Dane Wiggington Narrates Mark Twain's Lowest Animal
Dane Wigington – Bio
Dane
Wigington has a background in solar energy. He is a former employee of
Bechtel Power Corp. and was a licensed contractor in California and Arizona.
His
personal residence was featured in a cover article on the world’s largest
renewable energy magazine, Home Power. He owns a large wildlife
preserve next to Lake Shasta inNorthern California.
Dane
focused his efforts and energy on the geoengineering issue when he began to
lose very significant amounts of solar uptake due to ever-increasing “solar
obscuration” caused from the aircraft spraying as he also noted significant
decline in forest health and began testing and research into the geoengineering
issue about a decade ago.
He is the lead researcher for www.geoengineeringwatch.org and has investigated all levels of geoengineering,
solar radiation management, and global ionosphere heaters like HAARP. Dane
has appeared on an extensive number of interviews and films to explain the
environmental dangers we face on a global level from the ongoing climate
engineering assault.
The Lowest Animal, by Mark Twain
Fairly early in his career--with the
publication of numerous tall tales, comic essays, and
the novels Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn--Mark Twain earned his reputation as one of America's greatest
humorists. But it wasn't until after his death in 1910 that most readers
discovered Twain's darker side.
Composed in 1896, "The Lowest Animal" (which
has appeared in different forms and under various titles, including "Man's
Place in the Animal World") was occasioned by the battles between
Christians and Muslims in Crete.
As editorPaul Baender has observed, "The severity of Mark
Twain's views on religious motivation was part of the increasing cynicism of
his last twenty years." An even
more sinister force, in Twain's view, was the "Moral Sense," which
he defines in this essay as "the quality which enables
[man] to do wrong."
After clearly stating his thesis in the introductory
paragraph, Twain proceeds to develop his argument through a series of comparisons and examples, all of which appear to support his claim that "we have reached the bottom stage of
development."
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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 hiswork.
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 aproaching 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.
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Thanks for your comment. Peace, NB