Throughout recorded history, humans have tried to make sense of why we seem so different to other animals. But we’ve rarely been able to follow that enquiry without pursuing a dangerous kind of self-aggrandisement, argues Melanie Challenger

“All is vanity,” is one of those quotes that most of us know without necessarily recognising its provenance. Is it Shakespeare? The title of a novel? Actually, it comes from the Bible, specifically from Ecclesiastes verses 3:19. In contrast to the lazy idea of the Bible as an extended riff on human exceptionalism, these lines offer a starker vision of the human condition.

“For that which befalleth the sons of men,” runs the King James translation, “befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.”

In other words, humans are animals that will one day meet the same fate as all living creatures. We are organic stuff that breeds, bleeds, and dies. What’s more, despite all the skills and technologies that seem to have lifted us free of nature, in the end, we must decay and return to the Earth with the rest of the biotic community. All else, as they say, is vanity. No wonder we’ve spent much of recorded history trying to deny we’re animals.

According to rabbinical tradition, King Solomon was the author of Ecclesiastes. Solomon reigned over Israel around two and a half thousand years ago. By most accounts, he was fabulously wealthy and powerful. He also had some 700 wives. One can only wonder at how he balanced the emotional ledger.