What Is Man?

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> What Is Man?


O.M. Why, love is that impulse, that law, in its most uncompromising
form. It will squander life and everything else on its object. Not
PRIMARILY for the object's sake, but for ITS OWN. When its object is
happy IT is happy--and that is what it is unconsciously after.

Y.M. You do not even except the lofty and gracious passion of
mother-love?

O.M. No, IT is the absolute slave of that law. The mother will go naked
to clothe her child; she will starve that it may have food; suffer
torture to save it from pain; die that it may live. She takes a living
PLEASURE in making these sacrifices. SHE DOES IT FOR THAT REWARD--that
self-approval, that contentment, that peace, that comfort. SHE WOULD DO
IT FOR YOUR CHILD IF SHE COULD GET THE SAME PAY.

Y.M. This is an infernal philosophy of yours.

O.M. It isn't a philosophy, it is a fact.

Y.M. Of course you must admit that there are some acts which--

O.M. No. There is NO act, large or small, fine or mean, which springs
from any motive but the one--the necessity of appeasing and contenting
one's own spirit.

Y.M. The world's philanthropists--

O.M. I honor them, I uncover my head to them--from habit and training;
and THEY could not know comfort or happiness or self-approval if they did
not work and spend for the unfortunate. It makes THEM happy to see others
happy; and so with money and labor they buy what they are
after--HAPPINESS, SELF-APPROVAL. Why don't miners do the same thing?
Because they can get a thousandfold more happiness by NOT doing it.
There is no other reason. They follow the law of their make.

Y.M. What do you say of duty for duty's sake?

O.M. That IS DOES NOT EXIST. Duties are not performed for duty's SAKE,
but because their NEGLECT would make the man UNCOMFORTABLE. A man
performs but ONE duty--the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of
making himself agreeable to himself. If he can most satisfyingly perform
this sole and only duty by HELPING his neighbor, he will do it; if he can
most satisfyingly perform it by SWINDLING his neighbor, he will do it.
But he always looks out for Number One--FIRST; the effects upon others
are a SECONDARY matter. Men pretend to self-sacrifices, but this is a
thing which, in the ordinary value of the phrase, DOES NOT EXIST AND HAS
NOT EXISTED. A man often honestly THINKS he is sacrificing himself
merely and solely for some one else, but he is deceived; his bottom
impulse is to content a requirement of his nature and training, and thus
acquire peace for his soul.

Y.M. Apparently, then, all men, both good and bad ones, devote their
lives to contenting their consciences.

O.M. Yes. That is a good enough name for it: Conscience--that
independent Sovereign, that insolent absolute Monarch inside of a man who
is the man's Master. There are all kinds of consciences, because there
are all kinds of men. You satisfy an assassin's conscience in one way, a
philanthropist's in another, a miser's in another, a burglar's in still
another. As a GUIDE or INCENTIVE to any authoritatively prescribed line
of morals or conduct (leaving TRAINING out of the account), a man's
conscience is totally valueless. I know a kind-hearted Kentuckian whose
self-approval was lacking--whose conscience was troubling him, to phrase
it with exactness--BECAUSE HE HAD NEGLECTED TO KILL A CERTAIN MAN--a man
whom he had never seen. The stranger had killed this man's friend in a
fight, this man's Kentucky training made it a duty to kill the stranger
for it. He neglected his duty--kept dodging it, shirking it, putting it
off, and his unrelenting conscience kept persecuting him for this
conduct. At last, to get ease of mind, comfort, self-approval, he hunted
up the stranger and took his life. It was an immense act of
SELF-SACRIFICE (as per the usual definition), for he did not want to do
it, and he never would have done it if he could have bought a contented
spirit and an unworried mind at smaller cost. But we are so made that we
will pay ANYTHING for that contentment--even another man's life.

Y.M. You spoke a moment ago of TRAINED consciences. You mean that we
are not BORN with consciences competent to guide us aright?

O.M. If we were, children and savages would know right from wrong, and
not have to be taught it.

Y.M. But consciences can be TRAINED?

O.M. Yes.

Y.M. Of course by parents, teachers, the pulpit, and books.

O.M. Yes--they do their share; they do what they can.

Y.M. And the rest is done by--

O.M. Oh, a million unnoticed influences--for good or bad: influences
which work without rest during every waking moment of a man's life, from
cradle to grave.

Y.M. You have tabulated these?

O.M. Many of them--yes.

Y.M. Will you read me the result?

O.M. Another time, yes. It would take an hour.

Y.M. A conscience can be trained to shun evil and prefer good?

O.M. Yes.

Y.M. But will it for spirit-contenting reasons only?

O.M. It CAN'T be trained to do a thing for any OTHER reason. The thing
is impossible.

Y.M. There MUST be a genuinely and utterly self-sacrificing act recorded
in human history somewhere.

O.M. You are young. You have many years before you. Search one out.

Y.M. It does seem to me that when a man sees a fellow-being struggling
in the water and jumps in at the risk of his life to save him--

O.M. Wait. Describe the MAN. Describe the FELLOW-BEING. State if there
is an AUDIENCE present; or if they are ALONE.

Y.M. What have these things to do with the splendid act?

O.M. Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that the two are
alone, in a solitary place, at midnight?

Y.M. If you choose.

O.M. And that the fellow-being is the man's daughter?

Y.M. Well, n-no--make it someone else.

O.M. A filthy, drunken ruffian, then?

Y.M. I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there was no
audience to observe the act, the man wouldn't perform it.

O.M. But there is here and there a man who WOULD. People, for instance,
like the man who lost his life trying to save the child from the fire;
and the man who gave the needy old woman his twenty-five cents and walked
home in the storm--there are here and there men like that who would do
it. And why? Because they couldn't BEAR to see a fellow-being
struggling in the water and not jump in and help. It would give THEM
pain. They would save the fellow-being on that account. THEY WOULDN'T
DO IT OTHERWISE. They strictly obey the law which I have been insisting
upon. You must remember and always distinguish the people who CAN'T BEAR
things from people who CAN. It will throw light upon a number of
apparently "self-sacrificing" cases.

Y.M. Oh, dear, it's all so disgusting.

O.M. Yes. And so true.

Y.M. Come--take the good boy who does things he doesn't want to do, in
order to gratify his mother.

O.M. He does seven-tenths of the act because it gratifies HIM to gratify
his mother. Throw the bulk of advantage the other way and the good boy
would not do the act. He MUST obey the iron law. None can escape it.

Y.M. Well, take the case of a bad boy who--

O.M. You needn't mention it, it is a waste of time. It is no matter
about the bad boy's act. Whatever it was, he had a spirit-contenting
reason for it. Otherwise you have been misinformed, and he didn't do it.

Y.M. It is very exasperating. A while ago you said that man's
conscience is not a born judge of morals and conduct, but has to be
taught and trained. Now I think a conscience can get drowsy and lazy,
but I don't think it can go wrong; if you wake it up--



A Little Story

O.M. I will tell you a little story:

Once upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow
whose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched by
the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these
opportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature--that desire
which is in us all to better other people's condition by having them
think as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in his last
moments, reproached him and said:

"I BELIEVED, AND WAS HAPPY IN IT; YOU HAVE TAKEN MY BELIEF AWAY, AND MY
COMFORT. NOW I HAVE NOTHING LEFT, AND I DIE MISERABLE; FOR THE THINGS
WHICH YOU HAVE TOLD ME DO NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF THAT WHICH I HAVE LOST."

And the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said:

"MY CHILD IS FOREVER LOST, AND MY HEART IS BROKEN. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS
CRUEL THING? WE HAVE DONE YOU NO HARM, BUT ONLY KINDNESS; WE MADE OUR
HOUSE YOUR HOME, YOU WERE WELCOME TO ALL WE HAD, AND THIS IS OUR REWARD."

The heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done,
and he said:

"IT WAS WRONG--I SEE IT NOW; BUT I WAS ONLY TRYING TO DO HIM GOOD. IN MY
VIEW HE WAS IN ERROR; IT SEEMED MY DUTY TO TEACH HIM THE TRUTH."

Then the mother said:

"I HAD TAUGHT HIM, ALL HIS LITTLE LIFE, WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE THE TRUTH,
AND IN HIS BELIEVING FAITH BOTH OF US WERE HAPPY. NOW HE IS DEAD,--AND
LOST; AND I AM MISERABLE. OUR FAITH CAME DOWN TO US THROUGH CENTURIES OF
BELIEVING ANCESTORS; WHAT RIGHT HAD YOU, OR ANY ONE, TO DISTURB IT?
WHERE WAS YOUR HONOR, WHERE WAS YOUR SHAME?"

Y.M. He was a miscreant, and deserved death!

O.M. He thought so himself, and said so.

Y.M. Ah--you see, HIS CONSCIENCE WAS AWAKENED!

O.M. Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It PAINED him to see the mother
suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought HIM pain. It did
not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the boy,
for he was absorbed in providing PLEASURE for himself, then. Providing
it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.

Y.M. Call it what you please, it is to me a case of AWAKENED CONSCIENCE.
That awakened conscience could never get itself into that species of
trouble again. A cure like that is a PERMANENT cure.

O.M. Pardon--I had not finished the story. We are creatures of OUTSIDE
INFLUENCES--we originate NOTHING within. Whenever we take a new line of
thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse is
ALWAYS suggested from the OUTSIDE. Remorse so preyed upon the Infidel
that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy's religion and made him
come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the boy's sake
and the mother's. Finally he found himself examining it. From that
moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He became a
believing Christian. And now his remorse for having robbed the dying boy
of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave him no
rest, no peace. He MUST have rest and peace--it is the law of nature.
There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving
imperiled souls. He became a missionary. He landed in a pagan country
ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home and
nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken
hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here
was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the other
boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his foolish
faith in his false gods. He was successful. But the dying boy in his
last moments reproached him and said:

"I BELIEVED, AND WAS HAPPY IN IT; YOU HAVE TAKEN MY BELIEF AWAY, AND MY
COMFORT. NOW I HAVE NOTHING LEFT, AND I DIE MISERABLE; FOR THE THINGS
WHICH YOU HAVE TOLD ME DO NOT TAKE THE PLACE OF THAT WHICH I HAVE LOST."

And the mother, also, reproached the missionary, and said:

"MY CHILD IS FOREVER LOST, AND MY HEART IS BROKEN. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS
CRUEL THING? WE HAD DONE YOU NO HARM, BUT ONLY KINDNESS; WE MADE OUR
HOUSE YOUR HOME, YOU WERE WELCOME TO ALL WE HAD, AND THIS IS OUR REWARD."

The heart of the missionary was filled with remorse for what he had done,
and he said:

"IT WAS WRONG--I SEE IT NOW; BUT I WAS ONLY TRYING TO DO HIM GOOD. IN MY
VIEW HE WAS IN ERROR; IT SEEMED MY DUTY TO TEACH HIM THE TRUTH."

Then the mother said:

"I HAD TAUGHT HIM, ALL HIS LITTLE LIFE, WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE THE TRUTH,
AND IN HIS BELIEVING FAITH BOTH OF US WERE HAPPY. NOW HE IS DEAD--AND
LOST; AND I AM MISERABLE. OUR FAITH CAME DOWN TO US THROUGH CENTURIES OF
BELIEVING ANCESTORS; WHAT RIGHT HAD YOU, OR ANY ONE, TO DISTURB IT?
WHERE WAS YOUR HONOR, WHERE WAS YOUR SHAME?"

The missionary's anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as bitter
and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the former
case. The story is finished. What is your comment?

Y.M. The man's conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn't know
right from wrong.

O.M. I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that ONE man's
conscience doesn't know right from wrong, it is an admission that there
are others like it. This single admission pulls down the whole doctrine
of infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there is one thing
which I ask you to notice.

Y.M. What is that?

O.M. That in both cases the man's ACT gave him no spiritual discomfort,
and that he was quite satisfied with it and got pleasure out of it. But
afterward when it resulted in PAIN to HIM, he was sorry. Sorry it had
inflicted pain upon the others, BUT FOR NO REASON UNDER THE SUN EXCEPT
THAT THEIR PAIN GAVE HIM PAIN. Our consciences take NO notice of pain
inflicted upon others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to US.
In ALL cases without exception we are absolutely indifferent to another
person's pain until his sufferings make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel
would not have been troubled by that Christian mother's distress. Don't
you believe that?

Y.M. Yes. You might almost say it of the AVERAGE infidel, I think.

O.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty,
would not have been troubled by the pagan mother's distress--Jesuit
missionaries in Canada in the early French times, for instance; see
episodes quoted by Parkman.

Y.M. Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived?

O.M. At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number
of qualities to which we have given misleading names. Love, Hate,
Charity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach
misleading MEANINGS to the names. They are all forms of self-contentment,
self-gratification, but the names so disguise them that they distract our
attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled a word into the
dictionary which ought not to be there at all--Self-Sacrifice. It
describes a thing which does not exist. But worst of all, we ignore and
never mention the Sole Impulse which dictates and compels a man's every
act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every
emergency and at all costs. To it we owe all that we are. It is our
breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only spur, our whip, our goad,
our only impelling power; we have no other. Without it we should be mere
inert images, corpses; no one would do anything, there would be no
progress, the world would stand still. We ought to stand reverently
uncovered when the name of that stupendous power is uttered.

Y.M. I am not convinced.

O.M. You will be when you think.



III

Instances in Point

Old Man. Have you given thought to the Gospel of Self-Approval since we
talked?

Young Man. I have.

O.M. It was I that moved you to it. That is to say an OUTSIDE INFLUENCE
moved you to it--not one that originated in your head. Will you try to
keep that in mind and not forget it?

Y.M. Yes. Why?

O.M. Because by and by in one of our talks, I wish to further impress
upon you that neither you, nor I, nor any man ever originates a thought
in his own head. THE UTTERER OF A THOUGHT ALWAYS UTTERS A SECOND-HAND
ONE.

Y.M. Oh, now--

O.M. Wait. Reserve your remark till we get to that part of our
discussion--tomorrow or next day, say. Now, then, have you been
considering the proposition that no act is ever born of any but a
self-contenting impulse--(primarily). You have sought. What have you
found?

Y.M. I have not been very fortunate. I have examined many fine and
apparently self-sacrificing deeds in romances and biographies, but--

O.M. Under searching analysis the ostensible self-sacrifice disappeared?
It naturally would.

Y.M. But here in this novel is one which seems to promise. In the
Adirondack woods is a wage-earner and lay preacher in the lumber-camps
who is of noble character and deeply religious. An earnest and practical
laborer in the New York slums comes up there on vacation--he is leader of
a section of the University Settlement. Holme, the lumberman, is fired
with a desire to throw away his excellent worldly prospects and go down
and save souls on the East Side. He counts it happiness to make this
sacrifice for the glory of God and for the cause of Christ. He resigns
his place, makes the sacrifice cheerfully, and goes to the East Side and
preaches Christ and Him crucified every day and every night to little
groups of half-civilized foreign paupers who scoff at him. But he
rejoices in the scoffings, since he is suffering them in the great cause
of Christ. You have so filled my mind with suspicions that I was
constantly expecting to find a hidden questionable impulse back of all
this, but I am thankful to say I have failed. This man saw his duty, and
for DUTY'S SAKE he sacrificed self and assumed the burden it imposed.

O.M. Is that as far as you have read?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Let us read further, presently. Meantime, in sacrificing
himself--NOT for the glory of God, PRIMARILY, as HE imagined, but FIRST
to content that exacting and inflexible master within him--DID HE
SACRIFICE ANYBODY ELSE?

Y.M. How do you mean?

O.M. He relinquished a lucrative post and got mere food and lodging in
place of it. Had he dependents?

Y.M. Well--yes.

O.M. In what way and to what extend did his self-sacrifice affect THEM?

Y.M. He was the support of a superannuated father. He had a young
sister with a remarkable voice--he was giving her a musical education, so
that her longing to be self-supporting might be gratified. He was
furnishing the money to put a young brother through a polytechnic school
and satisfy his desire to become a civil engineer.

O.M. The old father's comforts were now curtailed?

Y.M. Quite seriously. Yes.

O.M. The sister's music-lessens had to stop?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. The young brother's education--well, an extinguishing blight fell
upon that happy dream, and he had to go to sawing wood to support the old
father, or something like that?

Y.M. It is about what happened. Yes.

O.M. What a handsome job of self-sacrificing he did do! It seems to me
that he sacrificed everybody EXCEPT himself. Haven't I told you that no
man EVER sacrifices himself; that there is no instance of it upon record
anywhere; and that when a man's Interior Monarch requires a thing of its
slave for either its MOMENTARY or its PERMANENT contentment, that thing
must and will be furnished and that command obeyed, no matter who may
stand in the way and suffer disaster by it? That man RUINED HIS FAMILY
to please and content his Interior Monarch--

Y.M. And help Christ's cause.

O.M. Yes--SECONDLY. Not firstly. HE thought it was firstly.

Y.M. Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be that he argued
that if he saved a hundred souls in New York--

O.M. The sacrifice of the FAMILY would be justified by that great profit
upon the--the--what shall we call it?

Y.M. Investment?

O.M. Hardly. How would SPECULATION do? How would GAMBLE do? Not a
solitary soul-capture was sure. He played for a possible
thirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It was GAMBLING--with his family
for "chips." However let us see how the game came out. Maybe we can get
on the track of the secret original impulse, the REAL impulse, that moved
him to so nobly self-sacrifice his family in the Savior's cause under the
superstition that he was sacrificing himself. I will read a chapter or
so. . . . Here we have it! It was bound to expose itself sooner or
later. He preached to the East-Side rabble a season, then went back to
his old dull, obscure life in the lumber-camps "HURT TO THE HEART, HIS
PRIDE HUMBLED." Why? Were not his efforts acceptable to the Savior, for
Whom alone they were made? Dear me, that detail is LOST SIGHT OF, is not
even referred to, the fact that it started out as a motive is entirely
forgotten! Then what is the trouble? The authoress quite innocently and
unconsciously gives the whole business away. The trouble was this: this
man merely PREACHED to the poor; that is not the University Settlement's
way; it deals in larger and better things than that, and it did not
enthuse over that crude Salvation-Army eloquence. It was courteous to
Holme--but cool. It did not pet him, did not take him to its bosom.
"PERISHED WERE ALL HIS DREAMS OF DISTINCTION, THE PRAISE AND GRATEFUL
APPROVAL--" Of whom? The Savior? No; the Savior is not mentioned. Of
whom, then? Of "His FELLOW-WORKERS." Why did he want that? Because the
Master inside of him wanted it, and would not be content without it.
That emphasized sentence quoted above, reveals the secret we have been
seeking, the original impulse, the REAL impulse, which moved the obscure
and unappreciated Adirondack lumberman to sacrifice his family and go on
that crusade to the East Side--which said original impulse was this, to
wit: without knowing it HE WENT THERE TO SHOW A NEGLECTED WORLD THE LARGE
TALENT THAT WAS IN HIM, AND RISE TO DISTINCTION. As I have warned you
before, NO act springs from any but the one law, the one motive. But I
pray you, do not accept this law upon my say-so; but diligently examine
for yourself. Whenever you read of a self-sacrificing act or hear of
one, or of a duty done for DUTY'S SAKE, take it to pieces and look for
the REAL motive. It is always there.

Y.M. I do it every day. I cannot help it, now that I have gotten
started upon the degrading and exasperating quest. For it is hatefully
interesting!--in fact, fascinating is the word. As soon as I come across
a golden deed in a book I have to stop and take it apart and examine it,
I cannot help myself.

O.M. Have you ever found one that defeated the rule?

Y.M. No--at least, not yet. But take the case of servant-tipping in
Europe. You pay the HOTEL for service; you owe the servants NOTHING, yet
you pay them besides. Doesn't that defeat it?

O.M. In what way?

Y.M. You are not OBLIGED to do it, therefore its source is compassion
for their ill-paid condition, and--

O.M. Has that custom ever vexed you, annoyed you, irritated you?

Y.M. Well, yes.

O.M. Still you succumbed to it?

Y.M. Of course.

O.M. Why of course?

Y.M. Well, custom is law, in a way, and laws must be submitted
to--everybody recognizes it as a DUTY.

O.M. Then you pay for the irritating tax for DUTY'S sake?

Y.M. I suppose it amounts to that.

O.M. Then the impulse which moves you to submit to the tax is not ALL
compassion, charity, benevolence?

Y.M. Well--perhaps not.

O.M. Is ANY of it?

Y.M. I--perhaps I was too hasty in locating its source.

O.M. Perhaps so. In case you ignored the custom would you get prompt
and effective service from the servants?

Y.M. Oh, hear yourself talk! Those European servants? Why, you wouldn't
get any of all, to speak of.

O.M. Couldn't THAT work as an impulse to move you to pay the tax?

Y.M. I am not denying it.

O.M. Apparently, then, it is a case of for-duty's-sake with a little
self-interest added?

Y.M. Yes, it has the look of it. But here is a point: we pay that tax
knowing it to be unjust and an extortion; yet we go away with a pain at
the heart if we think we have been stingy with the poor fellows; and we
heartily wish we were back again, so that we could do the right thing,
and MORE than the right thing, the GENEROUS thing. I think it will be
difficult for you to find any thought of self in that impulse.

O.M. I wonder why you should think so. When you find service charged in
the HOTEL bill does it annoy you?

Y.M. No.

O.M. Do you ever complain of the amount of it?

Y.M. No, it would not occur to me.

O.M. The EXPENSE, then, is not the annoying detail. It is a fixed
charge, and you pay it cheerfully, you pay it without a murmur. When you
came to pay the servants, how would you like it if each of the men and
maids had a fixed charge?

Y.M. Like it? I should rejoice!

O.M. Even if the fixed tax were a shade MORE than you had been in the
habit of paying in the form of tips?

Y.M. Indeed, yes!

O.M. Very well, then. As I understand it, it isn't really compassion
nor yet duty that moves you to pay the tax, and it isn't the AMOUNT of
the tax that annoys you. Yet SOMETHING annoys you. What is it?

Y.M. Well, the trouble is, you never know WHAT to pay, the tax varies
so, all over Europe.

O.M. So you have to guess?

Y.M. There is no other way. So you go on thinking and thinking, and
calculating and guessing, and consulting with other people and getting
their views; and it spoils your sleep nights, and makes you distraught in
the daytime, and while you are pretending to look at the sights you are
only guessing and guessing and guessing all the time, and being worried
and miserable.