What Is Man? and Other Essays

by Mark Twain

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. One 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 r
epeating 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?