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Essay # 2 English 102 Nathan Engquist section 402 Most people would agree that people, that is the species homo sapiens, are very complicated. It is not an easy task to decide where people belong in the massive biological spectrum of species. The 1860’s was an exciting time for science. Many new breakthroughs were beginning in virtually all disciplines of learning. Charles Darwin had published his book Origin of Species, which proposed the idea of evolution by natural selection and adaptation. Mark Twain, in response to the idea that humans were the highest order of beings in this scheme, wrote an essay called “The Lowest Animal in which he gives his reasons for believing that humans are actually at the bottom of evolution by natural selection. I definitely understand that Twain’s essay is satirical and isn’t to be taken too literally. Although Twain makes many good points as to why humans do not deserve to be the so called “highest animal,” his argument leaves out some important points. Twain uses certain phrases and cues in his language to bias and sway the reader in the very beginning of his essay, before even trying to present evidence. Twain does not discuss the good that humans have the capability to do, and those who utilize this capability and, he makes generalizations about human nature based on the actions of given case studies rather than surveying large numbers of people. In the beginning of Twain’s essay, persuasive tactics and signs of cynical writing are quickly becoming evident. Scientific papers are very importantly known for one thing: objectivity. He claims to be objective yet on he begins the essay with this sentence: “I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the “lower animals” (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man.” By simply placing the words “so-called” within parentheses he is already attempting to bias the reader with his opinion that the lower animals shouldn’t be called lower animals and he is doing this before submitting any proof to the reader as to why. Again on the very next page, just two paragraphs further, Twain says that in the interests of clarity he will show three premises right off before making his argument, as if to state them to be premises which are definitely true. All three are good at staying true until the third one which has a sentence in it which states: “They (birds, fishes, reptiles, insects, etc) are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.” This is his argument and he slips it into the premises to further bias the reader again into believing blindly already without fact that humans are the lowest animal. In psychology it is common practice to learn the difference between a case study, and a survey. Since Twain is attempting to make a generalization about human behavior, he would have learned in Psychology 101 (Psychology didn’t start until the 1890’s though) that a survey of the behaviors of many people would be needed to make any such generalizations. To overcome the fact that he only used individuals as the support for making his points valid, Twain gave several examples, such as the example of King John using a red-hot iron to rid his nephew, but the pattern of Twain’s essay was of individuals giving the support for his points and the world is composed of about a billion individuals in Twain’s time. Just because a percentage of the people in society torture, or kill, or rape, does not mean that all humans are the “lowest animal” because of our genetic relations to these other sub-humans. Twain definitely proved that some people are the lowest of any species, but not once did he look at all people, only the worst cases of our species. I guess Twain lived in a bad time period and it seems that his pessimistic attitude is nothing more than the by-product of this period. Not to say that the time period we live in now is any better, but in those days, I think that a lot of people were starting to really awaken as to just how evil people could be whereas today more people tend to recognize our shortcomings as a society rather than deny their existence. There was a prevailing mindset in Victorian Europe at this time of the superiority of humans to all other species and before Twain the notion of any other possibility would seem absurd. These days one can look into just the history of the twentieth century and be able to see the wonder and splendor that groups of people, and individuals have achieved, including revolution of non-violent effective protest started by Gandhi and followed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. here in the United States. Those who have given to the poor their whole lives asking for nothing in return, such as Mother Theresa. The power that people have to bring about positive policy change when they come together such as the resulting supreme court decision in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education which lead to school desegregation. Though effective and very persuasive, The Lowest Animal leaves out some of the argument and uses language that changes the readers’ mind before even giving proof for why it should be changed. People are not all like the examples Twain has given in his essay. Some people are worse than others but it is inaccurate for one to say that all people are good based on Mother Theresa’s unselfish attitude just as it is to say that all humans are wasteful because a duke shot far too many Buffalo. In conclusion, Twain’s essay makes many great points which do a good job at specifically pointing out why humans are the lowest animals, I must state that his arguments only apply to some humans and they lack some completeness.
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