Intelligence -The Gift of Nature

INTELLIGENCE - THE GIFT OF NATURE

Man wonders whether he is not the choicest creation of God on earth. He thinks that he is the most intelligent being of all and God has created him as such out of His grace. Some scriptures say that God has made man so intelligent and strong that he can command every creature on earth and rule them. On first look it appears so.       But on a critical examination it looks different. Suppose a man is attacked by a tiger suddenly. How can he save himself? In what way can his intelligence help? On the other hand if he is forewarned, he certainly uses his intelligence and contrives plans and escapes danger. Therefore man with all his intelligence and strength is not capable of saving himself in all circumstances. The prehistoric man was almost a beast and he used his physical strength only against other beasts forsurvival.

There are natural calamities like cyclones, storms, floods, tidal waves, earthquakes, thunderbolts and so on to devastate man, beast and plant equally. Diseases also kill them. Old age and death cannot be avoided. Biologically man and animal are same. They have the same kind of limbs, arrangement of organs and functioning. In birth, growth and death, in pain and pleasure, in rest, sleep and in wakefulness there is no fundamental difference between man and animal. The only striking difference in man when compared with animal is his development of brain. The civilised man is more intelligent than the animal. In his thinking capacity, reasoning faculty and talking capacity there is great improvement. Man attributes these extra faculties to God who, according to him, created him intelligent in the beginning itself. But this is an erroneous belief.

When we reason why man is more intelligent than other creatures and why he is able to speak when other creatures are not, though they appear in the first instance to be puzzling questions, to find out answers for them is not difficult. Take for example, an ant or a bee. If it apprehends any danger to its life from any other creature it stings that creature and escapes. So also a snake or a scorpion does. The moment it smells danger, it strikes its enemy and when the danger is more immanent the dose of poison it injects will also be more and often fatal so that the victim dies and the enemy is permanently eliminated. For animals there are horns and canine teeth, for reptiles there are stings and fangs, for birds, beaks and like this every being has its own defensive system that nature has endowed them with. In the struggle for existence and for survival, from the enemies to escape and to hunt and eat and live, every creature on earth has developed its own defense system. They are not gifts of God. Then, what about man? The savage man in the beginning possessed strong and pointed nails, thick skin, sharp teeth and hair all over the body for protection from abnormal climatic conditions, for hunting and to save himself from enemies. In the course of evolution and perhaps by a freak, his natural defense system underwent change and he slowly dropped his hair, sharp and strong nails and sharp teeth but his brain increased and his intelligence improved. His physical powers are reduced and his mental powers are increased. This is the alternative arrangement nature has done for him. Of course by degrees man has improved his mental faculties. With this new mental power, using it as a weapon, man began to control other beings and also the forces in nature. He was able to defend himself from man and beast and from natural diseases by contriving weapons like knives, spears, gun and bombs, build houses to protect himself from the sun, rain, cold and hot winds, and to keep himself warm, he invented cloth and to avoid manual labour he invented a plough and an engine. To make himself more comfortable and happy, he invented electricity and so many other unimaginable things. Thus external forces, man has succeeded to control. As regards internal enemies and dangers due to diseases he invented medicines. Like this, man has used his intelligence as his weapon for his survival and it is nothing but a gift nature has given him as a substitute. So, intelligence in man is nothing but a natural defense system developed in man to use it for his existence and survival. We have to understand that the presence of intelligence in all beings is simply a matter of degree but not of kind and that no supernatural being has intentionally endowed man with the faculty of intelligence. It is not a blessing of God but it is the unintentional gift of nature. It is to be emphasised that there is intelligence in all living beings and each has its own intelligence just sufficient to temporarily use it to escape from its enemies in time of danger and in the case of man, instead of sharp horns or poisonous stings, he is given as an alternative, better intelligence by the automatic power called nature and nature is nothing but genetic engineer.