The Lowest Animal

by Mark Twain

I have been scientifically studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.

I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now seems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.

In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guessed or speculated or conjectured, but have used what is com­monly called the scientific method. That is to say, I have sub­jected every postulate that presented itself to the crucial test of actual experiment, and have adopted it or rejected it according to the result. Thus I verified and established each step of my course in its turn before advancing to the next.

These experiments were made in the London Zoological Gardens, and covered many months of painstaking and fatiguing work.

Before particularizing any of the experiments, I wish to state one or two things which seem to more properly belong in this place than further along. This in the interest of clearness.

The massed experiments established to my satisfaction certain gener­alizations, to wit:

1. That the human race is of one distinct species. It exhibits slight variations (in color, stature, mental caliber, and so on) due to climate, environment, and so forth; but it is a species by itself, and not to be confounded with any other.

2. That the quadrupeds are a distinct family, also. This fam­ily exhibits variations–in color, size, food preferences, and so on; but it is a family by itself.

3. That the other families–the birds, the fishes, the insects, the reptiles, etc.–are more or less distinct, also. They are in the procession. They are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.

Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the course of my reading I had come across a case where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl. They had charming sport. They killed seventy-two of those great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the seventy-one to rot. In order to determine the differ­ence between an anaconda and an earl (if any) I caused seven young calves to be turned into the anaconda’s cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isn’t; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he has no use for, but the anaconda doesn’t. This seemed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also seemed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.

I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite. I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity to accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter’s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane. In order to bolster up a tottering reputa­tion the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not de­ceived. I know the ant. These experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly; they are not.

In the course of my experiments I convinced myself that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.

Roosters keep harems, but it is by consent of their concu­bines; therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other sex were allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster.

Cats are loose in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looseness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the saving grace which excuses the cat). The cat is innocent, man is not.

Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (these are strictly confined to man); he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himself. He will not even enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion. Man is The Animal that Laughs. But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass.

No! Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does it or has occasion to.

At the head of this article we see how “three monks were burnt to death” a few days ago, and a prior “put to death with atrocious cruelty.” Do we inquire into the details? No; or we should find out that the prior was subjected to unprintable muti­lations.

Man (when he is a North American Indian) gouges out his prisoner’s eyes; when he is King John, with a nephew to render untroublesome, he uses a red-hot iron; when he is a reli­gious zealot dealing with heretics in the Middle Ages, he skins his captive alive and scatters salt on his back; in the first Richard’s time he shuts up a multitude of Jew families in a tower and sets fire to it; in Columbus’s time he captures a family of Spanish Jews and (but that is not printable; in our day in England a man is fined ten shillings for beating his mother nearly to death with a chair, and another man is fined forty shillings for having four pheasant eggs in his possession without being able to satisfacto­rily explain how he got them).

Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it. It is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. The cat plays with the frightened mouse; but she has this excuse, that she does not know that the mouse is suffering. The cat is moderate–unhumanly moderate: she only scares the mouse, she does not hurt it; she doesn’t dig out its eyes, or tear off its skin, or drive splinters under its nails–man-fashion; when she is done playing with it she makes a sudden meal of it and puts it out of its trouble.

Man is the Cruel Animal. He is alone in that distinction.

The higher animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and with calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out, as the Hessians did in our Revolu­tion, and as the boyish Prince Napoleon did in the Zulu war, and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.

Man is the only animal that robs his helpless fellow of his country–takes possession of it and drives him out of it or destroys him. Man has done this in all the ages. There is not an acre of ground on the globe that is in possession of its rightful owner, or that has not been taken away from owner after owner, cycle after cycle, by force and bloodshed.

Man is the only Slave. And he is the only animal who en­slaves. He has always been a slave in one form or another, and has always held other slaves in bondage under him in one way or another. In our day he is always some man’s slave for wages, and does that man’s work; and this slave has other slaves under him for minor wages, and they do his work. The higher animals are the only ones who exclusively do their own work and provide their own living.

Man is the only Patriot. He sets himself apart in his own country, under his own flag, and sneers at the other nations, and keeps multitudinous uniformed assassins on hand at heavy ex­pense to grab slices of other peoples countries, and keep them from grabbing slices of his. And in the intervals between cam­paigns, he washes the blood off his hands and works for the universal brotherhood of man, with his mouth.

Man is the Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Ani­mal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion–several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself, and cuts his throat if his theology isn’t straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother’s path to happiness and heaven. He was at it in the time of the Caesars, he was at it in Mahomet’s time, he was at it in the time of the Inquisition, he was at it in France a couple of cen­turies, he was at it in England in Mary’s day, he has been at it ever since he first saw the light, he is at it today in Crete (as per the telegrams quoted above), he will be at it somewhere else tomor­row. The higher animals have no religion. And we are told that they are going to be left out, in the Hereafter. I wonder why? It seems questionable taste.

Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal. Note his history, as sketched above. It seems plain to me that whatever he is he is not a reasoning animal. His record is the fantastic record of a maniac. I consider that the strongest count against his intelligence is the fact that with that record back of him he blandly sets himself up as the head animal of the lot: whereas by his own standards he is the bottom one.

In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which the other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.

Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones–not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.

One is obliged to concede that in true loftiness of character, Man cannot claim to approach even the meanest of the Higher Animals. It is plain that he is constitutionally incapable of approaching that altitude; that he is constitutionally afflicted with a Defect which must make such approach forever impossible, for it is manifest that this defect is permanent in him, indestructible, ineradicable.

I find this Defect to be the Moral Sense. He is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality which enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never hate been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. He would rise at once to the level of the Higher Animals.

Since the Moral Sense has but the one office, the one capacity–to enable man to do wrong–it is plainly without value to him. It is as valueless to him as is disease. In fact, it manifestly is a disease. Rabies is bad, but it is not so bad as this disease. Rabies enables a man to do a thing, which he could not do when in a healthy state: kill his neighbor with a poisonous bite. No one is the better man for having rabies: The Moral Sense enables a man to do wrong. It enables him to do wrong in a thousand ways. Rabies is an innocent disease, compared to the Moral Sense. No one, then, can be the better man for having the Moral Sense. What now, do we find the Primal Curse to have been? Plainly what it was in the beginning: the infliction upon man of the Moral Sense; the ability to distinguish good from evil; and with it, necessarily, the ability to do evil; for there can be no evil act without the presence of consciousness of it in the doer of it.

And so I find that we have descended and degenerated, from some far ancestor (some microscopic atom wandering at its pleasure between the mighty horizons of a drop of water perchance) insect by insect, animal by animal, reptile by reptile, down the long highway of smirchless innocence, till we have reached the bottom stage of development–nameable as the Human Being. Below us–nothing. Nothing but the Frenchman.

bnw wrote:

CA has been self-destructing for 3 decades

I think everyone should just – stand back – and marvel at the sheer awesomeness of that statement.

nittany ram wrote:

I think it’s telling that the only climate skeptics on earth are in this country and in the Republican Party. As stupid as denying the evidence is, I could almost admire their tenacity if not for the fact that they couldn’t care less if climate change was happening or not. These are not deeply principled men sticking by their guns, they are greedy fucks that are willing to unleash an environmental catastrophe so as not to dampen their profits.

Loot and Pollute. That is the GOP motto.

They don’t care because most of them are going to be dead when the shit hits the fan.

One of my idiot brothers spent his entire career as an attorney for oil corporations, starting with ARCO. Once, when I asked him about his son’s future on this eco-destroyed planet, he said, “That’s his problem.” And he loves his son, at least by all appearances. But, you know, he just subscribes to that “It’s all about me” philosophy.

As a Californian, I have to say I would love to have this conversation. I don’t think it is likely to go anywhere. The Texas secession movement has been going much longer, and hasn’t topped out above 10%. (And, actually, I would be satisfied with Texas seceeding).

Here’s the thing. We really have had no say in anything for over a century. Our primaries happen after the outcome is determined. And we aren’t a swing state in the general election. Because of the despicable electoral college, and the primary schedule, our votes don’t really matter.

Meanwhile, we send more money to Washington DC than we receive from Washington DC. We subsidize you bastards. Our economy is bigger than France’s. Without you guys, we would still be the sixth largest economy in the world, and would still be a world player. All while not having to put up with the Bushes and Trumps of the world. We would be richer without you, we would still have international prestige without you, and we wouldn’t have Clarence Thomas. We would be Canada with good weather, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood.

You guys can go on with your cro-magnon ways – without our money – and everybody is happy.

Billy_T wrote:

One very dangerous aspect of this country, W, was made all the more apparent by Trump:

Too many Americans want to be led by the nose. Too many Americans are okay with baby fascists like Trump, if that person has the requisite elements for a cult of personality. It’s more than obvious that nothing he said went beyond sloganeering. He never put forth HOW he would do anything. Apparently, his audience just didn’t care. He just kept repeating his slogan-mantras and his bot crowds ate it up.

At the risk of jumping into this conversation way too early (I haven’t read beyond this point yet, and it is a long thread that I opened several hours ago, and may be even longer now), I have to say that I think this oversimplifies the Trump supporters. This is a broad brush here, Billy, and like all broad brushes, it coats too many people with insufficient color.

I believe Trump supporters have a legitimate gripe.

I don’t believe Trump will address their grievances with policies. I believe he just throws word salad at them. But the Trump supporters are not wrong about everything. And I think Trump THINKS he will help them, like all narcissists, he believes whatever he happens to be saying at any given moment, but like many fools, he thinks that what is best for him is best for everybody. So he will do what is best for billionaire real estate developers and tell the cameras that it will make everybody better off, but that is just the way narcissists think. They don’t actually have the ability to see things from other people’s points of view. That what he says aligns with the grievances of rural white men is totally an accident. Not a conviction of principle. But I don’t think he is a master deceiver leading dummies around with slight of hand. I don’t agree with that perception at all.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/the-consequences-trumps-victory-are-coming-focus

The consequences of Trump’s victory are coming into focus
11/09/16 09:09 AM
By Steve Benen
David Axelrod, the former senior strategist for President Obama, has long espoused an interesting theory about national elections. As Axelrod explained in January, “Open-seat presidential elections are shaped by perceptions of the style and personality of the outgoing incumbent. Voters rarely seek the replica of what they have.”

By Axelrod’s reasoning, it’s expected that voters will choose a new president who is roughly the opposite of the departing executive – an assertion that looks quite sound this morning.

Some of this will be obvious immediately, because the shifts in presidential style will be jarring. President Obama is measured; Donald Trump is erratic. Obama is intellectual; Trump is incurious. Obama is honest; Trump is pathological. Obama is serious and committed to sound policymaking; Trump is clownish and dismissive of the details of public affairs.

But come next year, the stylistic differences will be an inconsequential afterthought by the time a Trump/Pence administration begins governing alongside a far-right, radicalized Republican majority in the House and Senate. The New Republic’s Brian Beutler had a good piece on this overnight:
At a minimum, Republicans are going to do incredible violence to President Barack Obama’s accomplishments…. Trump will almost certainly abrogate Obama’s international climate agreement and the global powers agreement preventing Iran from creating their own nuclear arsenal. Republicans will send Trump legislation undermining Obama’s legacy everywhere they can find congressional majorities to do so, and Trump will sign those bills. Republicans don’t know how to repeal Obamacare, let alone replace it. But they will try.

The Supreme Court will return to conservative control, and over the next four years, it may very well become far more conservative. Voting rights will be further weakened; the constitutional right to abortion is vulnerable to abolition.

But things could get much, much worse.
There’s a temptation among some to try to look for comfort where available. We collectively hit an iceberg, but maybe we can cling to some floating debris for a while until help arrives. Americans are resilient, and we’ve been through rough times before.

I’d like to offer some kind of assurances along these lines, but I can’t do so with any honesty.

Millions of families are going to lose their health benefits. Efforts to combat the climate crisis will end and move backwards. The tax system will become radically more regressive. Wall Street will be freed from safeguards and recently created layers of accountability, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be decimated.

Immigrants who consider the United States the only home they’ve ever known will be forced from the country. Minority communities will experience less justice and fewer voting rights. Higher education will be further out of reach for many young people.

The United States will lose the world’s respect. The Supreme Court will move even further to the right, and the clock on reproductive rights will be turned back a half-century.

This is really just a sampling. At no point in modern American history have we seen a political party as radicalized as the contemporary Republican Party, and as a result of the decisions voters made this year, that GOP will dominate federal policymaking for the next several years – making changes that will affect the nation and the world for generations.

And if we look beyond legislative measures, we also see the worst major-party presidential candidate in history who will have access to nuclear codes.

Yes, there are some political structures and institutions in place that may offer us some semblance of protection, but Trump has made no secret of his hostility towards democratic norms, his indifference towards traditions, and his affinity for authoritarian ideals.

I’m looking for a silver lining. I don’t see one.

Mackeyser wrote:

Oh I imagine the damage will be substantial. Worse than under Clinton. Thing is that there won’t be a ton of STFU from the Dems for Progressives to not upset the corporate apple cart.

Progressives will have a chance to get on the vanguard and lead.

That was what progressives were saying in December.

I mean…the good news is the Clinton machine is dead.

The bad news is that four years from now, any big progressive kickback will be too little, too late.

We are dead.

And four years from now when everything is substantially worse than it is right now, the Trump supporters will blame democrats. Not the lunatic in the White House.

Dude, that is rad.

Now I can, like, totally get it. Ya know?

Well, I want a GSOT offense combined with the Rams’ 1970s Rams defense.

Well, the flame has just officially been turned up, in’nit?

People all around is sharpening their pitchforks, and wrapping branches with rags and pitch.

I think the talent is better than this on offense. Anyone think Norv Turner would score more points with this group? I do.

bnw wrote:

For at least the past 12 years this Rams team has been an organized crime.

LOL.

You sure it’s been organized?

Comes up twice a year:

Who doesn’t hate the time change?

Why do we still do it?

a loss to the Panthers essentially cuts the chord completely.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t an English teacher.