Evil: Mark Twain and Higher Animals

From The Damned Hu homosexual Race by Mark Twain Mark Twain is a central icon in American literature. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his finest work, is the story of a journey d let the multiple sclerosis by two memor up to(p) figures, a white boy and a black buckle down. Twain was born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in 1835 and was raised in Hannibal, Missouri. During his early years, he worked as a riverboat pi atomic reactor, newspaper reporter, printer, and gold prospector.Although his popular interpret is as the author of such comic works as The Adventures of tom turkey Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Prince and the Pauper, Twain had a darker side that may apply resulted from the bitter experiences of his life financial failure and the deaths of his wife and daughter. His destruction literary productions be savage, satiric, and pessimistic. The spare-time activity selection is taken from Letters from the Earth, hotshot of his last works. It has been downstair s the title The Damned Hu hu troopsness Race and has been printed in numerous essay anthologies.Did todays newspaper feature headlines about bulk fighting nearwhere in the world (Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa)? Most likely, it did. In the following selection, Mark Twain concludes that the combative and barbarian nature of human beings makes them the final of creatures, non the highest. With scathing irony, he supplies a startling reason for populace warlike nature. The Damned kind-hearted Race Mark Twain I sur interpret been studying the signs and dispositions of the lower physicals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.I find the result bruise to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of humans from the dismantle Animals since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer sensation, this new and truer wiz to be named the Descent of composition fr om the high Animals. In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I draw not guessed or speculated or conjectured, scarcely have used what is comm still called the scientific method. That is to say, I have subjected eery postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of ctual experiment, and have adopted it or rejected it according to the result. Thus I confirm and established each step of my course in its turn out front advancing to the next. These experiments were do in the London Zoological Gardens, and coered umteen months of painstaking and fatiguing work. Before sectionalisationicularizing any of the experiments, I wish to subject one or two things which seem to more properly belong in this signal than further along. This, in the interest of clearness. The massed experiments established to my satisfaction genuine generalizations, to wit 1.That the human race is of one explicit species. It exhibits slight variations (in color, stature, intellectual caliber , and so on) due to climate, environment, and so forth precisely it is a species by itself, and not to be confounded with any some another(prenominal). 2. That the quadrupeds are a distinct family, also. This family exhibits variations (in color, size, food preferences, and so on however it is a family by itself). 3. That the other families (the birds, the fishes, the insects, the reptiles, etc. ) are more or less(prenominal) distinct, also. They are in the procession.They are links in the chain which stretches down from the high zoologys to man at the bottom. Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, umteen years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the delight of an English earl. They had charming sport. They killed s dismantlety-two of those great animals and ate part of one of them and left the seventy-one to rot. In exhibition to determine the end between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anacondas cage.The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, thus lay brook satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas continuously with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isnt and that the earl want only when destroys what he has no use for, but the anaconda doesnt. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl.It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had confused a respectable deal in the transition. I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease th at appetite. I furnished a hundred assorted kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but no(prenominal) of them would do it.The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either aboveboard or by chicane. In order to bolster up a tottering re put ination the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived. I know the ant. These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals he is avaricious and miserly they are not.In the course of my experiments I convinced myself that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance takeers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is noncitizen to the higher animals. Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concubines therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems but it i s by brute commit, inner by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no consecrate in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster. Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so.Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the thriftiness grace which excuses the cat). The cat is innocent, man is not. Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (these are strictly confined to man) he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nada they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himself. He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so alert are he and his mates to indecent suggestion.Man is The Animal that Laughs. merely so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out and so does the Australian bird that is called the express feelings jackass. No Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it or h as occasion to. At the head of this article we see how three monks were burnt-out to death a few days ago, and a prior put to death with atrocious cruelty. Do we inquire into the details? No or we should find out that the prior was subjected to unprintable mutilations.Man (when he is a nitrogen American Indian) gouges out his prisoners eyes when he is King John, with a nephew to render untroublesome, he uses a red-hot iron when he is a unearthly zealot dealing with heretics in the Middle Ages, he skins his captive alive and scatters salt on his back in the first Richards time he shuts up a multitude of Jew families in a tower and sets flak to it in Columbuss time he captures a family of Spanish Jews and (but that is not printable in our day in England a man is fined ten shillings for beating his mother nearly to death with a chair, and some other(prenominal) man is fined forty shillings for having four pheasant eggs in his possession without eing able to satisfactorily explain h ow he got them). Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. The cat plays with the frightened mouse but she has this excuse, that she does not know that the mouse is suffering. The cat is moderate (unhumanly moderate she only scares the mouse, she does not hurt it she doesnt dig out its eyes, or tear off its skin, or drive splinters under its nails) man-fashion when she is done playing with it she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble. Man is the Cruel Animal. He is but in that distinction.The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that barbarousness of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in shivery blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out , as the Hessians did in our Revolution, and as the boyish Prince Napoleon did in the Zulu war, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages.There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken a appearance from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed. Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who enslaves. He has invariably been a slave in one form or another, and has endlessly held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some mans slave for wages, and does that mans work and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work a nd bid their own living. Man is the only Patriot.He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy expense to grab slices of other peoples countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between campaigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for the habitual brotherhood of man, with his mouth. Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion, several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isnt straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest go around to smooth his brothers path to happiness and heaven.He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mahomets time, he was at it in the time of the Inquisition, he was at it in France a bitstock of centuries, he was at it in England in Marys d ay, he has been at it ever since he first saw the light, he is at it today in Crete (as per the telegrams quoted above) he will be at it someplace else tomorrow. The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out, in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste. Man is the argumentation Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His come in is the fantastic record of a maniac.I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot whereas by his own standards he is the bottom one. In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In a n arcminute I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. at last a monkey. They lived together in peace even affectionately. Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as briefly as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen.Next a Turk from Constantinople a Greek Christian from Crete an Armenian a Methodist from the wilds of argon a Buddhist from China a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a redemption Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of high Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory betting odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had dis applyd on a theological detail and carried the matter to a higher( prenominal) Court. One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals.It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that altitude that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is spare that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable. I find this Defect to be the moralistic Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which changes him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is in capable of performing any other function. It could never hate been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals.Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity (to enable man to do wrong) it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifest ly is a disease. Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease. Rabies enables a man to do a thing, which he could not do when in a healthy state kill his neighbor with a poisonous bite. NC) one is the better man for having rabies The Moral Sense enables a man to do wrong. It enables him to do wrong in a thousand ways. Rabies is an innocent disease, compared to the Moral Sense. No one, then, can be the better man for having the Moral Sense. What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been?Plainly what it was in the kickoff the infliction upon man of the Moral Sense the ability to distinguish good from evil and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the instrument of it. And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far root word (some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the correctly horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirch less innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development (namable as the Human Being). Below us, nothing. Discussion Question How does Twain use satire in this essay? Be specific and refer to the text along with your explanation. unofficial Response Assignment Write a summary response on Twains essay, The Damned Human Race. In the first part of your paper, the summary, you should objectively (without bias) summarize the essay by discerning only the some significant points Twain makes. Do not include analysis, interpretation, evaluation, or opinion. solely report the guts of his essay. expend academic, third person voice in this section. In the second part of your paper, the response, comment on Twains essay. How do you interpret it? What do you think about it? With which points do you agree or disagree? Why? Evaluate Twains essay. Is it efficacious or ineffective in making his point? Why? Use first person voice in this section because you are providing your own opinion.