Mark Twain 郎朗音乐会is a central figure in American literature. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, his finest work, is the story of a journey down the Mississippi by two memorable figures, a white boy and a black slave. Twain was born Samuel Lang-home Clemens in 1835 and was raid in Hannibal, Missouri. During his early years, he worked as a riverboat pilot, newspaper reporter, printer, and gold prospector. Although his popular image is as the author of such comic works as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi, and The Prince and the Pauper, 手机的利弊Twain had a darker side that may have resulted from the bitter experiences of his life: financial failure and the deaths of his wife and daughter. His last writings are savage, satiric, and pessimistic. The following lection is taken from Letters from the Earth, 鲛人挥泪one of his last work .It has been under the title 爱情句子Damned Human Race been printed in numerous anthologies of essays.
Did todays newspaper contain a headline about people (Irish, Lebane, Chilean) fighting somewhere in the world? Most likely, it did. In the following lection, Mark Twain concludes that the combative an4 cruel nature of human beings makes them the lowest of c
reatures, not the highest. With scathing irony, he supplies a startling reason for humans warlike nature.
TEXT
I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the lower animals (so-called), and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me. For it obliges me to renounce my allegiance to the Darwinian theory of the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals; since it now ems plain to me that the theory ought to be vacated in favor of a new and truer one, this new and truer one to be named the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals.
In proceeding toward this unpleasant conclusion I have not guesd or speculated or conjectured, but have ud what is commonly called the scientific method. That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that prented itlf to the crucial test of actual experim
ent, and have adopted it or rejected it according to the result. Thus I verified and established each step of my cour in its turn before advancing to the next. The experiments were made in the London Zoological Gardens, and covered many months of painstaking and fatiguing work.热滚滚
Before particularizing any of the experiments, I wish to state one or two things which em to more properly belong in this place than further along. This, in the interest of clearness. The masd experiments established to my satisfaction certain generalizations, to wit:
1. That the human race is of one distinct species. It exhibits slight variations (in color, stature, mental caliber, and so on) due to climate, environment, and so forth; but it is a species by itlf, and not to be confounded with any other.
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2. That the quadrupeds are a distinct family, also. This family exhibits variations (in color, size, food preferences, and so on; but it is a family by itlf).
系统设置在哪里找3. That the other families (the birds, the fishes, the incts, the reptiles, etc.) are more or less distinct, also. They are in the procession. They are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom.
Some of my experiments were quite curious. In the cour of my reading I had come across a ca where, many years ago, some hunters on our Great Plains organized a buffalo hunt for the entertainment of an English earl. They had charming sport. They killed venty-two of tho great animals; and ate part of one of them and left the venty-one to rot. In order to determine the difference between an anaconda an
d an earl (if any) I caud ven young calves to be turned into the anacondas cage. The grateful reptile immediately crushed one of them and swallowed it, then lay back satisfied. It showed no further interest in the calves, and no disposition to harm them. I tried this experiment with other anacondas; always with the same result. The fact stood proven that the difference between an earl and an anaconda is that the earl is cruel and the anaconda isnt; and that the earl wantonly destroys what he has no u for, but the anaconda doesnt. This emed to suggest that the anaconda was not descended from the earl. It also emed to suggest that the earl was descended from the anaconda, and had lost a good deal in the transition.
表白句I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever u have shown a rabid hunger for more, and have not scrupled to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor rvings in order to partially appea that appetite. I furnished a hundred different kinds of wild and tame animals the opportunity t
o accumulate vast stores of food, but none of them would do it. The squirrels and bees and certain birds made accumulations, but stopped when they had gathered a winter s supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane. In order to bolster up a tottering reputation the ant pretended to store up supplies, but I was not deceived. I know the ant. The experiments convinced me that there is this difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and mirly; they are not.
