鲜玉米The Damned Human Race
什么花粉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 creatures, not the highest. With scathing irony, he supplies a startling reason for humans warlike nature.
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 m
ethod. That is to say, I have subjected every postulate that prented itlf to the crucial test of actual experiment, 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.
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.
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).
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.matla
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 and 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 does
nt. 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.
学校文化墙
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 to 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.
景物描写 In the cour of my experiments I convinced mylf that among the animals man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge. The passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.
Roosters keep harems, but it is by connt of their concubines; therefore no wrong is done. Men keep harems but it is by brute force, privileged by atrocious laws which the other x were allowed no hand in making. In this matter man occupies a far lower place than the rooster.
流鼻血怎么快速止血Cats are loo in their morals, but not consciously so. Man, in his descent from the cat, has brought the cats looness with him but has left the unconsciousness behind (the saving grace which excus the cat). The cat is innocent, man is not.
国泰民安意思
Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity (the are strictly confined to man); he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed. Man, with his soiled mind, covers himlf. He will not even
enter a drawing room with his breast and back naked, so alive are he and his mates to indecent suggestion. Man is The Animal that Laughs. But so does the monkey, as Mr. Darwin pointed out; and so does the Australian bird that is called the laughing jackass. No! Man is the Animal that Blushes. He is the only one that does itor has occasion to.
场面描写的作用
