fun remaining at a picnic if they had no lunch to eat.
“Oh, look! There he goes, running!” cried Laddie, pointing toward the peddler boy who was darting away into the woods as fast as he could go, followed by the cloud of bees.
CHAPTER XXV
THE HONEY TREE
The six little Bunkers paused a moment before leaving the picnic grounds, where so sad a happening as losing their lunch had occurred, and looked toward the peddler boy. He was certainly running as hard as he could to get away from the stinging insects.
“It serves him right for taking our lunch!” declared Rose, though perhaps she shouldn’t have said it.
“Do you s’pose the bees knew he took our things? And did they sting him because they like us and because Farmer Joel has bees like these bees?” asked Violet, looking at a honey insect perched on a flower. Violet seemed to think it best to ask as many questions at once as possible.
But no one took the trouble to answer them. Russ and Rose were anxious to get the smaller children out of the way of the bees.
“Come, children! We’ve got to hurry, just as Russ says,” said Rose.
“Is it goin’ to rain?” asked Mun Bun. Generally when there was a shower coming up he knew the need of haste.
“No, it isn’t going to rain,” said Russ. “If it did it would send the bees into shelter and they wouldn’t take after that boy.”
“Do you think they stung him much?” asked Rose.
“From the way he yelled I should say they stung him pretty hard,” Russ answered. “I’m glad they didn’t come our way.”
By this time they were some distance from their picnic ground, and no bees were buzzing around them.
“Do you think they were Farmer Joel’s bees?” asked Rose of Russ, as they walked on toward the house.
“I’m pretty sure of it,” was his reply “No one else around here keeps honey bees.”
“Are there any other kinds of bees except honey bees?” Vi wanted to know.
“Oh, yes,” answered Rose. “Ask mother about them—or daddy.”
“What’s the matter, children, didn’t you have fun at your picnic?” Norah wanted to know, when the six little Bunkers came straggling back, some hours before she expected them. Farmer Joel and Mr. and Mrs. Bunker were still in town.
“Yes, we had some fun,” answered Rose. “But we had to come back to get more lunch,” for she had decided, as it was not yet late, they could go back to the woods.
“You want more lunch!” cried the good-natured cook. “Bless and save us, my dears! But if you ate all that, and want more—oh, I wouldn’t dare give it to you! Your mother wouldn’t like it. You’d get sick.”
“But we didn’t eat it!” cried Laddie.
“You didn’t? Who did?”
“The peddler boy!”
And then the story was told—about the bees and everything. Norah laughed when she heard how the bad boy had been sent howling into the woods by the stings of the honey insects, and she quickly put up another lunch for the children.
“But if you go back to the same place to eat it,” she said, “that same peddler boy may take it again.”
“No, he won’t!” cried Russ. “If he does—I’ll take a big club along this time.”
“And we’ll hide the lunch where he can’t find it,” added Laddie.
“I guess we’ll be so hungry we’ll eat it as soon as we get to the woods and then there won’t be anything left for him to take,” observed Violet. And this was voted the best idea of all.
“But maybe the bees might sting you,” said Norah. “Perhaps you had better stay around here and eat.”
“No, thank you,” answered Russ. “We’ll go just a little way into the woods—not as far as before, and then the bees won’t come. But did any swarm get away from here, Norah? It was a swarm of bees we saw in the woods chasing that peddler boy.”
“No, I didn’t hear of any swarm getting away from here,” said Norah. “But then I don’t know much about bees. Better ask Adam.”
Before starting off on their second picnic Russ found the hired man and inquired about the swarm of bees.
“No, they didn’t come from here,” said Adam. “I’ve been around the orchard all day and I’ve seen no bees starting out to take an excursion with the queen. They must be from somewhere else, but I don’t know of any one who has bees around here except Farmer Joel.”
The children gave little more thought to the bees, because they were hungry and wanted to have fun off in the woods eating the second lunch that Norah had put up for them.
This time no bad boy took the good things, and the six little Bunkers had the cakes and sandwiches for themselves. It was while they were walking along the road on their way home later in the afternoon that the carriage of Dr. Snow passed them.
The six little Bunkers had met Dr. Snow a few weeks before, when one of Farmer Joel’s hired men had cut his foot with an axe. The doctor had called at the farmhouse several times and now knew every one from Mun Bun to Russ. Seeing the doctor driving past in a hurry and knowing that by this time Mr. and Mrs. Bunker must be at home, Russ began to wonder if an accident had happened.
“Is any one sick at Farmer Joel’s?” called Russ, as the doctor’s carriage drove past.
“No, my little man. No, I’m glad to say,” answered Dr. Snow, pulling his horses to a stop. “I’m not going to stop at Farmer Joel’s. I’m on my way to see a peddler boy who lives on the other side of the
valley They telephoned me to come to see him. He has been badly stung by bees.”
“Oh, that must be our boy!” cried Rose.
“Your boy?” exclaimed the doctor.
“I mean the one who took our lunch,” and Rose related the story.
“Yes, very likely it’s the same boy,” said the physician, with a smile. “Well, I’ll do the best I can for him. But I think this will be a lesson to him.”
The doctor drove on and the six little Bunkers hurried to the house and soon were telling their father and mother all that had happened during the day.
“What’s that?” asked Farmer Joel, when he heard the tale. “Some bees came out of the woods and stung the boy, you say?”
“You should have heard him yell!” remarked Russ.
“Well, I don’t like to see any one hurt,” went on Farmer Joel. “But this story of bees in the woods is a strange one. No swarms have left my hives lately and—say, wait—I have an idea!” he suddenly cried.
“Did you see a hollow tree anywhere near the place the bees swarmed out on the boy and stung him?” asked the farmer of Russ.
“No,” was the answer. “We weren’t close enough to see a hollow tree. But we could see the bees.”
“And we could see the boy dance,” added Laddie.
“Hum!” mused Farmer Joel. “It’s just possible now,” he proceeded, “that these bees are the same swarm that went away with my fiftydollar queen soon after you six little Bunkers arrived. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re my bees, but I’m going to find out for certain. That’s what I’m going to do!”
“How can you?” asked Mr. Bunker.
“I’ll get your children to show me as nearly as they can the place the bees stung this peddler boy, and I’ll look around there for my missing swarm and the queen. They must have made a home for
