What Is Man?

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




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
once 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.

O.M. You think so? If you say "I believe the world is round," who is
the "I" that is speaking?

Y.M. The mind.

O.M. If you say "I grieve for the loss of my father," who is the "I"?

Y.M. The mind.

O.M. Is the mind exercising an intellectual function when it examines
and accepts the evidence that the world is round?

Y.M. Yes.

O.M. Is it exercising an intellectual function when it grieves for the
loss of your father?

Y.M. That is not cerebration, brain-work, it is a matter of FEELING.

O.M. Then its source is not in your mind, but in your MORAL territory?

Y.M. I have to grant it.

O.M. Is your mind a part of your PHYSICAL equipment?

Y.M. No. It is independent of it; it is spiritual.

O.M. Being spiritual, it cannot be affected by physical influences?

Y.M. No.

O.M. Does the mind remain sober with the body is drunk?

Y.M. Well--no.

O.M. There IS a physical effect present, then?

Y.M. It looks like it.

O.M. A cracked skull has resulted in a crazy mind. Why should it happen
if the mind is spiritual, and INDEPENDENT of physical influences?

Y.M. Well--I don't know.

O.M. When you have a pain in your foot, how do you know it?

Y.M. I feel it.

O.M. But you do not feel it until a nerve reports the hurt to the brain.
Yet the brain is the seat of the mind, is it not?

Y.M. I think so.

O.M. But isn't spiritual enough to learn what is happening in the
outskirts without the help of the PHYSICAL messenger? You perceive that
the question of who or what the Me is, is not a simple one at all. You
say "I admire the rainbow," and "I believe the world is round," and in
these cases we find that the Me is not speaking, but only the MENTAL
part. You say, "I grieve," and again the Me is not all speaking, but
only the MORAL part. You say the mind is wholly spiritual; then you say
"I have a pain" and find that this time the Me is mental AND spiritual
combined. We all use the "I" in this indeterminate fashion, there is no
help for it. We imagine a Master and King over what you call The Whole
Thing, and we speak of him as "I," but when we try to define him we find
we cannot do it. The intellect and the feelings can act quite
INDEPENDENTLY of each other; we recognize that, and we look around for a
Ruler who is master over both, and can serve as a DEFINITE AND
INDISPUTABLE "I," and enable us to know what we mean and who or what we
are talking about when we use that pronoun, but we have to give it up and
confess that we cannot find him. To me, Man is a machine, made up of
many mechanisms, the moral and mental ones acting automatically in
accordance with the impulses of an interior Master who is built out of
born-temperament and an accumulation of multitudinous outside influences
and trainings; a machine whose ONE function is to secure the spiritual
contentment of the Master, be his desires good or be they evil; a machine
whose Will is absolute and must be obeyed, and always IS obeyed.

Y.M. Maybe the Me is the Soul?

O.M. Maybe it is. What is the Soul?

Y.M. I don't know.

O.M. Neither does any one else.



The Master Passion

Y.M. What is the Master?--or, in common speech, the Conscience?
Explain it.

O.M. It is that mysterious autocrat, lodged in a man, which compels the
man to content its desires. It may be called the Master Passion--the
hunger for Self-Approval.

Y.M. Where is its seat?

O.M. In man's moral constitution.

Y.M. Are its commands for the man's good?

O.M. It is indifferent to the man's good; it never concerns itself about
anything but the satisfying of its own desires. It can be TRAINED to
prefer things which will be for the man's good, but it will prefer them
only because they will content IT better than other things would.

Y.M. Then even when it is trained to high ideals it is still looking out
for its own contentment, and not for the man's good.

O.M. True. Trained or untrained, it cares nothing for the man's good,
and never concerns itself about it.

Y.M. It seems to be an IMMORAL force seated in the man's moral
constitution.

O.M. It is a COLORLESS force seated in the man's moral constitution. Let
us call it an instinct--a blind, unreasoning instinct, which cannot and
does not distinguish between good morals and bad ones, and cares nothing
for results to the man provided its own contentment be secured; and it
will ALWAYS secure that.

Y.M. It seeks money, and it probably considers that that is an advantage
for the man?

O.M. It is not always seeking money, it is not always seeking power, nor
office, nor any other MATERIAL advantage. In ALL cases it seeks a
SPIRITUAL contentment, let the MEANS be what they may. Its desires are
determined by the man's temperament--and it is lord over that.
Temperament, Conscience, Susceptibility, Spiritual Appetite, are, in
fact, the same thing. Have you ever heard of a person who cared nothing
for money?

Y.M. Yes. A scholar who would not leave his garret and his books to
take a place in a business house at a large salary.

O.M. He had to satisfy his master--that is to say, his temperament, his
Spiritual Appetite--and it preferred books to money. Are there other
cases?

Y.M. Yes, the hermit.

O.M. It is a good instance. The hermit endures solitude, hunger, cold,
and manifold perils, to content his autocrat, who prefers these things,
and prayer and contemplation, to money or to any show or luxury that
money can buy. Are there others?

Y.M. Yes. The artist, the poet, the scientist.

O.M. Their autocrat prefers the deep pleasures of these occupations,
either well paid or ill paid, to any others in the market, at any price.
You REALIZE that the Master Passion--the contentment of the
spirit--concerns itself with many things besides so-called material
advantage, material prosperity, cash, and all that?

Y.M. I think I must concede it.

O.M. I believe you must. There are perhaps as many Temperaments that
would refuse the burdens and vexations and distinctions of public office
as there are that hunger after them. The one set of Temperaments seek
the contentment of the spirit, and that alone; and this is exactly the
case with the other set. Neither set seeks anything BUT the contentment
of the spirit. If the one is sordid, both are sordid; and equally so,
since the end in view is precisely the same in both cases. And in both
cases Temperament decides the preference--and Temperament is BORN, not
made.



Conclusion

O.M. You have been taking a holiday?

Y.M. Yes; a mountain tramp covering a week. Are you ready to talk?

O.M. Quite ready. What shall we begin with?

Y.M. Well, lying abed resting up, two days and nights, I have thought
over all these talks, and passed them carefully in review. With this
result: that . . . that . . . are you intending to publish your notions
about Man some day?

O.M. Now and then, in these past twenty years, the Master inside of me
has half-intended to order me to set them to paper and publish them. Do
I have to tell you why the order has remained unissued, or can you
explain so simply a thing without my help?

Y.M. By your doctrine, it is simplicity itself: outside influences moved
your interior Master to give the order; stronger outside influences
deterred him. Without the outside influences, neither of these impulses
could ever have been born, since a person's brain is incapable or
originating an idea within itself.

O.M. Correct. Go on.

Y.M. The matter of publishing or withholding is still in your Master's
hands. If some day an outside influence shall determine him to publish,
he will give the order, and it will be obeyed.

O.M. That is correct. Well?

Y.M. Upon reflection I have arrived at the conviction that the
publication of your doctrines would be harmful. Do you pardon me?

O.M. Pardon YOU? You have done nothing. You are an instrument--a
speaking-trumpet. Speaking-trumpets are not responsible for what is said
through them. Outside influences--in the form of lifelong teachings,
trainings, notions, prejudices, and other second-hand importations--have
persuaded the Master within you that the publication of these doctrines
would be harmful. Very well, this is quite natural, and was to be
expected; in fact, was inevitable. Go on; for the sake of ease and
convenience, stick to habit: speak in the first person, and tell me what
your Master thinks about it.

Y.M. Well, to begin: it is a desolating doctrine; it is not inspiring,
enthusing, uplifting. It takes the glory out of man, it takes the pride
out of him, it takes the heroism out of him, it denies him all personal
credit, all applause; it not only degrades him to a machine, but allows
him no control over the machine; makes a mere coffee-mill of him, and
neither permits him to supply the coffee nor turn the crank, his sole and
piteously humble function being to grind coarse or fine, according to his
make, outside impulses doing the rest.

O.M. It is correctly stated. Tell me--what do men admire most in each
other?

Y.M. Intellect, courage, majesty of build, beauty of countenance,
charity, benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness, heroism, and--and--

O.M. I would not go any further. These are ELEMENTALS. Virtue,
fortitude, holiness, truthfulness, loyalty, high ideals--these, and all
the related qualities that are named in the dictionary, are MADE OF THE
ELEMENTALS, by blendings, combinations, and shadings of the elementals,
just as one makes green by blending blue and yellow, and makes several
shades and tints of red by modifying the elemental red. There are
several elemental colors; they are all in the rainbow; out of them we
manufacture and name fifty shades of them. You have named the elementals
of the human rainbow, and also one BLEND--heroism, which is made out of
courage and magnanimity. Very well, then; which of these elements does
the possessor of it manufacture for himself? Is it intellect?

Y.M. No.

O.M. Why?

Y.M. He is born with it.

O.M. Is it courage?

Y.M. No. He is born with it.

O.M. Is it majesty of build, beauty of countenance?

Y.M. No. They are birthrights.

O.M. Take those others--the elemental moral qualities--charity,
benevolence, magnanimity, kindliness; fruitful seeds, out of which
spring, through cultivation by outside influences, all the manifold
blends and combinations of virtues named in the dictionaries: does man
manufacture any of those seeds, or are they all born in him?

Y.M. Born in him.

O.M. Who manufactures them, then?

Y.M. God.

O.M. Where does the credit of it belong?

Y.M. To God.

O.M. And the glory of which you spoke, and the applause?

Y.M. To God.

O.M. Then it is YOU who degrade man. You make him claim glory, praise,
flattery, for every valuable thing he possesses--BORROWED finery, the
whole of it; no rag of it earned by himself, not a detail of it produced
by his own labor. YOU make man a humbug; have I done worse by him?

Y.M. You have made a machine of him.

O.M. Who devised that cunning and beautiful mechanism, a man's hand?

Y.M. God.

O.M. Who devised the law by which it automatically hammers out of a
piano an elaborate piece of music, without error, while the man is
thinking about something else, or talking to a friend?

Y.M. God.

O.M. Who devised the blood? Who devised the wonderful machinery which
automatically drives its renewing and refreshing streams through the
body, day and night, without assistance or advice from the man? Who
devised the man's mind, whose machinery works automatically, interests
itself in what it pleases, regardless of its will or desire, labors all
night when it likes, deaf to his appeals for mercy? God devised all
these things. _I_ have not made man a machine, God made him a machine. I
am merely calling attention to the fact, nothing more. Is it wrong to
call attention to the fact? Is it a crime?

Y.M. I think it is wrong to EXPOSE a fact when harm can come of it.

O.M. Go on.

Y.M. Look at the matter as it stands now. Man has been taught that he
is the supreme marvel of the Creation; he believes it; in all the ages he
has never doubted it, whether he was a naked savage, or clothed in purple
and fine linen, and civilized. This has made his heart buoyant, his life
cheery. His pride in himself, his sincere admiration of himself, his joy
in what he supposed were his own and unassisted achievements, and his
exultation over the praise and applause which they evoked--these have
exalted him, enthused him, ambitioned him to higher and higher flights;
in a word, made his life worth the living. But by your scheme, all this
is abolished; he is degraded to a machine, he is a nobody, his noble
prides wither to mere vanities; let him strive as he may, he can never be
any better than his humblest and stupidest neighbor; he would never be
cheerful again, his life would not be worth the living.

O.M. You really think that?

Y.M. I certainly do.

O.M. Have you ever seen me uncheerful, unhappy.

Y.M. No.

O.M. Well, _I_ believe these things. Why have they not made me unhappy?

Y.M. Oh, well--temperament, of course! You never let THAT escape from
your scheme.

O.M. That is correct. If a man is born with an unhappy temperament,
nothing can make him happy; if he is born with a happy temperament,
nothing can make him unhappy.

Y.M. What--not even a degrading and heart-chilling system of beliefs?

O.M. Beliefs? Mere beliefs? Mere convictions? They are powerless.
They strive in vain against inborn temperament.

Y.M. I can't believe that, and I don't.

O.M. Now you are speaking hastily. It shows that you have not
studiously examined the facts. Of all your intimates, which one is the
happiest? Isn't it Burgess?

Y.M. Easily.

O.M. And which one is the unhappiest? Henry Adams?

Y.M. Without a question!

O.M. I know them well. They are extremes, abnormals; their temperaments
are as opposite as the poles. Their life-histories are about alike--but
look at the results! Their ages are about the same--about around fifty.
Burgess had always been buoyant, hopeful, happy; Adams has always been
cheerless, hopeless, despondent. As young fellows both tried country
journalism--and failed. Burgess didn't seem to mind it; Adams couldn't
smile, he could only mourn and groan over what had happened and torture
himself with vain regrets for not having done so and so instead of so and
so--THEN he would have succeeded. They tried the law--and failed.
Burgess remained happy--because he couldn't help it. Adams was
wretched--because he couldn't help it. From that day to this, those two
men have gone on trying things and failing: Burgess has come out happy
and cheerful every time; Adams the reverse. And we do absolutely know
that these men's inborn temperaments have remained unchanged through all
the vicissitudes of their material affairs. Let us see how it is with
their immaterials. Both have been zealous Democrats; both have been
zealous Republicans; both have been zealous Mugwumps. Burgess has always
found happiness and Adams unhappiness in these several political beliefs
and in their migrations out of them. Both of these men have been
Presbyterians, Universalists, Methodists, Catholics--then Presbyterians
again, then Methodists again. Burgess has always found rest in these
excursions, and Adams unrest. They are trying Christian Science, now,
with the customary result, the inevitable result. No political or
religious belief can make Burgess unhappy or the other man happy. I
assure you it is purely a matter of temperament. Beliefs are
ACQUIREMENTS, temperaments are BORN; beliefs are subject to change,
nothing whatever can change temperament.

Y.M. You have instanced extreme temperaments.

O.M. Yes, the half-dozen others are modifications of the extremes. But
the law is the same. Where the temperament is two-thirds happy, or
two-thirds unhappy, no political or religious beliefs can change the
proportions. The vast majority of temperaments are pretty equally
balanced; the intensities are absent, and this enables a nation to learn
to accommodate itself to its political and religious circumstances and
like them, be satisfied with them, at last prefer them. Nations do not
THINK, they only FEEL. They get their feelings at second hand through
their temperaments, not their brains. A nation can be brought--by force
of circumstances, not argument--to reconcile itself to ANY KIND OF
GOVERNMENT OR RELIGION THAT CAN BE DEVISED; in time it will fit itself to
the required conditions; later, it will prefer them and will fiercely
fight for them. As instances, you have all history: the Greeks, the
Romans, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Russians, the Germans, the
French, the English, the Spaniards, the Americans, the South Americans,
the Japanese, the Chinese, the Hindus, the Turks--a thousand wild and
tame religions, every kind of government that can be thought of, from
tiger to house-cat, each nation KNOWING it has the only true religion and
the only sane system of government, each despising all the others, each
an ass and not suspecting it, each proud of its fancied supremacy, each
perfectly sure it is the pet of God, each without undoubting confidence
summoning Him to take command in time of war, each surprised when He goes
over to the enemy, but by habit able to excuse it and resume
compliments--in a word, the whole human race content, always content,
persistently content, indestructibly content, happy, thankful, proud, NO
MATTER WHAT ITS RELIGION IS, NOR WHETHER ITS MASTER BE TIGER OR
HOUSE-CAT. Am I stating facts? You know I am. Is the human race
cheerful? You know it is. Considering what it can stand, and be happy,
you do me too much honor when you think that _I_ can place before it a
system of plain cold facts that can take the cheerfulness out of it.
Nothing can do that. Everything has been tried. Without success. I beg
you not to be troubled.





THE DEATH OF JEAN



The death of Jean Clemens occurred early in the morning of December 24,
1909. Mr. Clemens was in great stress of mind when I first saw him, but
a few hours later I found him writing steadily.

"I am setting it down," he said, "everything. It is a relief to me to
write it. It furnishes me an excuse for thinking." At intervals during
that day and the next I looked in, and usually found him writing. Then
on the evening of the 26th, when he knew that Jean had been laid to rest
in Elmira, he came to my room with the manuscript in his hand.

"I have finished it," he said; "read it. I can form no opinion of it
myself. If you think it worthy, some day--at the proper time--it can end
my autobiography. It is the final chapter."

Four months later--almost to the day--(April 21st) he was with Jean.

Albert Bigelow Paine.





Stormfield, Christmas Eve, 11 A.M., 1909.

JEAN IS DEAD!

Has any one ever tried to put upon paper all the little happenings
connected with a dear one--happenings of the twenty-four hours preceding
the sudden and unexpected death of that dear one? Would a book contain
them? Would two books contain them? I think not. They pour into the
mind in a flood. They are little things that have been always happening
every day, and were always so unimportant and easily forgettable
before--but now! Now, how different! how precious they are, now dear, how
unforgettable, how pathetic, how sacred, how clothed with dignity!

Last night Jean, all flushed with splendid health, and I the same, from
the wholesome effects of my Bermuda holiday, strolled hand in hand from
the dinner-table and sat down in the library and chatted, and planned,
and discussed, cheerily and happily (and how unsuspectingly!)--until
nine--which is late for us--then went upstairs, Jean's friendly German
dog following. At my door Jean said, "I can't kiss you good night,
father: I have a cold, and you could catch it." I bent and kissed her
hand. She was moved--I saw it in her eyes--and she impulsively kissed my
hand in return. Then with the usual gay "Sleep well, dear!" from both,
we parted.

At half past seven this morning I woke, and heard voices outside my door.
I said to myself, "Jean is starting on her usual horseback flight to the
station for the mail." Then Katy [1] entered, stood quaking and gasping
at my bedside a moment, then found her tongue:

"MISS JEAN IS DEAD!"

Possibly I know now what the soldier feels when a bullet crashes through
his heart.

In her bathroom there she lay, the fair young creature, stretched upon
the floor and covered with a sheet. And looking so placid, so natural,
and as if asleep. We knew what had happened. She was an epileptic: she
had been seized with a convulsion and heart failure in her bath. The
doctor had to come several miles. His efforts, like our previous ones,
failed to bring her back to life.

It is noon, now. How lovable she looks, how sweet and how tranquil! It
is a noble face, and full of dignity; and that was a good heart that lies
there so still.

In England, thirteen years ago, my wife and I were stabbed to the heart
with a cablegram which said, "Susy was mercifully released today." I had
to send a like shot to Clara, in Berlin, this morning. With the
peremptory addition, "You must not come home." Clara and her husband
sailed from here on the 11th of this month. How will Clara bear it?
Jean, from her babyhood, was a worshiper of Clara.