The Project Gutenberg EBook of What Is Man? And Other Stories, by
Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

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Title: What Is Man? And Other Stories

Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Release Date: June, 1993 [Etext #70]
Posting Date: May 11, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER STORIES ***

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WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS

By Mark Twain

(Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910)

CONTENTS:

What Is Man?

The Death of Jean

The Turning-Point of My Life

How to Make History Dates Stick

The Memorable Assassination

A Scrap of Curious History

Switzerland, the Cradle of Liberty

At the Shrine of St. Wagner

William Dean Howells

English as She is Taught

A Simplified Alphabet

As Concerns Interpreting the Deity

Concerning Tobacco

Taming the Bicycle

Is Shakespeare Dead?

WHAT IS MAN?

I

a. Man the Machine. b. Personal Merit

(The Old Man and the Young Man had been conversing. The Old Man had
asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing more. The
Young Man objected, and asked him to go into particulars and furnish his
reasons for his position.)

Old Man. What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made?

Young Man. Iron, steel, brass, white-metal, and so on.

O.M. Where are these found?

Y.M. In the rocks.

O.M. In a pure state?

Y.M. No--in ores.

O.M. Are the metals suddenly deposited in the ores?

Y.M. No--it is the patient work of countless ages.

O.M. You could make the engine out of the rocks themselves?

Y.M. Yes, a brittle one and not valuable.

O.M. You would not require much, of such an engine as that?

Y.M. No--substantially nothing.

O.M. To make a fine and capable engine, how would you proceed?

Y.M. Drive tunnels and shafts into the hills; blast out the iron ore;
crush it, smelt it, reduce it to pig-iron; put some of it through
the Bessemer process and make steel of it. Mine and treat and combine
several metals of which brass is made.

O.M. Then?

Y.M. Out of