Mark Twain Lower Animals Analysis

While studying the characteristics of “lower animals” Mark twain Found, as he himself would say, comical results. These comical results made Twain question whether or not the human truly was the most sophisticated animal and whether or not Darwin’s theories were correct. Twain came to a conclusion by contradicting and even denouncing Darwin’s theories about the ascension of Man. Twain believed that Man had not ascended to the highest caste possible, but rather descended to the lowest.
Before describing his actual studies Twain tells the reader three “generalizations” he found to be of the utmost value. Those three things were that the human race is indeed a species, the quadrupeds are a distinct family, and that “the other families… are in …show more content…
First, he speaks of traits humans have in common with other animals, for instance laughing, he then refutes those traits with unthinkably malicious examples. He tells the reader of Indians that gouge out eyes and King John skinning his captives. He shows the reader how cruel humans have been historically. He then proceeds to tell the reader that man is the only animal that is cruel and that cruelness is a foreign concept to the “higher animals.” After giving the reader historic examples of how cruel humans are; he expands the variety of traits that are solely found within the human species. He starts each time by saying “Man is” and then adds another trait. After each trait, he gives either a historical or hypothetical example to prove his point. The higher animals don’t have these defaults and that is why they have ascended in the caste system of …show more content…
He first describes the cage in which he put several different types of animals. The animals he put in the cage were animals of both prey and predator, which meant it was expected of them not to get along. However, Twain tells the reader that after a few days he was able to get all of the animals to live in peace, almost affectionately. He then proceeds to describe another study in which he put men of different nationalities in a cage together. Twain then describes the aftermath of the second study as a scene of chaos and brutality. He tells the reader there was “not a [single] specimen alive.”
Twain states that the reason man has this plethora of faults is due to man’s inheritance of a moral sense. He states that the only purpose of this moral sense is to “enable man to do wrong.” He then describes many ways in which moral sense has enabled man to do many wrongs. He thusly came to the conclusion that man is in the lowest caste possible. Twain states that humans have descended from some animal. He then began naming animals on the “highway” to the bottom. Animals that he believes we could have descended from. He finishes his work by telling the reader that no other animal is below the human