Mark Twain and Spinoza
       (1835 -1910)                         (1632-1677)  

A Spinozistic Commentary on 

Mark Twain's What is Man? 
 
by 
 
Joseph B. Yesselman 

 
Browser Notes—Use 800 x 600 resolution and medium size text for all pages.

 


JBY Notes:

1.  WHAT IS MAN? by Mark Twain was taken with kind permission from a free e-Book
     download from CyberRead; June, 1993 [Etext #70]. To them I express my thanks and
     appreciation.

2.  I chanced upon Mark Twain's What is Man? and was startled to see how many Spinozistic
     Ideas he expressed—so much so, that I was moved to write this commentary. I was
     surprised to learn later that no Spinoza books were found in Mark Twain's personal library. 

3.  This unabridged HTML version is available, abridged and formatted, for conversion to an
     eBook. The abridged version is available to be read on various eBook Readers. 

4.  Links are by JBY.

5.  {Comment by JBY}.

CONTENTS: 

JBY Endnotes
 


TP1:(1:4:2):288—TPI:Bk.XIB:157: Spinoza's Dictum:

                                A Sort of Computer—ROM and RAM, Dawkins:276, Parallel Computers,
                                Genomes—Hardware—Aging; Experience—Software, The Gene Book—Spirituality. 
1a.   Man the {Computerized} Machine,     { A  robot  caused  by  G-D. } : 
               See Robot Rat—Nazi-German—a watch. Watts consumed.   { Helps to understand human actions. } 
                          Boeing 747—Consciousness—Music Appreciation                         { See Letter 62—Even a stone. } 
                     Is Consciousness Computable? Is the Brain a Digital Computer? Dawkins:276, Stace:125, Ridley:49,

[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.]                Dawkins2:Genes

 Mark Twain 1907; as an old man; three years before he died.
Old Man.   What are the materials of which a steam-engine is made?             Potter's clay.

 Mark Twain as a younger man.
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?      {Julien Offroy de La Mettrie}

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 the perfected result, build the fine engine.

O.M.   You would require much of this one?

Y.M.   Oh, indeed yes.

O.M.   It could drive lathes, drills, planers, punches, polishers, in a word all the cunning
          machines of a great factory?

Y.M.   It could.

O.M.   What could the stone engine do?

Y.M.   Drive a sewing-machine, possibly—nothing more, perhaps.

O.M.   Men would admire the other engine and rapturously praise it?

Y.M.   Yes.

O.M.   But not the stone one?

Y.M.   No.

O.M.   The merits of the metal machine would be far above those of the stone one?

Y.M.   Of course.


1b. Personal Merit:    Hampshire—libido and conatus, no praise / no blame. 

O.M.   Personal merits?

Y.M.   PERSONAL merits? How do you mean?  {Would you praise or blame a robot?}     Popkin:71

O.M.   It would be personally entitled to the credit of its own performance?

Y.M.   The engine? Certainly not.

O.M.   Why not?

Y.M.   Because its performance is not personal. It is the result of the law of construction. It is
       not a MERIT that it does the things which it is set to do—it can't HELP doing them.

O.M.   And it is not a personal demerit in the stone machine that it does so little?   {Sin}

Y.M.   Certainly not. It does no more and no less than the law of its make permits and compels
       "working up to the matter" is it your idea to work up to the proposition that man and a
       machine are about the same thing, and that there is no personal merit in the performance
       of either?

 
{JBY:   In like fashion, a man is a sophisticated robot; both, made-up of hardware and software.

Y. M.   That is disgustedly outrageous, how can you say that?
            Robinson5:14, Is consciousness computable? 
 
JBY:    I say it as an analogy and only as an analogy. His hardware is his genes, high or low
        I.Q., he is skinny or fat, tall or short, he runs fast or slow, etc.—heredity. His software is
        his culture, language, training, religion, prejudices, reading, experiences, etc.—
        environment. Heredity and environment, like hardware and software, each is nothing
           without the other. Language is software (a wordprocessor language) used on his
           born-with hardware. Take a look at Dennett, pages 433 and 302. Likewise accounting is
           software (a spread-sheet) used with his born-with hardware.
              Functionalism, Storage Technologies, Genes and Memes,

Y. M.   I think I see what you mean, give me another example.

JBY:   Take these twins; assume they have the same genes, I.Q., built, athletic ability,
        etc.—hardware. One was given as a child to a college professor to raise; the other to a
        gangster—software, how they were programmed, their databases.  

Y. M.   Yes. OK.

JBY:    The first turns out to be a college professor; the second a gangster.

Y. M.   It could be the opposite.

JBY:    True. }

O.M.  Yes—but do not be offended; I am meaning no offense. What makes the grand difference
       between the stone engine and the steel one? Shall we call it training, education? Shall
       we call the stone engine a savage and the steel one a civilized man? The original rock
       contained the stuff of which the steel one was built—but along with a lot of sulphur and
       stone and other obstructing inborn heredities, brought down from the old geologic ages—
       prejudices, let us call them. Prejudices which nothing within the rock itself had either
       POWER to remove or any DESIRE to remove. Will you take note of that phrase?

Y.M.   Yes. I have written it down; "Prejudices which nothing within the rock itself had either
       power to remove or any desire to remove." Go on.  

O.M.   Prejudices must be removed by OUTSIDE INFLUENCES or not at all. Put that down.

Y.M.   Very well; "Must be removed by outside influences or not at all." Go on.   {TEI:[47]}

O.M.  The iron's prejudice against ridding itself of the cumbering rock. To make it more exact,
       the iron's absolute INDIFFERENCE as to whether the rock be removed or not. Then
       comes the OUTSIDE INFLUENCE and grinds the rock to powder and sets the ore free.
       The IRON in the ore is still captive. An OUTSIDE INFLUENCE smelts it free of the
          clogging ore. The iron is emancipated iron, now, but indifferent to further progress. An
          OUTSIDE INFLUENCE beguiles it into the Bessemer furnace and refines it into steel
          of the first quality. It is educated, now —its training is complete. And it has reached its
          limit. By no possible process can it be educated into GOLD. Will you set that down?  

Y.M.   Yes. "Everything has its limit—iron ore cannot be educated into gold."

O.M.   There are gold men, and tin men, and copper men, and leaden mean, and steel men,
       and so on—and each has the limitations of his nature, his heredities, his training, and his
       environment. You can build engines out of each of these metals, and they will all perform,
       but you must not require the weak ones to do equal work with the strong ones. In each
       case, to get the best results, you must free the metal from its obstructing prejudicial ones
       by education— smelting, refining, and so forth.  

Y.M.   You have arrived at man, now?

O.M.   Yes. Man the machine—man the impersonal engine. Whatsoever a man is, is due to his
       MAKE, and to the INFLUENCES brought to bear upon it by his heredities, his habitat, his
       associations. He is moved, directed, COMMANDED, by EXTERIOR influences—-he
       ORIGINATES nothing, not even a thought.  

Y.M.   Oh, come! Where did I get my opinion that this which you are talking is all foolishness?

O.M.   It is a quite natural opinion—indeed an inevitable opinion—but YOU did not create the
       materials out of which it is formed. They are odds and ends of thoughts, impressions,
       feelings, gathered unconsciously from a thousand books, a thousand conversations, and
       from streams of thought and feeling which have flowed down into your heart and brain
          out of the hearts and brains of centuries of ancestors. PERSONALLY you did not create
       even the smallest microscopic fragment of the materials out of which your opinion is
       made; and personally you cannot claim even the slender merit of PUTTING THE
          BORROWED MATERIALS TOGETHER. That was done AUTOMATICALLY—by your
       mental machinery, in strict accordance with the law of that machinery's construction. And
       you not only did not make that machinery yourself, but you have NOT EVEN ANY
       COMMAND OVER IT.

Y.M.   This is too much. You think I could have formed no opinion but that one?

O.M.   Spontaneously? No. And YOU DID NOT FORM THAT ONE; your machinery did it for
       you—automatically and instantly, without reflection or the need of it.

Y.M.   Suppose I had reflected? How then?

O.M.   Suppose you try?

Y.M.   (AFTER A QUARTER OF AN HOUR.) I have reflected.

O.M.   You mean you have tried to change your opinion—as an experiment?

Y.M.   Yes.

O.M.   With success?

Y.M.   No. It remains the same; it is impossible to change it.

O.M.   I am sorry, but you see, yourself, that your mind is merely a machine, nothing more. You
       have no command over it, it has no command over itself—it is worked SOLELY FROM
          THE OUTSIDE. That is the law of its make; it is the law of all machines.  

Y.M.   Can't I EVER change one of these automatic opinions {paradigms, world-view}?

O.M.   No. You can't yourself, but random EXTERIOR INFLUENCES can do it.           TEI:[47] 

Y.M.   And exterior ones ONLY?

O.M.   Yes—exterior ones only.

Y.M.   That position is untenable—I may say ludicrously untenable.

O.M.   What makes you think so?

Y.M.   I don't merely think it, I know it. Suppose I resolve to enter upon a course of thought, and
       study, and reading, with the deliberate purpose of changing that opinion; and suppose I
       succeed. THAT is not the work of an exterior impulse, the whole of it is mine and
          personal; for I originated the project.  

O.M.   Not a shred of it. IT GREW OUT OF THIS TALK WITH ME. But for that it would not
       have occurred to you. No man ever originates anything. All his thoughts, all his impulses,
       come FROM THE OUTSIDE.  

Y.M.   It's an exasperating subject. The FIRST man had original thoughts, anyway; there was
       nobody to draw from.  

O.M.   It is a mistake. Adam's thoughts came to him from the outside. YOU have a fear of death.
       You did not invent that—you got it from outside, from talking and teaching. Adam had no
       fear of death—none in the world.  

Y.M.   Yes, he had.

O.M.   When he was created?

Y.M.   No.

O.M.   When, then?

Y.M.   When he was threatened with it.

O.M.  Then it came from OUTSIDE. Adam is quite big enough; let us not try to make a god of
       him. NONE BUT GODS HAVE EVER HAD A THOUGHT WHICH DID NOT COME
          FROM THE OUTSIDE. Adam probably had a good head, but it was of no sort of use to
       him until it was filled up FROM THE OUTSIDE. He was not able to invent the triflingest
       little thing with it. He had not a shadow of a notion of the difference between good and
       evil—he had to get the idea FROM THE OUTSIDE. Neither he nor Eve was able to
       originate the idea that it was immodest to go naked; the knowledge came in with the
          apple FROM THE OUTSIDE. A man's brain is so constructed that IT CAN ORIGINATE
       NOTHING WHATSOEVER. It can only use material obtained OUTSIDE. It is merely a
       machine; and it works automatically, not by will-power. IT HAS NO COMMAND OVER
       ITSELF, ITS OWNER HAS NO COMMAND OVER IT.  

Y.M.   Well, never mind Adam: but certainly Shakespeare's creations—

O.M.   No, you mean Shakespeare's IMITATIONS. Shakespeare created nothing. He correctly
       observed, and he marvelously painted. He exactly portrayed people whom G-D had
          created; but he created none himself. Let us spare him the slander of charging him with
       trying. Shakespeare could not create. HE WAS A MACHINE, AND MACHINES DO NOT
       CREATE.

Y.M.   Where WAS his excellence, then?

O.M.   In this. He was not a sewing-machine, like you and me; he was a Gobelin loom. The
          threads and the colors came into him FROM THE OUTSIDE; outside influences,
          suggestions, EXPERIENCES (reading, seeing plays, playing plays, borrowing ideas, and
          so on), framed the patterns in his mind and started up his complex and admirable
          machinery, and IT AUTOMATICALLY turned out that pictured and gorgeous fabric which
          still compels the astonishment of the world. If Shakespeare had been born and bred on a
          barren and unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty intellect would have had no OUTSIDE
          MATERIAL to work with, and could have invented none; and NO OUTSIDE
          INFLUENCES, teachings, moldings, persuasions, inspirations, of a valuable sort, and
          could have invented none; and so Shakespeare would have produced nothing. In Turkey
          he would have produced something—something up to the highest limit of Turkish
          influences, associations, and training. In France he would have produced something
          better—something up to the highest limit of the French influences and training. In
          England he rose to the highest limit attainable through the OUTSIDE HELPS
          AFFORDED BY THAT LAND'S IDEALS, INFLUENCES, AND TRAINING. You and I are
          but sewing-machines. We must turn out what we can; we must do our endeavor and care
          nothing at all when the unthinking reproach us for not turning out Gobelins.  

Y.M.  And so we are mere machines! And machines may not boast, nor feel proud of their
         performance, nor claim personal merit for it, nor applause and praise. It is an infamous
         doctrine.

O.M.   It isn't a doctrine, it is merely a fact.

Y.M.   I suppose, then, there is no more merit in being brave than in being a coward?

O.M.   PERSONAL merit? No. A brave man does not CREATE his bravery. He is entitled to no
           personal credit for possessing it. It is born to him. A baby born with a billion
           dollars—where is the personal merit in that? A baby born with nothing—where is the
           personal demerit in that? The one is fawned upon, admired, worshiped, by sycophants,
           the other is neglected and despised— where is the sense in it?  

Y.M.   Sometimes a timid man sets himself the task of conquering his cowardice and becoming
           brave—and succeeds. What do you say to that?  

O.M.   That it shows the value of TRAINING IN RIGHT DIRECTIONS OVER TRAINING IN
           WRONG ONES. Inestimably valuable is training, influence, education, in right
           directions—TRAINING ONE'S SELF-APPROBATION TO ELEVATE ITS IDEALS.  

Y.M.   But as to merit—the personal merit of the victorious coward's project and achievement?

O.M.   There isn't any. In the world's view he is a worthier man than he was before, but HE
           didn't achieve the change—the merit of it is not his.  

Y.M.   Whose, then?

O.M.   His MAKE, and the influences which wrought upon it from the outside.

Y.M.   His make?

O.M.   To start with, he was NOT utterly and completely a coward, or the influences would
           have had nothing to work upon. He was not afraid of a cow, though perhaps of a bull:
           not afraid of a woman, but afraid of a man. There was something to build upon. There
           was a SEED. No seed, no plant. Did he make that seed himself, or was it born in him? It
           was no merit of HIS that the seed was there.  

Y.M.   Well, anyway, the idea of CULTIVATING it, the resolution to cultivate it, was meritorious,
          and he originated that.  
 
O.M.  He did nothing of the kind. It came whence ALL impulses, good or bad, come—from
         OUTSIDE. If that timid man had lived all his life in a community of human rabbits, had
         never read of brave deeds, had never heard speak of them, had never heard any one
         praise them nor express envy of the heroes that had done them, he would have had no
         more idea of bravery than Adam had of modesty, and it could never by any possibility
         have occurred to him to RESOLVE to become brave. He COULD NOT ORIGINATE THE
         IDEA—it had to come to him from the OUTSIDE. And so, when he heard bravery extolled
         and cowardice derided, it woke him up. He was ashamed. Perhaps his sweetheart turned
         up her nose and said, "I am told that you are a coward!" It was not HE that turned over the
         new leaf—she did it for him. HE must not strut around in the merit of it—it is not his. 
         {Determinism, Free Will, Free Choice, Ridley:309.}  

Y.M.   But, anyway, he reared the plant after she watered the seed.

O.M.  No. OUTSIDE INFLUENCES reared it. At the command— and trembling—he marched
         out into the field—with other soldiers and in the daytime, not alone and in the dark. He
         had the INFLUENCE OF EXAMPLE, he drew courage from his comrades' courage; he
         was afraid, and wanted to run, but he did not dare; he was AFRAID to run, with all those
         soldiers looking on. He was progressing, you see—the moral fear of shame had risen
         superior to the physical fear of harm. By the end of the campaign experience will have
         taught him that not ALL who go into battle get hurt—an outside influence which will be
         helpful to him; and he will also have learned how sweet it is to be praised for courage and
         be huzza'd at with tear-choked voices as the war-worn regiment marches past the
         worshiping multitude with flags flying and the drums beating. After that he will be as
         securely brave as any veteran in the army—and there will not be a shade nor suggestion
         of PERSONAL MERIT in it anywhere; it will all have come from the OUTSIDE. The
         Victoria Cross breeds more heroes than—  

Y.M.   Hang it, where is the sense in his becoming brave if he is to get no credit for it?

O.M.  Your question will answer itself presently. It involves an important detail of man's make
          which we have not yet touched upon.  

Y.M.   What detail is that?

O.M.  The impulse which moves a person to do things—the only impulse that ever moves a
          person to do a thing.  

Y.M.   The ONLY one! Is there but one?

O.M.   That is all. There is only one.

Y.M.   Well, certainly that is a strange enough doctrine. What is the sole impulse that ever
          moves a person to do a thing?  

O.M.  The impulse {his self-interest} to CONTENT HIS OWN SPIRIT —the NECESSITY of
          contenting his own spirit and WINNING ITS APPROVAL {its peace-of-mind}.

Y.M.   Oh, come, that won't do!

O.M.   Why won't it?

Y.M.   Because it puts him in the attitude of always looking out for his own comfort and
          advantage; whereas an unselfish man often does a thing solely for another person's
          good when it is a positive disadvantage to himself.  

O.M.   It is a mistake. The act must do HIM good, FIRST; otherwise he will not do it. He may
          THINK he is doing it solely for the other person's sake, but it is not so; he is contenting
          his own spirit first—the other's person's benefit has to always take SECOND place.  

Y.M.   What a fantastic idea! What becomes of self-sacrifice? Please answer me that.

O.M.   What is self-sacrifice?

Y.M.   The doing good to another person where no shadow nor suggestion of benefit to one's
          self can result from it.
{Scroll down and continue for "Story of a Quarter."}  


II. Man's Sole Impulse—the Securing of His Own Approval {Conatus} 
{It is that which he decides (as a computer does), what best serves {his self-interest} to bring him
Peace of  Mind—Blessedness; hence the enormous power of religion or alcohol.  If he loses
all hope and is left with despair, he will contemplate suicide.}   

Old Man. There have been instances of it—you think?

Young Man. INSTANCES? Millions of them!

O.M.   You have not jumped to conclusions? You have examined them—critically?

Y.M.   They don't need it: the acts themselves reveal the golden impulse back of them.

O.M.   For instance?

Y.M.   Well, then, for instance. Take the case in the book here. The man lives three miles
          up-town. It is bitter cold, snowing hard, midnight. He is about to enter the horse-car when
          a gray and ragged old woman, a touching picture of misery, puts out her lean hand and
          begs for rescue from hunger and death. The man finds that he has a quarter in his
          pocket, but he does not hesitate: he gives it her and trudges home through the storm.
       There—it is noble, it is beautiful; its grace is marred by no fleck or blemish or suggestion
          of self-interest.  

O.M.   What makes you think that?

Y.M.   Pray what else could I think? Do you imagine that there is some other way of looking at
          it?  

O.M.   Can you put yourself in the man's place and tell me what he felt and what he thought?

Y.M.   Easily. The sight of that suffering old face pierced his generous heart with a sharp pain.
          He could not bear it. He could endure the three-mile walk in the storm, but he could not
          endure the tortures his conscience would suffer if he turned his back and left that poor
          old creature to perish. He would not have been able to sleep, for thinking of it.

O.M.   What was his state of mind on his way home?

Y.M.   It was a state of joy which only the self-sacrificer knows. His heart sang, he was
          unconscious of the storm.  

O.M.   He felt well?

Y.M.   One cannot doubt it.

O.M.   Very well. Now let us add up the details and see how much he got for his twenty-five
           cents. Let us try to find out the REAL why of his making the investment. In the first place
           HE couldn't bear the pain which the old suffering face gave him. So he was thinking of
           HIS pain—this good man. He must buy a salve for it. If he did not succor the old woman
           HIS conscience would torture him all the way home. Thinking of HIS pain again. He must
           buy relief for that. If he didn't relieve the old woman HE would not get any sleep. He
           must buy some sleep—still thinking of HIMSELF, you see. Thus, to sum up, he bought
           himself free of a sharp pain in his heart, he bought himself free of the tortures of a
           waiting conscience, he bought a whole night's sleep—all for twenty-five cents! It should
           make Wall Street ashamed of itself. On his way home his heart was joyful, and it  
          sang—profit on top of profit! The impulse which moved the man to succor the old woman
           was—FIRST—to CONTENT HIS OWN SPIRIT; secondly to relieve HER sufferings. Is it
           your opinion that men's acts proceed from one central and unchanging and inalterable
           impulse, or from a variety of impulses?  

Y.M.   From a variety, of course—some high and fine and noble, others not. What is your  
          opinion?  

O.M.   Then there is but ONE law, one source.

Y.M.   That both the noblest impulses and the basest proceed from that one source?

O.M.   Yes.

Y.M.   Will you put that law into words?

O.M.   Yes. This is the law, keep it in your mind. FROM HIS CRADLE TO HIS GRAVE A MAN
           NEVER DOES A SINGLE THING WHICH HAS ANY FIRST AND FOREMOST OBJECT
           BUT ONE—TO SECURE PEACE OF MIND, SPIRITUAL COMFORT, FOR HIMSELF.
                                                             {The wherefore for Religion.}

Y.M.   Come! He never does anything for any one else's comfort, spiritual or physical?

O.M.   No. EXCEPT ON THOSE DISTINCT TERMS—that it shall FIRST secure HIS OWN
           spiritual comfort. Otherwise he will not do it.  

Y.M.   It will be easy to expose the falsity of that proposition.

O.M.   For instance?

Y.M.   Take that noble passion, love of country, patriotism. A man who loves peace and dreads
           pain, leaves his pleasant home and his weeping family and marches out to manfully
           expose himself to hunger, cold, wounds, and death. Is that seeking spiritual comfort?  

O.M.   He loves peace and dreads pain?

Y.M.   Yes.

O.M.   Then perhaps there is something that he loves MORE than he loves peace—THE
           APPROVAL OF HIS NEIGHBORS AND THE PUBLIC. And perhaps there is something
           which he dreads more than he dreads pain—the DISAPPROVAL of his neighbors and
           the public. If he is sensitive to shame he will go to the field—not because his spirit will
           be ENTIRELY comfortable there, but because it will be more comfortable there than it
           would be if he remained at home. He will always do the thing which will bring him the
           MOST mental comfort—for that is THE SOLE LAW OF HIS LIFE. He leaves the weeping
           family behind; he is sorry to make them uncomfortable, but not sorry enough to sacrifice
           his OWN comfort to secure theirs.  

Y.M.   Do you really believe that mere public opinion could force a timid and peaceful man to—

O.M.   Go to war? Yes—public opinion can force some men to do ANYTHING.

Y.M.   ANYTHING?

O.M.   Yes—anything.

Y.M.   I don't believe that. Can it force a right-principled man to do a wrong thing?

O.M.   Yes.

Y.M.   Can it force a kind man to do a cruel thing?

O.M.   Yes.

Y.M.   Give an instance.

O.M.  Alexander Hamilton was a conspicuously high-principled man. He regarded dueling as
          wrong, and as opposed to the teachings of religion—but in deference to PUBLIC
          OPINION he fought a duel. He deeply loved his family, but to buy public approval he
          treacherously deserted them and threw his life away, ungenerously leaving them to
          lifelong sorrow in order that he might stand well with a foolish world. In the then condition
          of the public standards of honor he could not have been comfortable with the stigma
          upon him of having refused to fight. The teachings of religion, his devotion to his family,
          his kindness of heart, his high principles, all went for nothing when they stood in the way
          of his spiritual comfort. A man will do ANYTHING, no matter what it is, TO SECURE HIS
          SPIRITUAL COMFORT; and he can neither be forced nor persuaded to any act which
          has not that goal for its object. Hamilton's act was compelled by the inborn necessity of  
          contenting his own spirit; in this it was like all the other acts of his life, and like all the acts
          of all men's lives. Do you see where the kernel of the matter lies? A man cannot be
          comfortable without HIS OWN approval. He will secure the largest share possible of that,
          at all costs, all sacrifices.  

Y.M.   A minute ago you said Hamilton fought that duel to get PUBLIC approval.

O.M.   I did. By refusing to fight the duel he would have secured his family's approval and a
          large share of his own; but the public approval was more valuable in his eyes than all
          other approvals put together—in the earth or above it; to secure that would furnish him
          the MOST comfort of mind, the most SELF-approval; so he sacrificed all other values to
          get it. 

Y.M.   Some noble souls have refused to fight duels, and have manfully braved the public
          contempt.  

O.M.  They acted ACCORDING TO THEIR MAKE. They valued their principles and the
          approval of their families ABOVE the public approval. They took the thing they valued
          MOST and let the rest go. They took what would give them the LARGEST share of
          PERSONAL CONTENTMENT AND APPROVAL—a man ALWAYS does. Public opinion
          cannot force that kind of men to go to the wars. When they go it is for other reasons.
          Other spirit-contenting reasons.  

Y.M.   Always spirit-contenting reasons?

O.M.   There are no others.

Y.M.   When a man sacrifices his life to save a little child from a burning building, what do you
          call that?  

O.M.   When he does it, it is the law of HIS make. HE can't bear to see the child in that peril (a
          man of a different make COULD), and so he tries to save the child, and loses his life. But
          he has got what he was after—HIS OWN APPROVAL.  

Y.M.   What do you call Love, Hate, Charity, Revenge, Humanity, Magnanimity, Forgiveness?

O.M.   Different results of the one Master Impulse: the necessity of securing one's self approval.
          They wear diverse clothes and are subject to diverse moods, but in whatsoever ways
          they masquerade they are the SAME PERSON all the time. To change the figure, the
          COMPULSION that moves a man—and there is but the one—is the necessity of securing
          the contentment of his own spirit {peace of mind}. When it stops, the man is dead.  

Y.M.   That is foolishness. Love—

O.M.  Why, love {need} is that impulse, that law, in its most uncompromising form. It will
          squander life and everything else on its object. Not PRIMARILY for the object's sake, but
          for ITS OWN. When its object is happy IT is happy—and that is what it is unconsciously
          after.  

Y.M.   You do not even except the lofty and gracious passion of mother-love?

O.M.  No, IT is the absolute slave of that law. The mother will go naked to clothe her child; she
          will starve that it may have food; suffer torture to save it from pain; die that it may live.
          She takes a living PLEASURE in making these sacrifices. SHE DOES IT FOR THAT
          REWARD—{that perpetuation}, that self-approval, that contentment, that peace, that
          comfort. SHE WOULD DO IT FOR YOUR CHILD IF SHE COULD GET THE SAME PAY.

Y.M.   This is an infernal philosophy of yours.

O.M.   It isn't a philosophy, it is a fact.

Y.M.   Of course you must admit that there are some acts which—

O.M.   No. There is NO act, large or small, fine or mean, which springs from any motive but the
          one—the necessity of appeasing and contenting one's own spirit.  

Y.M.   The world's philanthropists—

O.M.  I honor them, I uncover my head to them—from habit and training; and THEY could not
          know comfort or happiness or self-approval if they did not work and spend for the
          unfortunate. It makes THEM happy to see others happy; and so with money and labor
          they buy what they are after—HAPPINESS, SELF-APPROVAL. Why don't miners do the
          same thing? Because they can get a thousandfold more happiness by NOT doing it.
          There is no other reason. They follow the law of their make.  

Y.M.   What do you say of duty for duty's sake?

O.M.  That IS DOES NOT EXIST. Duties are not performed for duty's SAKE, but because their
          NEGLECT would make the man UNCOMFORTABLE. A man performs but ONE
          duty—the duty of contenting his spirit, the duty of making himself agreeable to himself. If  
          he can most satisfyingly perform this sole and only duty by HELPING his neighbor, he
          will do it; if he can most satisfyingly perform it by SWINDLING his neighbor {sin}, he will
          do it. But he always looks out for Number One—FIRST; the effects upon others are a
          SECONDARY matter. Men pretend to self-sacrifices {Altruism}, but this is a thing which, in
          the ordinary value of the phrase, DOES NOT EXIST AND HAS NOT EXISTED. A man
          often honestly THINKS he is sacrificing himself merely and solely for some one else, but
          he is deceived; his bottom impulse is to content a requirement of his nature and training,
          and thus acquire peace for his soul.  

Y.M.   Apparently, then, all men, both good and bad ones, devote their lives to contenting their
          consciences.  

O.M.  Yes. That is a good enough name for it: Conscience— that independent Sovereign, that
          insolent absolute Monarch inside of a man who is the man's Master. There are all kinds
          of consciences, because there are all kinds of men {or, at times, different consciences in the same
          man}. You satisfy an assassin's conscience in one way, a philanthropist's in another, a
          miser's in another, a burglar's in still another. As a GUIDE or INCENTIVE to any
          authoritatively prescribed line of morals or conduct (leaving TRAINING out of the
          account), a man's conscience is totally valueless. I know a kind-hearted Kentuckian
          whose self-approval was lacking—whose conscience was troubling him, to phrase it with           exactness—BECAUSE HE HAD NEGLECTED TO KILL A CERTAIN MAN—a man whom
          he had never seen. The stranger had killed this man's friend in a fight, this man's
          Kentucky training made it a duty to kill the stranger for it. He neglected his duty—kept
          dodging it, shirking it, putting it off, and his unrelenting conscience kept persecuting him
          for this conduct. At last, to get ease {peace} of mind, comfort, self-approval, he hunted up
          the stranger and took his life. It was an immense act of SELF-SACRIFICE (as per the
          usual definition), for he did not want to do it, and he never would have done it if he could
          have bought a contented spirit and an unworried mind at smaller cost. But we are so
          made that we will pay ANYTHING for that contentment—even another man's life.

Y.M.   You spoke a moment ago of TRAINED consciences. You mean that we are not BORN
          with consciences competent to guide us aright?  

O.M.  If we were, children and savages would know right from wrong, and not have to be
          taught it.  

Y.M.   But consciences can be TRAINED?

O.M.   Yes.

Y.M.   Of course by parents, teachers, the pulpit, and books.

O.M.   Yes—they do their share; they do what they can.

Y.M.   And the rest is done by—

O.M.  Oh, a million unnoticed influences—for good or bad: influences which work without rest
          during every waking moment of a man's life, from cradle to grave.  

Y.M.   You have tabulated these?

O.M.   Many of them—yes.

Y.M.   Will you read me the result?

O.M.   Another time, yes. It would take an hour.

Y.M.   A conscience can be trained to shun evil and prefer good?

O.M.   Yes.

Y.M.   But will it for spirit-contenting reasons only?

O.M.   It CAN'T be trained to do a thing for any OTHER reason. The thing is impossible.

Y.M.   There MUST be a genuinely and utterly self-sacrificing act recorded in human history
          somewhere.  

O.M.  You are young. You have many years before you. Search one out.

Y.M.   It does seem to me that when a man sees a fellow-being struggling in the water and
          jumps in at the risk of his life to save him—  

O.M.   Wait. Describe the MAN. Describe the FELLOW-BEING. State if there is an AUDIENCE
          present; or if they are ALONE.  

Y.M.   What have these things to do with the splendid act?

O.M.  Very much. Shall we suppose, as a beginning, that the two are alone, in a solitary place,
          at midnight?  

Y.M.   If you choose.

O.M.   And that the fellow-being is the man's daughter?

Y.M.   Well, n-no—make it someone else.

O.M.   A filthy, drunken ruffian, then?

Y.M.   I see. Circumstances alter cases. I suppose that if there was no audience to observe the
          act, the man wouldn't perform it.  

O.M.   But there is here and there a man who WOULD. People, for instance, like the man who
          lost his life trying to save the child from the fire; and the man who gave the needy old
          woman his twenty-five cents and walked home in the storm—there are here and there
          men like that who would do it. And why? Because they couldn't BEAR to see a
          fellow-being struggling in the water and not jump in and help. It would give THEM pain.
          They would save the fellow-being on that account. THEY WOULDN'T DO IT
          OTHERWISE. They strictly obey the law which I have been insisting upon. You must
          remember and always distinguish the people who CAN'T BEAR things from people who
          CAN. It will throw light upon a number of apparently "self-sacrificing" cases.  

Y.M.   Oh, dear, it's all so disgusting.

O.M.   Yes. And so true.

Y.M.   Come—take the good boy who does things he doesn't want to do, in order to gratify his
          mother.  

O.M.   He does seven-tenths of the act because it gratifies HIM to gratify his mother. Throw the
          bulk of advantage the other way and the good boy would not do the act. He MUST obey
          the iron law. None can escape it.  

Y.M.   Well, take the case of a bad boy who—

O.M.   You needn't mention it, it is a waste of time. It is no matter about the bad boy's act.
          Whatever it was, he had a spirit-contenting reason for it. Otherwise you have been
          misinformed, and he didn't do it.  

Y.M.   It is very exasperating. A while ago you said that man's conscience is not a born judge of
          morals and conduct, but has to be taught and trained. Now I think a conscience can get
          drowsy and lazy, but I don't think it can go wrong; if you wake it up—


A Little Story: 

{Religion is an  hypothesis designed to achieve PEACE-OF-MIND. When  fleetingly achieved, it is called Bliss,  Blessedness, Grace, Salvation, etc.   Hampshire:206b, James:129, Anti-Semitism}

O.M.   I will tell you a little story:

Y.M.   He was a miscreant, and deserved death!    

O.M.   He thought so himself, and said so.

Y.M.   Ah—you see, HIS CONSCIENCE WAS AWAKENED!

O.M.   Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It PAINED him to see the mother suffer. He was sorry he
          had done a thing which brought HIM pain. It did not occur to him to think of the mother
          when he was misteaching the boy, for he was absorbed in providing PLEASURE for
          himself, then. Providing it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.  

Y.M.   Call it what you please, it is to me a case of AWAKENED CONSCIENCE. That
          awakened conscience could never get itself into that species of trouble again. A cure like
          that is a PERMANENT cure.  

O.M.  Pardon—I had not finished the story. We are creatures of OUTSIDE INFLUENCES—we
          originate NOTHING within. Whenever we take a new line of thought and drift into a new
          line of belief and action, the impulse is ALWAYS suggested from the OUTSIDE. Remorse
          so preyed upon the Infidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy's religion and
          made him come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the boy's sake and the
          mother's. Finally he found himself examining it. From that moment his progress in his new
          trend was steady and rapid. He became a believing Christian. And now his remorse for
          having robbed the dying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave
          him no rest, no peace. He MUST have rest and peace—it is the law of nature. There
          seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving imperiled souls. He
          became a missionary. He landed in a pagan country ill and helpless. A native widow took
          him into her humble home and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy
          was taken hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here was his
          first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the other boy by doing a precious
          service for this one by undermining his foolish faith in his false gods. He was successful.
          But the dying boy in his last moments reproached him and said:

Y.M.  The man's conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn't know right from wrong.

O.M.  I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that ONE man's conscience doesn't know
          right from wrong, it is an admission that there are others like it. This single admission
          pulls down the whole doctrine of infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there
          is one thing which I ask you to notice.  

Y.M.   What is that?

O.M.  That in both cases the man's ACT gave him no spiritual discomfort, and that he was quite
          satisfied with it and got pleasure out of it. But afterward when it resulted in PAIN to HIM,
          he was sorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon the others, BUT FOR NO REASON
          UNDER THE SUN EXCEPT THAT THEIR PAIN GAVE HIM PAIN. Our consciences take
          NO notice of pain inflicted upon others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to US.
          In ALL cases without exception we are absolutely indifferent to another person's pain
          until his sufferings make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel would not have been troubled
          by that Christian mother's distress. Don't you believe that?  

Y.M.  Yes. You might almost say it of the AVERAGE infidel, I think.

O.M. And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty, would not have been
          troubled by the pagan mother's distress—Jesuit missionaries in Canada in the early
         French times, for instance; see episodes quoted by Parkman.  

Y.M.   Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived?

O.M.  At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number of qualities to which
          we have given misleading names. Love, Hate, Charity, Compassion, Avarice,
          Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach misleading MEANINGS to the names. They
          are all forms of self-contentment, self-gratification {An unfaced truth}, but the names so
          disguise them that they distract our attention from the fact. Also we have smuggled a
          word into the dictionary which ought not to be there at all—Self-Sacrifice {Altruism}. It
          describes a thing which does not exist. But worst of all, we ignore and never mention the
          Sole Impulse which dictates and compels a man's every act: the imperious necessity of
          securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs. To it we owe all that we
          are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only spur, our whip, our goad, our only
          impelling power; we have no other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses;
          no one would do anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still. We
          ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous power is uttered.

Y.M.   I am not convinced.

O.M.   You will be when you think.



III.  Instances in Point:

Old Man.        Have you given thought to the Gospel of Self-Approval since we talked?

Young Man.   I have.

O.M.  It was I that moved you to it. That is to say an OUTSIDE INFLUENCE moved you to
          it—not one that originated in your head. Will you try to keep that in mind and not forget it?

Y.M.  Yes. Why?

O.M.  Because by and by in one of our talks, I wish to further impress upon you that neither
          you, nor I, nor any man ever originates a thought in his own head. THE UTTERER OF A
          THOUGHT ALWAYS UTTERS A SECOND-HAND ONE.  

Y.M.   Oh, now—

O.M.  Wait. Reserve your remark till we get to that part of our discussion—tomorrow or next
          day, say. Now, then, have you been considering the proposition that no act is ever born
          of any but a self-contenting impulse—(primarily). You have sought. What have you
          found?  

Y.M.   I have not been very fortunate. I have examined many fine and apparently self-sacrificing
          deeds in romances and biographies, but—  

O.M.  Under searching analysis the ostensible self-sacrifice disappeared? It naturally would.

Y.M.   But here in this novel is one which seems to promise. In the Adirondack woods is a
          wage-earner and lay preacher in the lumber-camps who is of noble character and deeply
          religious. An earnest and practical laborer in the New York slums comes up there on
          vacation—he is leader of a section of the University Settlement. Holme, the lumberman,
          is fired with a desire to throw away his excellent worldly prospects and go down and save
          souls on the East Side. He counts it happiness to make this sacrifice for the glory of God
          and for the cause of Christ. He resigns his place, makes the sacrifice cheerfully, and
          goes to the East Side and preaches Christ and Him crucified every day and every night
          to little groups of half-civilized foreign paupers who scoff at him. But he rejoices in the
          scoffings, since he is suffering them in the great cause of Christ. You have so filled my
          mind with suspicions that I was constantly expecting to find a hidden questionable
          impulse back of all this, but I am thankful to say I have failed. This man saw his duty, and
          for DUTY'S SAKE he sacrificed self and assumed the burden it imposed.  

O.M.  Is that as far as you have read?

Y.M.  Yes.

O.M.  Let us read further, presently. Meantime, in sacrificing himself—NOT for the glory of  
         G-D, PRIMARILY, as HE imagined, but FIRST to content that exacting and inflexible
          master within him—DID HE SACRIFICE ANYBODY ELSE?  

Y.M.   How do you mean?

O.M.  He relinquished a lucrative post and got mere food and lodging in place of it. Had he
          dependents?  

Y.M.   Well—yes.

O.M.   In what way and to what extend did his self-sacrifice affect THEM?

Y.M.   He was the support of a superannuated father. He had a young sister with a remarkable
          voice—he was giving her a musical education, so that her longing to be self-supporting
          might be gratified. He was furnishing the money to put a young brother through a
          polytechnic school and satisfy his desire to become a civil engineer.  

O.M.   The old father's comforts were now curtailed?

Y.M.   Quite seriously. Yes.

O.M.   The sister's music-lessens had to stop?

Y.M.   Yes.

O.M.  The young brother's education—well, an extinguishing blight fell upon that happy dream,
          and he had to go to sawing wood to support the old father, or something like that?  

Y.M.   It is about what happened. Yes.

O.M.  What a handsome job of self-sacrificing he did do! It seems to me that he sacrificed
          everybody EXCEPT himself. Haven't I told you that no man EVER sacrifices himself; that
          there is no instance of it upon record anywhere; and that when a man's Interior Monarch
          requires a thing of its slave for either its MOMENTARY or its PERMANENT contentment,
          that thing must and will be furnished and that command obeyed, no matter who may
          stand in the way and suffer disaster by it? That man RUINED HIS FAMILY to please and
          content his Interior Monarch—  

Y.M.   And help Christ's cause.

O.M.   Yes—SECONDLY. Not firstly. HE thought it was firstly.

Y.M.   Very well, have it so, if you will. But it could be that he argued that if he saved a hundred
          souls in New York—  

O.M.  The sacrifice of the FAMILY would be justified by that great profit upon the—the—what
          shall we call it?  

Y.M.   Investment?

O.M.  Hardly. How would SPECULATION do? How would GAMBLE do? Not a solitary
          soul-capture was sure. He played for a possible thirty-three-hundred-per-cent profit. It
          was GAMBLING— with his family for "chips." However let us see how the game came
          out. Maybe we can get on the track of the secret original impulse, the REAL impulse, that
          moved him to so nobly self-sacrifice his family in the Savior's cause under the
          superstition that he was sacrificing himself.