REFLECTIONS: Haldane’s If

Last week was the 300th anniversary of a dramatic and still controversial event, the execution of King Charles I. To mark the occasion, many speeches were made and articles written which drew a wide variety of lessons from the monarch’s unhappy fate. Some held it up as a warning against socialism; others as a horrible example of what happens when conservatism thwarts the popular will. It remained, however, for famed Communist Biologist J. B. S. Haldane to produce the most memorable statement on the beheading of King Charles. In the course of a 1,200-word article in London’s Daily Worker, Haldane achieved a twelve-word sentence which ought to be placed in a cornerstone and preserved, as epitomizing the 20th Century’s zany erudition and irrelevant dogmatism. Haldane’s sentence:

“If King Charles had been a geranium, both halves could have lived.”