"The Man Who Found Out" (1912) by Algernon Blackwood up on Fantastic Worlds

[jordan179]

"The Man Who Found Out"

(c) 1912

by Algernon Blackwood

1
Professor Mark Ebor, the scientist, led a double life, and the only persons who knew it were his assistant, Dr. Laidlaw, and his publishers. But a double life need not always be a bad one, and, as Dr. Laidlaw and the gratified publishers well knew, the parallel lives of this particular man were

Comments

[rhjunior]

I read a variant on this concept. A scientist renowned for his ability to ruin a party was attending a soiree, in his usual melancholy mood, and revealed his latest discovery.

1) He had analyzed the DNA of humanity and decoded it to the Nth level.
2) The DNA of humanity contained a message... not for humanity, but from humanity's creator to another unknown cosmic being.
3) The message was inconceivably trivial--- the equivalent of "be sure to fetch the suit from the cleaners" or "out to lunch, back at 2" scribbled on an envelope.

When the gentleman of the house tried to rally the mood by remarking blithely that at least humanity had a purpose, albeit a trivial one, the scientist dropped his final bomb:

4)All signs indicated the message had already been delivered.

[jordan179]

Hmm, well, I'm already a believer in humanity auto-generating its purpose! But we could also have more than one purpose!

Did you ever read Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan? Similar premise, but in some ways even worse, in that our whole history had been manipulated to deliver the message.

[rhjunior]

I think the point of the story was less about cosmic horror and more about the point that the scientist was just SUCH a prat.....

[jordan179]

Not entirely sure what you mean by that -- Ebor was certainly optimistic regarding the contents of the Tablets before he read them, and for some reason after he read them he believed what he read and then became pessimistic regarding the contents of reality, but I'm not sure how either fact makes him a "prat."