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¶ … Evolution and How it Is
Twilight
In the short story, Twilight, by John W. Campbell, a man from the future visits an even more advanced moment in the future, some several million years past his own time. This short work of science fiction manifests a theme of evolution throughout time. This look at evolution is not a favorable one, however, in fact seeming to suggest that either life on either is devolving or that man is evolving into extinction.
Left on its own, life on Earth seems to evolve into more advanced forms. The main character, Ares, once discovers that the plants seem to be able to produce light and music (Campbell). On the other hand, the machines that man create in the future seemed to have been built for a specific purpose, and the moment a city was able to run efficiently without human aid, the city and the machines were abandoned. From that moment on, it didn't matter how well built the machines were or how much time went by, the life of the machines became stagnant when the humans left them and "had no use for them" (Campbell).
Life on Earth began to dwindle and congregate into only a few cities across the globe. After telephoning several major cities, Ares finds humans only in San Frisco (formerly San Francisco). When he arrives, he finds that humans' physiognomy has evolved into larger heads with larger eyes, and that "they never grew old," they only died at the end of a couple thousand years (Campbell). But while humans' lives were becoming so protracted, the life around them faltered as they "destroyed all forms o life that menaced" them (Campbell). It started with disease and insects then spread to harmless plants and animals. Perhaps worst of all in this devolution over millions of years, men lost their instinct of curiosity. At this point in Earth's history and evolution, humans had begun also to stagnate, to stop studying, to stop learning, and to stop evolving, instead relying on the machines to move them through life.
Works Cited
Campbell, John W. "Twilight." Ralph Nader Library. American Buddha, n.d. Web. 27 April
2011. .
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