Akratic action

Dr Colquohoun did not take a fourth scone, although he was offered one, but continued to address the subject of Neanderthals. He was sure that the skull that Domenica and Angus were proposing to show him would be a let-down – perhaps that of some unfortunate Victorian, set upon by footpads and then hastily buried in a shallow grave in the Gardens – but he was enjoying this visit. Domenica and Angus were exactly the sort of company he liked: intelligent, interested in the arts, and prepared to discuss – or at least to listen to him talking about – the Neolithic period. There were so many people now who were simply incurious about the past, who did not think about the echoes of ancient times that were all about us, even in the language we used in our everyday life. How many of our words were based on languages that had long since stopped being spoken? How many people talking of their clan would know that in Etruscan that meant son? Or that three in Etruscan was ci, which sounds so like three, whatever etymological caution might be sounded. Our words were ancient, handed down over thousands of years, linking us in our indifferent modernity with distant forebears who herded animals on obscure steppes, or who sailed their ships across ancient oceans. And even if one did not think back that far, how many people remembered that their not-so-distant ancestors spoke Pictish or Gaelic, lived in fear of Vikings, and devils, and pre-scientific threats of eve - ry description, and were surprised to survive to their thirtieth birthday? He thought about that every day, as he pored over pictures of mute stones, of flints, of patterns in the ground, of symbols that were now inde - cipherable but nevertheless once recorded somebody’s whole world.

“The interesting thing about Neanderthal art,” Dr Colquohoun said, “is that it exists at all. That’s what counts. It doesn’t matter that it consists of a few marks on the wall, or decorated stalactites. What matters is the fact that those ancient cousins of our actually made the cognitive leap to expressing themselves. If you paint or draw something, you are recording an event or feeling outside yourself. That’s what other animals simply cannot do. They don’t see it.”

“So this art attributed to Neanderthals suggests that they were capable of language. If you can draw something, then you should be able to associate sound with intention or feeling – or perception, perhaps. That means you can speak.”

“Did they?” asked Domenica.

“They had tongues and vocal cords. So yes, they should have been able to.”

“But we don’t know?” asked Angus.

“That’s right,” said Dr Colquohoun. “We don’t know, but we can surmise a great deal on the basis of what we do know. And I imagine that they had language – undoubtedly a simple one, if they had it at all. Perhaps just nouns and a few simple verbs.”

“Me Tarzan, you Jane?” suggested Angus. “That level of sophistication?”

“Yes. I like to imagine a Neanderthal saying something like Deer go hill. The deer have gone to the hill. It doesn’t take much intellectual power to make that sort of observation. Two nouns and one verb, and the verb may have a single tense. You have to be a little bit more savvy to wrap your mind around the past tense.”

Domenica smiled. “How exactly did we get these Neanderthal genes we’re meant to have?” she asked.

“Interbreeding,” said Dr Colquohoun. “It appears that members of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals came into contact with one another. So there would have been children who were a cross between the two, but as time went on and the Neanderthals became extinct, their genes would have been diluted further and further until modern man ended up with really rather few of them.”

“I see,” said Angus. “So somewhere way back we might have Neanderthal ancestors?”

“Indeed. Very early Lordies. Very early Colquohouns.” He paused and added, smiling, “And very early Macdonalds.”

“It reduces our pretensions,” observed Domenica. “Reminding ourselves of our hairy precursors cuts us down to size, don’t you think?”

“It does,” said Dr Colquohoun. “Although we don’t really need the Neanderthals for that. A moment’s contemplation of the higher primates might help to do that, I’ve always thought. Go and stand in front of the monkey cages at Edinburgh Zoo and reflect on your cousins. We’re just primates – for all our airs and graces.”

Angus laughed. “I often think that,” he said. “When I watch the television news and see images of human conflict – people fighting one another on disputed borders, groups throwing rocks at one another

– you know the sort of scene I’m talking about. I think: these territorial disputes are exactly what the primatologists observe. One troop of baboons chases away another when it encroaches on its territor y.”

“Oh, yes,” Domenica said. “I know it sounds reductionist, but that’s exactly what’s going on.”

“The fundamental impulse,” continued Dr Colquohoun, “is to control territor y. To defend it against those who are seen as others.”

“And you could analyse so many contemporary conflicts in those terms too,” said Angus. “Isn’t it all a matter of whose territory it is?”

Domenica nodded. “I would have thought so.” She paused. “And yet, people rise above those disputes.”

Dr Colquohoun agreed. “Of course, we’re not stuck in that mode. There’s always the ideal of co-operation that stresses a broader interest. There are plenty of precedents for that. The Risorgimento, for example. The creation of the modern German state. The United States of America. And so on. People find a common interest in co-operation. E pluribus unum, and all that.”

Angus looked thoughtful. He wondered where that left Scotland, a small state that had been absorbed into a larger state but had never forgotten that it was a country

– a nation. And he loved that country, and the idea behind it. He did not want Scotland to disappear. He wanted local control – not control from London or Brussels, because he believed that people should have their own government, close, immediate, answerable; and yet

… He sighed. “I suppose people attach themselves to what they have, or what they have had recently,” said Angus, “and believe that it’s the ordained position. But it’s just one stage in a process of evolution.”

Dr Colquohoun thought about this. He mentally repeated Angus’s statement, and then looked at it from both sides, and from the middle. He turned it upside down. He was not at all sure what Angus meant – if anything: people often gave voice to meaningless remarks and it was a mistake to believe that they always made sense. He stared at the plate on which two cheese scones remained. Noticing his gaze, Domenica said, “You really should have another one.”

Dr Colquohoun glanced at the scones. “Akrasia,” he said. “That’s what the Greek philosophers called weakness of will.

If I have another scone, I shall be acting akratically.”

“But you’ll enjoy it,” said Domenica. “And therefore it’s in your best interests to yield to temptation. It’s what you want, after all, and surely it’s in your best interests to get what you want.”

Angus remembered the Neanderthal skull, and he now rose to retrieve it from the cupboard in which they had placed it for safekeeping. Unwrapping it carefully, he showed it to their visitor.

Dr Colquohoun drew in his breath. “I’m astonished,” he said, as he lifted it gently to make his inspection. “At first blush – and I emphasise that – at first blush this looks distinctly Neanderthal.” He laid the skull down gingerly. A fragment of earth fell off it onto the floor below: the mool of a grave, thought Angus; and for a moment he felt a pang of sorrow, for this skull had been a person once, and how could one ever not be sorry for a person?

“I shall take it back to the museum without delay,” he said. “We must photograph it. We must notify Historic Environment Scotland. We shall call in further experts. There’s a professor at the University of Glasgow who will be very interested in seeing this.”

Angus frowned. The University of Glasgow? What did this have to do with them? This was an Edinburgh Neanderthal; if Glasgow wanted a Neanderthal, then they should look for one of their own.

© 2020 Alexander Mccall Smith Available in book form from November as A Promise of Ankles (hbk, £16.99). The Peppermint Tea Chronicles is available now in paperback.