Summary
The individual human mind. In a child’s
power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than
in all your shouted “Amens!”, “Holy, Holies!” and “Hosannahs!” An
idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of
man’s knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes,
or the parting of waters!
See Important Quotations Explained
Two days later, the trial is in full swing. The scene
opens with the young Howard on the witness stand. Howard explains
to Brady the scientific theory that Cates taught him in school.
Howard says, “Man was sort of evoluted. From the ‘Old World Monkeys.’”
Brady mocks this theory and asks whether Cates ever mentioned
God in his teachings. Howard says no. Brady begins what seems like
a speech, but Drummond objects. Brady claims that he wasn’t about
to make a speech but then derides evolutionists at length. The crowd
applauds.
Drummond asks Howard what he thinks of Darwin and the
theory Cates taught him. Davenport objects, but Drummond says he
is trying to establish that Howard has the right to think. The judge
and Brady insist that establishing the right to think is not the
mission of the trial at hand. Drummond rephrases his question to
ask Howard whether the theory of evolution has harmed him in any
way. Brady objects, and the judge sustains the objection.
Drummond asks Howard if he believes the theory Cates taught him.
Howard says he isn’t sure and has to think about it. Drummond asks
Howard whether he thinks modern technologies like tractors and telephones
are evil because the Bible doesn’t mention them. Brady
protests that Drummond is confusing the witness. He asks Drummond
whether “right” has any meaning to him. Drummond delivers a speech,
claiming that right is meaningless but that truth is valuable “as
a direction.” He says that a morality of simple right and wrong
is arbitrary. Drummond asks Howard whether he understands their
discussion. Howard says no, and Drummond dismisses him.
Davenport calls Rachel to the stand. Brady asks her about
her acquaintance with Cates and about Cates’s religious affiliations.
She explains that Cates stopped attending church after a local boy, Tommy
Stebbins, drowned in the river while out for a swim. At the funeral,
Reverend Brown declared that Tommy wouldn’t be saved because he
had never been baptized. Cates interjects that Reverend Brown said
the boy’s soul would burn forever. Dunlap shouts from the audience
and calls Cates a sinner. The judge pounds his gavel and demands
order. Cates continues to shout that religion should help people
rather than cause them fear. The judge again calls for order. Drummond
requests that Cates’s statements be stricken from the record, and
the judge grants the request.
Brady resumes questioning Rachel about Cates’s religious
views. Drummond objects on the grounds that hearsay isn’t admissible
evidence, but the judge lets the question stand. Referring to their
private conversation on the day of Brady’s arrival, Brady asks Rachel to
repeat conversations she had with Cates about religious matters. Rachel
falters. Brady quotes Cates as saying that man created God and that
human marriage was comparable to the breeding of animals. Drummond
objects. Rachel, visibly upset, claims that Brady is misquoting
a joke Cates made. She goes silent, and Brady dismisses her. At
Cates’s request, Drummond also dismisses Rachel.
Davenport states that the prosecution has no further witnesses. Drummond
then attempts to call to the stand three scientists. Brady objects
to the testimony of experts on evolution, and the judge sustains
the objection. Drummond argues that testimony of scientists in this
case is no different from testimony of forensics experts in a murder
case. Drummond then asks the judge whether he would admit testimony
on the Bible. When the judge agrees to allow such testimony, Drummond
calls Brady to the stand. Davenport objects. The judge calls Drummond’s
request strange, but Brady agrees to take the stand.
Drummond asks Brady about his familiarity with the Bible
and with Darwin’s work. Brady says that he knows much of the Bible
by memory but that he has never read Darwin. Drummond asks Brady how
he can reject a book he has never read. Davenport objects. The judge
orders Drummond to confine his questions to matters regarding the
Bible. Drummond asks Brady whether he believes that every word in
the Bible should be taken literally. Brady says that he does. Drummond
then asks Brady about the episode of Jonah and the whale, and Brady
says he believes that God is capable of miracles. Drummond asks
about the story of Joshua causing the sun to stop, and Brady again
affirms his belief in God’s power to perform miracles. Drummond
asks Brady if he is aware of the implications of the sun stopping
in the sky according to the modern theory of the solar system. Drummond
asks Brady if he denies the teachings of Copernicus as well as Darwin.
Brady replies that God’s will supercedes natural laws. Drummond
asks several more questions relating to the Bible, and Davenport
interrupts to raise doubts about the relevance of Drummond’s line
of questioning. Brady says Drummond is playing into the prosecution’s
hands by demonstrating the defense’s contempt for sacred things.
Drummond says that progress has a price and that the new understandings
Darwin has brought to us demand that we surrender our faith in the
literal truth of the Bible. Brady protests. Drummond asks Brady
why God gave man the power to think if he didn’t intend for him
to use it. Drummond asks Brady the difference between a man and
a sponge. Brady, faltering, says that God’s will determines the
difference between a man and a sponge. Dramatically, Drummond declares
that Cates merely wants the same God-given right as a sponge—the
right to think. The crowd, for the first time, applauds Drummond.
Brady calls Cates deluded. Drummond says that Cates merely lacks
Brady’s clear-cut notions of right and wrong. Drummond calmly walks
up to one of the scientists he intended to call to the witness stand
and takes from him a small rock. Drummond asks Brady how old he
figures the rock is. Brady says he isn’t interested in the rock’s
age. Drummond cites one scholar’s claim that the rock is ten million
years old. Brady claims that the rock can’t be more than six thousand
years old because one biblical scholar determined 4004 b.c.
to be the year of creation. Drummond asks Brady whether
creation happened during a twenty-four-hour day and whether that
day can be considered a day at all, given that the creation of the
world preceded the creation of the sun. Drummond suggests that Brady’s
supposed first “day” may in fact have been ten million years in
duration.
The crowd becomes excited, and the judge calls for order.
Brady accuses Drummond of attempting to destroy the people’s faith
in the Bible. Drummond says that the Bible is a good book but that
it isn’t the sole source of human knowledge. Brady claims that God
spoke directly to the Bible’s authors. Drummond responds by asking
why we shouldn’t think that God spoke to Darwin as well. Brady insists that
God couldn’t have spoken to Darwin because God told Brady so. To
the crowd’s amusement, Drummond mocks Brady’s claim to be the mouthpiece
of God. Exasperated, Brady backs down momentarily and claims that
every man has free will. Drummond asks why, if every man has free
will, Cates is in jail. Brady begins raving, quoting the Bible,
while Drummond continues to mock him, prompting laughter from the
crowd.
Drummond dismisses Brady as a witness, but Brady continues
to rant. The judge tells Brady to step down and adjourns the trial
until the next day. Davenport asks the judge to strike Brady’s testimony from
the record. Still babbling biblical names, Brady collapses in his chair.
As the crowd leaves the courtroom, Mrs. Brady comforts her humiliated
husband.
Analysis
The centerpiece of the play, the trial scene careens on
the wave of the courtroom crowd’s approval, moving from certain
triumph for the prosecution to moral victory for the defense. Drummond’s
ironic, probing questioning of witnesses and Rachel Brown’s emotional breakdown
at Brady’s hands win Cates the crowd’s sympathies, and the trial
culminates in Drummond’s humiliation of the dumbfounded Brady. Once
the townspeople clearly demonstrate their support for Cates, the
subsequent legal consequences he faces take on secondary importance.
The questioning of Howard, more so than that of any other
witness, brings the specific conflict of the trial—creationism versus
evolutionism—to an abstract level. Drummond argues to the court,
“I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard—or Colonel Brady—or
Charles Darwin—or anyone in the courtroom—or you, sir—has the right
to think!” When the judge responds that “the right to think is not
on trial here,” Drummond barks back that the right to think “is
very much on trial,” that it “is fearfully in danger in the proceedings
of this court!” But regardless of the validity of Drummond’s argument,
the nature of the American legal system limits it. Cates is on trial
in a local court for breaking a law. Drummond, in his argument,
does not challenge Cates’s guilt or innocence so much as the justice
of the law itself, with respect to the Constitution of the United
States. As we see at the end of the play, to make this challenge
real, Drummond must bring it to a higher court.
The playwrights continually demonstrate their support
for the evolutionists’ side by contrasting the defense’s compassion
with the fundamentalists’ callous superiority. When Rachel takes
the witness stand, Brady asks her to recount Cates’s reasons for
his separation from the church community. Rachel recalls her father’s
declaration that young Tommy Stebbins, who drowned to death, would
be eternally damned because he was never baptized. Through the description
of this event and of Cates’s departure from Hillsboro’s religious community,
the playwrights illustrate Cates’s own moral development independent
from organized religion. Cates declares to the court, “Religion’s
supposed to comfort people, isn’t it? Not frighten them to death!”
In this sympathetic portrayal, Cates emerges not as an atheist or
an agnostic but as an individual who could not, in good conscience,
abide by the cruel morality of the church.
Drummond’s argument emphasizes the distinction between “truth,”
which he believes every man has a right to seek for himself, and
absolute values of right and wrong as determined by religious authorities.
Drummond implies that individuals and groups who use faith to stake
their claims to righteousness often employ religion as a vehicle
or justification for immoral pursuits. Reverend Brown, in his monomaniacal
campaign to instill fear in the hearts of the people of Hillsboro,
uses religion to buttress his authority. Although Brown enjoys respect
from the townspeople, his condemnations of his own daughter and
of Tommy Stebbins reveal his heartless interior. Cates, meanwhile,
although he has broken the law and expressed doubts about religion,
comes across as a compassionate figure. He stands up for Rachel
and sincerely mourns Tommy Stebbins as a young life cut off too
soon. Despite his status as a legal and religious outsider, Cates
embodies a kindness and compassion that stand in sharp contrast
to Reverend Brown’s unforgiving scorn.
Drummond suffers several procedural setbacks during the
trial but makes his argument nonetheless. He uses Howard’s testimony to
demonstrate that evolution represents human possibility rather than
denial of God. Next, Drummond equates evolution with modern innovations,
like the tractor, that have become essential elements in rural life.
When the judge denies the scientific experts the opportunity to
testify, Drummond uses Brady to show that a literal interpretation
of the Bible leads into a web of contradictions. Although these
tactics fail to exonerate Cates, they go a long way in discrediting
his persecutors.
During the course of the questioning, the playwrights
juxtapose the personalities and philosophies of Brady and Drummond.
The stage directions differentiate the opponents: “The courtroom
seems to resent Drummond’s gentle ridicule of the orator. To many,
there is an effrontery in Drummond’s very voice—folksy and relaxed.
It’s rather like a harmonica following a symphony concert.” Drummond’s
delivery involves little ornamentation or finesse. Brady, on the
other hand, uses a lengthy and grandiose style of oration that initially
appeals to the court. But when the substance of Brady’s argument
contradicts itself and his hubris becomes clear, Brady loses his popularity
and support, while Drummond’s perseverance, grit, logic, and playful
irony win over the courtroom.
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