WHAT IS MAN? AND OTHER ESSAYS OF MARK TWAIN

but for their OWN sake–primarily. The DUTY was JUST THE SAME,

and just as imperative, when they were clerks, mechanics, raw

recruits, but they wouldn’t perform it for that. As clerks and

mechanics they had other ideals, another spirit to satisfy, and

they satisfied it. They HAD to; it is the law. TRAINING is

potent. Training toward higher and higher, and ever higher

ideals is worth any man’s thought and labor and diligence.

Y.M. Consider the man who stands by his duty and goes to

the stake rather than be recreant to it.

O.M. It is his make and his training. He has to content

the spirit that is in him, though it cost him his life. Another

man, just as sincerely religious, but of different temperament,

will fail of that duty, though recognizing it as a duty, and

grieving to be unequal to it: but he must content the spirit

that is in him–he cannot help it. He could not perform that

duty for duty’s SAKE, for that would not content his spirit, and

the contenting of his spirit must be looked to FIRST. It takes

precedence of all other duties.

Y.M. Take the case of a clergyman of stainless private

morals who votes for a thief for public office, on his own

party’s ticket, and against an honest man on the other ticket.

O.M. He has to content his spirit. He has no public

morals; he has no private ones, where his party’s prosperity is

at stake. He will always be true to his make and training.

IV

Training

Young Man. You keep using that word–training. By it do

you particularly mean–

Old Man. Study, instruction, lectures, sermons? That is a

part of it–but not a large part. I mean ALL the outside

influences. There are a million of them. From the cradle to the

grave, during all his waking hours, the human being is under

training. In the very first rank of his trainers stands

ASSOCIATION. It is his human environment which influences his

mind and his feelings, furnishes him his ideals, and sets him on

his road and keeps him in it. If he leave that road he will find

himself shunned by the people whom he most loves and esteems, and

whose approval he most values. He is a chameleon; by the law of

his nature he takes the color of his place of resort. The

influences about him create his preferences, his aversions, his

politics, his tastes, his morals, his religion. He creates none

of these things for himself. He THINKS he does, but that is

because he has not examined into the matter. You have seen

Presbyterians?

Y.M. Many.

O.M. How did they happen to be Presbyterians and not

Congregationalists? And why were the Congregationalists not

Baptists, and the Baptists Roman Catholics, and the Roman

Catholics Buddhists, and the Buddhists Quakers, and the Quakers

Episcopalians, and the Episcopalians Millerites and the

Millerites Hindus, and the Hindus Atheists, and the Atheists

Spiritualists, and the Spiritualists Agnostics, and the Agnostics

Methodists, and the Methodists Confucians, and the Confucians

Unitarians, and the Unitarians Mohammedans, and the Mohammedans

Salvation Warriors, and the Salvation Warriors Zoroastrians, and

the Zoroastrians Christian Scientists, and the Christian

Scientists Mormons–and so on?

Y.M. You may answer your question yourself.

O.M. That list of sects is not a record of STUDIES,

searchings, seekings after light; it mainly (and sarcastically)

indicates what ASSOCIATION can do. If you know a man’s

nationality you can come within a split hair of guessing the

complexion of his religion: English–Protestant; American–

ditto; Spaniard, Frenchman, Irishman, Italian, South American–

Roman Catholic; Russian–Greek Catholic; Turk–Mohammedan; and so

on. And when you know the man’s religious complexion, you know

what sort of religious books he reads when he wants some more

light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get

more light than he wants. In America if you know which party-

collar a voter wears, you know what his associations are, and how

he came by his politics, and which breed of newspaper he reads to

get light, and which breed he diligently avoids, and which breed

of mass-meetings he attends in order to broaden his political

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