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Mark Twain's 'The Damned Human Race'

465 Words2 Pages

In “The Damned Human Race” Mark Twain states that it is our everyday meanness, unkindness, and cruelties that make us the “lowest animal.”, this is a true statement and there is a lot of different evidence to back the statement up. Twain studied the traits of the lower animals and compared them with the traits of man. Through his research he found a lot of different information and examples of how man is actually the lowest animal. One of the things that Twain found is man is very greedy. A man who has received millions of dollars that they will never use will still have the urge to try to get more money. However, in experiments with squirrels, bees, and a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals they didn’t take more food than they needed. Some of the animals will stock up for winter, but once they have enough food to last them they also didn’t take any more. By doing this experiment he was able to see that man is selfish and avaricious and animals are not. …show more content…

According to the text man gauges out his prisoners eyes, uses a red hot iron, skins them alive and scatters salt on his back and sets them on fire. Twain concluded that cruelty and inflicting pain for pleasure is a trait that is not known to the higher animals. For example, although a cat may play with a mouse, she doesn’t know the mouse is suffering and doesn’t tear off its skin, dig out its eyes, or drive splinters under its nails. Then when the cat is done playing with the mouse she puts it out of its misery quickly, and makes a meal out of it instead of torturing it for no reason

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