What Is Man?

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


O.M. And all about a debt which you don't owe and don't have to pay
unless you want to! Strange. What is the purpose of the guessing?

Y.M. To guess out what is right to give them, and not be unfair to any
of them.

O.M. It has quite a noble look--taking so much pains and using up so
much valuable time in order to be just and fair to a poor servant to whom
you owe nothing, but who needs money and is ill paid.

Y.M. I think, myself, that if there is any ungracious motive back of it
it will be hard to find.

O.M. How do you know when you have not paid a servant fairly?

Y.M. Why, he is silent; does not thank you. Sometimes he gives you a
look that makes you ashamed. You are too proud to rectify your mistake
there, with people looking, but afterward you keep on wishing and wishing
you HAD done it. My, the shame and the pain of it! Sometimes you see,
by the signs, that you have it JUST RIGHT, and you go away mightily
satisfied. Sometimes the man is so effusively thankful that you know you
have given him a good deal MORE than was necessary.

O.M. NECESSARY? Necessary for what?

Y.M. To content him.

O.M. How do you feel THEN?

Y.M. Repentant.

O.M. It is my belief that you have NOT been concerning yourself in
guessing out his just dues, but only in ciphering out what would CONTENT
him. And I think you have a self-deluding reason for that.

Y.M. What was it?

O.M. If you fell short of what he was expecting and wanting, you would
get a look which would SHAME YOU BEFORE FOLK. That would give you PAIN.
YOU--for you are only working for yourself, not HIM. If you gave him too
much you would be ASHAMED OF YOURSELF for it, and that would give YOU
pain--another case of thinking of YOURSELF, protecting yourself, SAVING
YOURSELF FROM DISCOMFORT. You never think of the servant once--except to
guess out how to get HIS APPROVAL. If you get that, you get your OWN
approval, and that is the sole and only thing you are after. The Master
inside of you is then satisfied, contented, comfortable; there was NO
OTHER thing at stake, as a matter of FIRST interest, anywhere in the
transaction.



Further Instances

Y.M. Well, to think of it; Self-Sacrifice for others, the grandest thing
in man, ruled out! non-existent!

O.M. Are you accusing me of saying that?

Y.M. Why, certainly.

O.M. I haven't said it.

Y.M. What did you say, then?

O.M. That no man has ever sacrificed himself in the common meaning of
that phrase--which is, self-sacrifice for another ALONE. Men make daily
sacrifices for others, but it is for their own sake FIRST. The act must
content their own spirit FIRST. The other beneficiaries come second.

Y.M. And the same with duty for duty's sake?

O.M. Yes. No man performs a duty for mere duty's sake; the act must
content his spirit FIRST. He must feel better for DOING the duty than he
would for shirking it. Otherwise he will not do it.

Y.M. Take the case of the BERKELEY CASTLE.

O.M. It was a noble duty, greatly performed. Take it to pieces and
examine it, if you like.

Y.M. A British troop-ship crowded with soldiers and their wives and
children. She struck a rock and began to sink. There was room in the
boats for the women and children only. The colonel lined up his regiment
on the deck and said "it is our duty to die, that they may be saved."
There was no murmur, no protest. The boats carried away the women and
children. When the death-moment was come, the colonel and his officers
took their several posts, the men stood at shoulder-arms, and so, as on
dress-parade, with their flag flying and the drums beating, they went
down, a sacrifice to duty for duty's sake. Can you view it as other than
that?

O.M. It was something as fine as that, as exalted as that. Could you
have remained in those ranks and gone down to your death in that
unflinching way?

Y.M. Could I? No, I could not.

O.M. Think. Imagine yourself there, with that watery doom creeping
higher and higher around you.

Y.M. I can imagine it. I feel all the horror of it. I could not have
endured it, I could not have remained in my place. I know it.

O.M. Why?

Y.M. There is no why about it: I know myself, and I know I couldn't DO
it.

O.M. But it would be your DUTY to do it.

Y.M. Yes, I know--but I couldn't.

O.M. It was more than thousand men, yet not one of them flinched. Some
of them must have been born with your temperament; if they could do that
great duty for duty's SAKE, why not you? Don't you know that you could
go out and gather together a thousand clerks and mechanics and put them
on that deck and ask them to die for duty's sake, and not two dozen of
them would stay in the ranks to the end?

Y.M. Yes, I know that.

O.M. But you TRAIN them, and put them through a campaign or two; then
they would be soldiers; soldiers, with a soldier's pride, a soldier's
self-respect, a soldier's ideals. They would have to content a SOLDIER'S
spirit then, not a clerk's, not a mechanic's. They could not content
that spirit by shirking a soldier's duty, could they?

Y.M. I suppose not.

O.M. Then they would do the duty not for the DUTY'S sake, but for their
OWN sake--primarily. The DUTY was JUST THE SAME, and just as imperative,
when they were clerks, mechanics, raw recruits, but they wouldn't perform
it for that. As clerks and mechanics they had other ideals, another
spirit to satisfy, and they satisfied it. They HAD to; it is the law.
TRAINING is potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher
ideals is worth any man's thought and labor and diligence.

Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to the stake
rather than be recreant to it.

O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content the spirit that
is in him, though it cost him his life. Another man, just as sincerely
religious, but of different temperament, will fail of that duty, though
recognizing it as a duty, and grieving to be unequal to it: but he must
content the spirit that is in him--he cannot help it. He could not
perform that duty for duty's SAKE, for that would not content his spirit,
and the contenting of his spirit must be looked to FIRST. It takes
precedence of all other duties.

Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private morals who votes
for a thief for public office, on his own party's ticket, and against an
honest man on the other ticket.

O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public morals; he has no
private ones, where his party's prosperity is at stake. He will always
be true to his make and training.



IV

Training

Young Man. You keep using that word--training. By it do you
particularly mean--

Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a part of
it--but not a large part. I mean ALL the outside influences. There are
a million of them. From the cradle to the grave, during all his waking
hours, the human being is under training. In the very first rank of his
trainers stands ASSOCIATION. It is his human environment which
influences his mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets
him on his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find
himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and whose
approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of his nature he
takes the color of his place of resort. The influences about him create
his preferences, his aversions, his politics, his tastes, his morals, his
religion. He creates none of these things for himself. He THINKS he
does, but that is because he has not examined into the matter. You have
seen Presbyterians?

Y.M. Many.

O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not Congregationalists?
And why were the Congregationalists not Baptists, and the Baptists Roman
Catholics, and the Roman Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers,
and the Quakers Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the
Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists
Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics
Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians Unitarians,
and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans Salvation Warriors,
and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and the Zoroastrians Christian
Scientists, and the Christian Scientists Mormons--and so on?

Y.M. You may answer your question yourself.

O.M. That list of sects is not a record of STUDIES, searchings, seekings
after light; it mainly (and sarcastically) indicates what ASSOCIATION can
do. If you know a man's nationality you can come within a split hair of
guessing the complexion of his religion: English--Protestant; American
--ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American--Roman
Catholic; Russian--Greek Catholic; Turk--Mohammedan; and so on. And when
you know the man's religious complexion, you know what sort of religious
books he reads when he wants some more light, and what sort of books he
avoids, lest by accident he get more light than he wants. In America if
you know which party-collar a voter wears, you know what his associations
are, and how he came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he
reads to get light, and which breed he diligently avoids, and which breed
of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political knowledge,
and which breed of mass-meetings he doesn't attend, except to refute its
doctrines with brickbats. We are always hearing of people who are around
SEEKING AFTER TRUTH. I have never seen a (permanent) specimen. I think
he had never lived. But I have seen several entirely sincere people who
THOUGHT they were (permanent) Seekers after Truth. They sought
diligently, persistently, carefully, cautiously, profoundly, with perfect
honesty and nicely adjusted judgment--until they believed that without
doubt or question they had found the Truth. THAT WAS THE END OF THE
SEARCH. The man spent the rest of his life hunting up shingles wherewith
to protect his Truth from the weather. If he was seeking after political
Truth he found it in one or another of the hundred political gospels
which govern men in the earth; if he was seeking after the Only True
Religion he found it in one or another of the three thousand that are on
the market. In any case, when he found the Truth HE SOUGHT NO FURTHER;
but from that day forth, with his soldering-iron in one hand and his
bludgeon in the other he tinkered its leaks and reasoned with objectors.
There have been innumerable Temporary Seekers of Truth--have you ever
heard of a permanent one? In the very nature of man such a person is
impossible. However, to drop back to the text--training: all training
is one from or another of OUTSIDE INFLUENCE, and ASSOCIATION is the
largest part of it. A man is never anything but what his outside
influences have made him. They train him downward or they train him
upward--but they TRAIN him; they are at work upon him all the time.

Y.M. Then if he happen by the accidents of life to be evilly placed
there is no help for him, according to your notions--he must train
downward.

O.M. No help for him? No help for this chameleon? It is a mistake. It
is in his chameleonship that his greatest good fortune lies. He has only
to change his habitat--his ASSOCIATIONS. But the impulse to do it must
come from the OUTSIDE--he cannot originate it himself, with that purpose
in view. Sometimes a very small and accidental thing can furnish him the
initiatory impulse and start him on a new road, with a new idea. The
chance remark of a sweetheart, "I hear that you are a coward," may water
a seed that shall sprout and bloom and flourish, and ended in producing a
surprising fruitage--in the fields of war. The history of man is full of
such accidents. The accident of a broken leg brought a profane and ribald
soldier under religious influences and furnished him a new ideal. From
that accident sprang the Order of the Jesuits, and it has been shaking
thrones, changing policies, and doing other tremendous work for two
hundred years--and will go on. The chance reading of a book or of a
paragraph in a newspaper can start a man on a new track and make him
renounce his old associations and seek new ones that are IN SYMPATHY WITH
HIS NEW IDEAL: and the result, for that man, can be an entire change of
his way of life.

Y.M. Are you hinting at a scheme of procedure?

O.M. Not a new one--an old one. Old as mankind.

Y.M. What is it?

O.M. Merely the laying of traps for people. Traps baited with
INITIATORY IMPULSES TOWARD HIGH IDEALS. It is what the tract-distributor
does. It is what the missionary does. It is what governments ought to
do.

Y.M. Don't they?

O.M. In one way they do, in another they don't. They separate the
smallpox patients from the healthy people, but in dealing with crime they
put the healthy into the pest-house along with the sick. That is to say,
they put the beginners in with the confirmed criminals. This would be
well if man were naturally inclined to good, but he isn't, and so
ASSOCIATION makes the beginners worse than they were when they went into
captivity. It is putting a very severe punishment upon the comparatively
innocent at times. They hang a man--which is a trifling punishment; this
breaks the hearts of his family--which is a heavy one. They comfortably
jail and feed a wife-beater, and leave his innocent wife and family to
starve.

Y.M. Do you believe in the doctrine that man is equipped with an
intuitive perception of good and evil?

O.M. Adam hadn't it.

Y.M. But has man acquired it since?

O.M. No. I think he has no intuitions of any kind. He gets ALL his
ideas, all his impressions, from the outside. I keep repeating this, in
the hope that I may impress it upon you that you will be interested to
observe and examine for yourself and see whether it is true or false.

Y.M. Where did you get your own aggravating notions?

O.M. From the OUTSIDE. I did not invent them. They are gathered from a
thousand unknown sources. Mainly UNCONSCIOUSLY gathered.

Y.M. Don't you believe that God could make an inherently honest man?

O.M. Yes, I know He could. I also know that He never did make one.

Y.M. A wiser observer than you has recorded the fact that "an honest
man's the noblest work of God."

O.M. He didn't record a fact, he recorded a falsity. It is windy, and
sounds well, but it is not true. God makes a man with honest and
dishonest POSSIBILITIES in him and stops there. The man's ASSOCIATIONS
develop the possibilities--the one set or the other. The result is
accordingly an honest man or a dishonest one.

Y.M. And the honest one is not entitled to--

O.M. Praise? No. How often must I tell you that? HE is not the
architect of his honesty.

Y.M. Now then, I will ask you where there is any sense in training
people to lead virtuous lives. What is gained by it?

O.M. The man himself gets large advantages out of it, and that is the
main thing--to HIM. He is not a peril to his neighbors, he is not a
damage to them--and so THEY get an advantage out of his virtues. That is
the main thing to THEM. It can make this life comparatively comfortable
to the parties concerned; the NEGLECT of this training can make this life
a constant peril and distress to the parties concerned.

Y.M. You have said that training is everything; that training is the man
HIMSELF, for it makes him what he is.

O.M. I said training and ANOTHER thing. Let that other thing pass, for
the moment. What were you going to say?

Y.M. We have an old servant. She has been with us twenty-two years.
Her service used to be faultless, but now she has become very forgetful.
We are all fond of her; we all recognize that she cannot help the
infirmity which age has brought her; the rest of the family do not scold
her for her remissnesses, but at times I do--I can't seem to control
myself. Don't I try? I do try. Now, then, when I was ready to dress,
this morning, no clean clothes had been put out. I lost my temper; I
lose it easiest and quickest in the early morning. I rang; and
immediately began to warn myself not to show temper, and to be careful
and speak gently. I safe-guarded myself most carefully. I even chose the
very word I would use: "You've forgotten the clean clothes, Jane." When
she appeared in the door I opened my mouth to say that phrase--and out of
it, moved by an instant surge of passion which I was not expecting and
hadn't time to put under control, came the hot rebuke, "You've forgotten
them again!" You say a man always does the thing which will best please
his Interior Master. Whence came the impulse to make careful preparation
to save the girl the humiliation of a rebuke? Did that come from the
Master, who is always primarily concerned about HIMSELF?

O.M. Unquestionably. There is no other source for any impulse.
SECONDARILY you made preparation to save the girl, but PRIMARILY its
object was to save yourself, by contenting the Master.

Y.M. How do you mean?

O.M. Has any member of the family ever implored you to watch your temper
and not fly out at the girl?

Y.M. Yes. My mother.

O.M. You love her?

Y.M. Oh, more than that!

O.M. You would always do anything in your power to please her?

Y.M. It is a delight to me to do anything to please her!

O.M. Why? YOU WOULD DO IT FOR PAY, SOLELY--for PROFIT. What profit
would you expect and certainly receive from the investment?

Y.M. Personally? None. To please HER is enough.

O.M. It appears, then, that your object, primarily, WASN'T to save the
girl a humiliation, but to PLEASE YOUR MOTHER. It also appears that to
please your mother gives YOU a strong pleasure. Is not that the profit
which you get out of the investment? Isn't that the REAL profits and
FIRST profit?

Y.M. Oh, well? Go on.

O.M. In ALL transactions, the Interior Master looks to it that YOU GET
THE FIRST PROFIT. Otherwise there is no transaction.

Y.M. Well, then, if I was so anxious to get that profit and so intent
upon it, why did I threw it away by losing my temper?

O.M. In order to get ANOTHER profit which suddenly superseded it in
value.

Y.M. Where was it?

O.M. Ambushed behind your born temperament, and waiting for a chance.
Your native warm temper suddenly jumped to the front, and FOR THE MOMENT
its influence was more powerful than your mother's, and abolished it. In
that instance you were eager to flash out a hot rebuke and enjoy it. You
did enjoy it, didn't you?

Y.M. For--for a quarter of a second. Yes--I did.

O.M. Very well, it is as I have said: the thing which will give you the
MOST pleasure, the most satisfaction, in any moment or FRACTION of a
moment, is the thing you will always do. You must content the Master's
LATEST whim, whatever it may be.

Y.M. But when the tears came into the old servant's eyes I could have
cut my hand off for what I had done.

O.M. Right. You had humiliated YOURSELF, you see, you had given
yourself PAIN. Nothing is of FIRST importance to a man except results
which damage HIM or profit him--all the rest is SECONDARY. Your Master
was displeased with you, although you had obeyed him. He required a
prompt REPENTANCE; you obeyed again; you HAD to--there is never any
escape from his commands. He is a hard master and fickle; he changes his
mind in the fraction of a second, but you must be ready to obey, and you
will obey, ALWAYS. If he requires repentance, you content him, you will
always furnish it. He must be nursed, petted, coddled, and kept
contented, let the terms be what they may.

Y.M. Training! Oh, what's the use of it? Didn't I, and didn't my
mother try to train me up to where I would no longer fly out at that
girl?

O.M. Have you never managed to keep back a scolding?

Y.M. Oh, certainly--many times.

O.M. More times this year than last?

Y.M. Yes, a good many more.

O.M. More times last year than the year before?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. There is a large improvement, then, in the two years?

Y.M. Yes, undoubtedly.

O.M. Then your question is answered. You see there IS use in training.
Keep on. Keeping faithfully on. You are doing well.

Y.M. Will my reform reach perfection?

O.M. It will. UP to YOUR limit.

Y.M. My limit? What do you mean by that?

O.M. You remember that you said that I said training was EVERYTHING. I
corrected you, and said "training and ANOTHER thing." That other thing
is TEMPERAMENT--that is, the disposition you were born with. YOU CAN'T
ERADICATE YOUR DISPOSITION NOR ANY RAG OF IT--you can only put a pressure
on it and keep it down and quiet. You have a warm temper?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. You will never get rid of it; but by watching it you can keep it
down nearly all the time. ITS PRESENCE IS YOUR LIMIT. Your reform will
never quite reach perfection, for your temper will beat you now and then,
but you come near enough. You have made valuable progress and can make
more. There IS use in training. Immense use. Presently you will reach
a new stage of development, then your progress will be easier; will
proceed on a simpler basis, anyway.

Y.M. Explain.

O.M. You keep back your scoldings now, to please YOURSELF by pleasing
your MOTHER; presently the mere triumphing over your temper will delight
your vanity and confer a more delicious pleasure and satisfaction upon
you than even the approbation of your MOTHER confers upon you now. You
will then labor for yourself directly and at FIRST HAND, not by the
roundabout way through your mother. It simplifies the matter, and it
also strengthens the impulse.

Y.M. Ah, dear! But I sha'n't ever reach the point where I will spare
the girl for HER sake PRIMARILY, not mine?

O.M. Why--yes. In heaven.

Y.M. (AFTER A REFLECTIVE PAUSE) Temperament. Well, I see one must
allow for temperament. It is a large factor, sure enough. My mother is
thoughtful, and not hot-tempered. When I was dressed I went to her room;
she was not there; I called, she answered from the bathroom. I heard the
water running. I inquired. She answered, without temper, that Jane had
forgotten her bath, and she was preparing it herself. I offered to ring,
but she said, "No, don't do that; it would only distress her to be
confronted with her lapse, and would be a rebuke; she doesn't deserve
that--she is not to blame for the tricks her memory serves her." I
say--has my mother an Interior Master?--and where was he?

O.M. He was there. There, and looking out for his own peace and
pleasure and contentment. The girl's distress would have pained YOUR
MOTHER. Otherwise the girl would have been rung up, distress and all. I
know women who would have gotten a No. 1 PLEASURE out of ringing Jane
up--and so they would infallibly have pushed the button and obeyed the
law of their make and training, which are the servants of their Interior
Masters. It is quite likely that a part of your mother's forbearance
came from training. The GOOD kind of training--whose best and highest
function is to see to it that every time it confers a satisfaction upon
its pupil a benefit shall fall at second hand upon others.

Y.M. If you were going to condense into an admonition your plan for the
general betterment of the race's condition, how would you word it?



Admonition

O.M. Diligently train your ideals UPWARD and STILL UPWARD toward a
summit where you will find your chiefest pleasure in conduct which, while
contenting you, will be sure to confer benefits upon your neighbor and
the community.

Y.M. Is that a new gospel?

O.M. No.

Y.M. It has been taught before?

O.M. For ten thousand years.

Y.M. By whom?

O.M. All the great religions--all the great gospels.

Y.M. Then there is nothing new about it?

O.M. Oh yes, there is. It is candidly stated, this time. That has not
been done before.

Y.M. How do you mean?

O.M. Haven't I put YOU FIRST, and your neighbor and the community
AFTERWARD?

Y.M. Well, yes, that is a difference, it is true.

O.M. The difference between straight speaking and crooked; the
difference between frankness and shuffling.

Y.M. Explain.

O.M. The others offer your a hundred bribes to be good, thus conceding
that the Master inside of you must be conciliated and contented first,
and that you will do nothing at FIRST HAND but for his sake; then they
turn square around and require you to do good for OTHER'S sake CHIEFLY;
and to do your duty for duty's SAKE, chiefly; and to do acts of
SELF-SACRIFICE. Thus at the outset we all stand upon the same
ground--recognition of the supreme and absolute Monarch that resides in
man, and we all grovel before him and appeal to him; then those others
dodge and shuffle, and face around and unfrankly and inconsistently and
illogically change the form of their appeal and direct its persuasions to
man's SECOND-PLACE powers and to powers which have NO EXISTENCE in him,
thus advancing them to FIRST place; whereas in my Admonition I stick
logically and consistently to the original position: I place the Interior
Master's requirements FIRST, and keep them there.