What Is Man? and Other Essays

by Mark Twain

  Y.M. It looks exasperatingly true; and is distinctly offensive. It elevates the dumb beasts to—to—

  O.M. Let us drop that lying phrase, and call them the Unrevealed Creatures; so far as we can know, there is no such thing as a dumb beast.

  Y.M. On what grounds do you make that assertion?

  O.M. On quite simple ones. "Dumb" beast suggests an animal that has no thought-machinery, no understanding, no speech, no way of communicating what is in its mind. We know that a hen HAS speech. We cannot understand everything she says, but we easily learn two or three of her phrases. We know when she is saying, "I have laid an egg"; we know when she is saying to the chicks, "Run here, dears, I've found a worm"; we know what she is saying when she voices a warning: "Quick! hurry! gather yourselves under mamma, there's a hawk coming!" We understand the cat when she stretches herself out, purring with affection and contentment and lifts up a soft voice and says, "Come, kitties, supper's ready"; we understand her when she goes mourning about and says, "Where can they be? They are lost. Won't you help me hunt for them?" and we understand the disreputable Tom when he challenges at midnight from his shed, "You come over here, you product of immoral commerce, and I'll make your fur fly!" We understand a few of a dog's phrases and we learn to understand a few of the remarks and gestures of any bird or other animal that we domesticate and observe. The clearness and exactness of the few of the hen's speeches which we understand is argument that she can communicate to her kind a hundred things which we cannot comprehend—in a word, that she can converse. And this argument is also applicable in the case of others of the great army of the Unrevealed. It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Now as to the ant—

  Y.M. Yes, go back to the ant, the creature that—as you seem to think—sweeps away the last vestige of an intellectual frontier between man and the Unrevealed.

  O.M. That is what she surely does. In all his history the aboriginal Australian never thought out a house for himself and built it. The ant is an amazing architect. She is a wee little creature, but she builds a strong and enduring house eight feet high—a house which is as large in proportion to her size as is the largest capitol or cathedral in the world compared to man's size. No savage race has produced architects who could approach the air in genius or culture. No civilized race has produced architects who could plan a house better for the uses proposed than can hers. Her house contains a throne-room; nurseries for her young; granaries; apartments for her soldiers, her workers, etc.; and they and the multifarious halls and corridors which communicate with them are arranged and distributed with an educated and experienced eye for convenience and adaptability.

  Y.M. That could be mere instinct.

  O.M. It would elevate the savage if he had it. But let us look further before we decide. The ant has soldiers—battalions, regiments, armies; and they have their appointed captains and generals, who lead them to battle.

  Y.M. That could be instinct, too.

  O.M. We will look still further. The ant has a system of government; it is well planned, elaborate, and is well carried on.

  Y.M. Instinct again.

  O.M. She has crowds of slaves, and is a hard and unjust employer of forced labor.

  Y.M. Instinct.

  O.M. She has cows, and milks them.

  Y.M. Instinct, of course.

  O.M. In Texas she lays out a farm twelve feet square, plants it, weeds it, cultivates it, gathers the crop and stores it away.

  Y.M. Instinct, all the same.

  O.M. The ant discriminates between friend and stranger. Sir John Lubbock took ants from two different nests, made them drunk with whiskey and laid them, unconscious, by one of the nests, near some water. Ants from the nest came and examined and discussed these disgraced creatures, then carried their friends home and threw the strangers overboard. Sir John repeated the experiment a number of times. For a time the sober ants did as they had done at first—carried their friends home and threw the strangers overboard. But finally they lost patience, seeing that their reformatory efforts went for nothing, and threw both friends and strangers overboard. Come—is this instinct, or is it thoughtful and intelligent discussion of a thing new— absolutely new—to their experience; with a verdict arrived at, sentence passed, and judgment executed? Is it instinct?—thought petrified by ages of habit—or isn't it brand-new thought, inspired by the new occasion, the new circumstances?

  Y.M. I have to concede it. It was not a result of habit; it has all the look of reflection, thought, putting this and that together, as you phrase it. I believe it was thought.

  O.M. I will give you another instance of thought. Franklin had a cup of sugar on a table in his room. The ants got at it. He tried several preventives; and ants rose superior to them. Finally he contrived one which shut off access—probably set the table's legs in pans of water, or drew a circle of tar around the cup, I don't remember. At any rate, he watched to see what they would do. They tried various schemes—failures, every one. The ants were badly puzzled. Finally they held a consultation, discussed the problem, arrived at a decision—and this time they beat that great philosopher. They formed in procession, cross the floor, climbed the wall, marched across the ceiling to a point just over the cup, then one by one they let go and fell down into it! Was that instinct—thought petrified by ages of inherited habit?

  Y.M. No, I don't believe it was. I believe it was a newly reasoned scheme to meet a new emergency.

  O.M. Very well. You have conceded the reasoning power in two instances. I come now to a mental detail wherein the ant is a long way the superior of any human being. Sir John Lubbock proved by many experiments that an ant knows a stranger ant of her own species in a moment, even when the stranger is disguised —with paint. Also he proved that an ant knows every individual in her hive of five hundred thousand souls. Also, after a year's absence one of the five hundred thousand she will straightway recognize the returned absentee and grace the recognition with a affectionate welcome. How are these recognitions made? Not by color, for painted ants were recognized. Not by smell, for ants that had been dipped in chloroform were recognized. Not by speech and not by antennae signs nor contacts, for the drunken and motionless ants were recognized and the friend discriminated from the stranger. The ants were all of the same species, therefore the friends had to be recognized by form and feature— friends who formed part of a hive of five hundred thousand! Has any man a memory for form and feature approaching that?

  Y.M. Certainly not.

  O.M. Franklin's ants and Lubbuck's ants show fine capacities of putting this and that together in new and untried emergencies and deducting smart conclusions from the combinations—a man's mental process exactly. With memory to help, man preserves his observations and reasonings, reflects upon them, adds to them, recombines, and so proceeds, stage by stage, to far results—from the teakettle to the ocean greyhound's complex engine; from personal labor to slave labor; from wigwam to palace; from the capricious chase to agriculture and stored food; from nomadic life to stable government and concentrated authority; from incoherent hordes to massed armies. The ant has observation, the reasoning faculty, and the preserving adjunct of a prodigious memory; she has duplicated man's development and the essential features of his civilization, and you call it all instinct!

  Y.M. Perhaps I lacked the reasoning faculty myself.

  O.M. Well, don't tell anybody, and don't do it again.

  Y.M. We have come a good way. As a result—as I understand it— I am required to concede that there is absolutely no intellectual frontier separating Man and the Unrevealed Creatures?

  O.M. That is what you are required to concede. There is no such frontier—there is no way to get around that. Man has a finer and more capable machine in him than those others, but it is the same machine and works in the same way. And neither he nor those others can command the machine—it is strictly automatic, independent of control, works when it pleases, and when it doe
sn't please, it can't be forced.

  Y.M. Then man and the other animals are all alike, as to mental machinery, and there isn't any difference of any stupendous magnitude between them, except in quality, not in kind.

  O.M. That is about the state of it—intellectuality. There are pronounced limitations on both sides. We can't learn to understand much of their language, but the dog, the elephant, etc., learn to understand a very great deal of ours. To that extent they are our superiors. On the other hand, they can't learn reading, writing, etc., nor any of our fine and high things, and there we have a large advantage over them.

  Y.M. Very well, let them have what they've got, and welcome; there is still a wall, and a lofty one. They haven't got the Moral Sense; we have it, and it lifts us immeasurably above them.

  O.M. What makes you think that?

  Y.M. Now look here—let's call a halt. I have stood the other infamies and insanities and that is enough; I am not going to have man and the other animals put on the same level morally.

  O.M. I wasn't going to hoist man up to that.

  Y.M. This is too much! I think it is not right to jest about such things.

  O.M. I am not jesting, I am merely reflecting a plain and simple truth—and without uncharitableness. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his INTELLECTUAL superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can DO wrong proves his MORAL inferiority to any creature that CANNOT. It is my belief that this position is not assailable.

  Free Will

  Y.M. What is your opinion regarding Free Will?

  O.M. That there is no such thing. Did the man possess it who gave the old woman his last shilling and trudged home in the storm?

  Y.M. He had the choice between succoring the old woman and leaving her to suffer. Isn't it so?

  O.M. Yes, there was a choice to be made, between bodily comfort on the one hand and the comfort of the spirit on the other. The body made a strong appeal, of course—the body would be quite sure to do that; the spirit made a counter appeal. A choice had to be made between the two appeals, and was made. Who or what determined that choice?

  Y.M. Any one but you would say that the man determined it, and that in doing it he exercised Free Will.

  O.M. We are constantly assured that every man is endowed with Free Will, and that he can and must exercise it where he is offered a choice between good conduct and less-good conduct. Yet we clearly saw that in that man's case he really had no Free Will: his temperament, his training, and the daily influences which had molded him and made him what he was, COMPELLED him to rescue the old woman and thus save HIMSELF—save himself from spiritual pain, from unendurable wretchedness. He did not make the choice, it was made FOR him by forces which he could not control. Free Will has always existed in WORDS, but it stops there, I think—stops short of FACT. I would not use those words—Free Will—but others.

  Y.M. What others?

  O.M. Free Choice.

  Y.M. What is the difference?

  O.M. The one implies untrammeled power to ACT as you please, the other implies nothing beyond a mere MENTAL PROCESS: the critical ability to determine which of two things is nearest right and just.

  Y.M. Make the difference clear, please.

  O.M. The mind can freely SELECT, CHOOSE, POINT OUT the right and just one—its function stops there. It can go no further in the matter. It has no authority to say that the right one shall be acted upon and the wrong one discarded. That authority is in other hands.

  Y.M. The man's?

  O.M. In the machine which stands for him. In his born disposition and the character which has been built around it by training and environment.

  Y.M. It will act upon the right one of the two?

  O.M. It will do as it pleases in the matter. George Washington's machine would act upon the right one; Pizarro would act upon the wrong one.

  Y.M. Then as I understand it a bad man's mental machinery calmly and judicially points out which of two things is right and just—

  O.M. Yes, and his MORAL machinery will freely act upon the other or the other, according to its make, and be quite indifferent to the MIND'S feeling concerning the matter—that is, WOULD be, if the mind had any feelings; which it hasn't. It is merely a thermometer: it registers the heat and the cold, and cares not a farthing about either.

  Y.M. Then we must not claim that if a man KNOWS which of two things is right he is absolutely BOUND to do that thing?

  O.M. His temperament and training will decide what he shall do, and he will do it; he cannot help himself, he has no authority over the mater. Wasn't it right for David to go out and slay Goliath?

  Y.M. Yes.

  O.M. Then it would have been equally RIGHT for any one else to do it?

  Y.M. Certainly.

  O.M. Then it would have been RIGHT for a born coward to attempt it?

  Y.M. It would—yes.

  O.M. You know that no born coward ever would have attempted it, don't you?

  Y.M. Yes.

  O.M. You know that a born coward's make and temperament would be an absolute and insurmountable bar to his ever essaying such a thing, don't you?

  Y.M. Yes, I know it.

  O.M. He clearly perceives that it would be RIGHT to try it?

  Y.M. Yes.

  O.M. His mind has Free Choice in determining that it would be RIGHT to try it?

  Y.M. Yes.

  O.M. Then if by reason of his inborn cowardice he simply can NOT essay it, what becomes of his Free Will? Where is his Free Will? Why claim that he has Free Will when the plain facts show that he hasn't? Why content that because he and David SEE the right alike, both must ACT alike? Why impose the same laws upon goat and lion?

  Y.M. There is really no such thing as Free Will?

  O.M. It is what I think. There is WILL. But it has nothing to do with INTELLECTUAL PERCEPTIONS OF RIGHT AND WRONG, and is not under their command. David's temperament and training had Will, and it was a compulsory force; David had to obey its decrees, he had no choice. The coward's temperament and training possess Will, and IT is compulsory; it commands him to avoid danger, and he obeys, he has no choice. But neither the Davids nor the cowards possess Free Will—will that may do the right or do the wrong, as their MENTAL verdict shall decide.

  Not Two Values, But Only One

  Y.M. There is one thing which bothers me: I can't tell where you draw the line between MATERIAL covetousness and SPIRITUAL covetousness.

  O.M. I don't draw any.

  Y.M. How do you mean?

  O.M. There is no such thing as MATERIAL covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual

  Y.M. ALL longings, desires, ambitions SPIRITUAL, never material?

  O.M. Yes. The Master in you requires that in ALL cases you shall content his SPIRIT—that alone. He never requires anything else, he never interests himself in any other matter.

  Y.M. Ah, come! When he covets somebody's money—isn't that rather distinctly material and gross?

  O.M. No. The money is merely a symbol—it represents in visible and concrete form a SPIRITUAL DESIRE. Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for ITSELF, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.

  Y.M. Please particularize.

  O.M. Very well. Maybe the thing longed for is a new hat. You get it and your vanity is pleased, your spirit contented. Suppose your friends deride the hat, make fun of it: at once it loses its value; you are ashamed of it, you put it out of your sight, you never want to see it again.

  Y.M. I think I see. Go on.

  O.M. It is the same hat, isn't it? It is in no way altered. But it wasn't the HAT you wanted, but only what it stood for—a something to please and content your SPIRIT. When it failed of that, the whole of its value was gone. There are no MATERIAL values; there are only spiritual ones. You will hunt in vain for a material value that is ACTUAL, REAL—there is no such thing. The only value it possesses, for even a moment, is the spiritual value back of it: remove that end and it is at onc
e worthless—like the hat.

  Y.M. Can you extend that to money?

  O.M. Yes. It is merely a symbol, it has no MATERIAL value; you think you desire it for its own sake, but it is not so. You desire it for the spiritual content it will bring; if it fail of that, you discover that its value is gone. There is that pathetic tale of the man who labored like a slave, unresting, unsatisfied, until he had accumulated a fortune, and was happy over it, jubilant about it; then in a single week a pestilence swept away all whom he held dear and left him desolate. His money's value was gone. He realized that his joy in it came not from the money itself, but from the spiritual contentment he got out of his family's enjoyment of the pleasures and delights it lavished upon them. Money has no MATERIAL value; if you remove its spiritual value nothing is left but dross. It is so with all things, little or big, majestic or trivial—there are no exceptions. Crowns, scepters, pennies, paste jewels, village notoriety, world-wide fame—they are all the same, they have no MATERIAL value: while they content the SPIRIT they are precious, when this fails they are worthless.

  A Difficult Question

  Y.M. You keep me confused and perplexed all the time by your elusive terminology. Sometimes you divide a man up into two or three separate personalities, each with authorities, jurisdictions, and responsibilities of its own, and when he is in that condition I can't grasp it. Now when I speak of a man, he is THE WHOLE THING IN ONE, and easy to hold and contemplate.

  O.M. That is pleasant and convenient, if true. When you speak of "my body" who is the "my"?

  Y.M. It is the "me."

  O.M. The body is a property then, and the Me owns it. Who is the Me?

  Y.M. The Me is THE WHOLE THING; it is a common property; an undivided ownership, vested in the whole entity.

  O.M. If the Me admires a rainbow, is it the whole Me that admires it, including the hair, hands, heels, and all?

  Y.M. Certainly not. It is my MIND that admires it.

  O.M. So YOU divide the Me yourself. Everybody does; everybody must. What, then, definitely, is the Me?

  Y.M. I think it must consist of just those two parts— the body and the mind.