The Damned Human Race by Mark Twain
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The Good Within        In “The Damned Human Race” author Mark Twain goes on to explain why Darwinian’s theory should be called the Descent of Man from the Higher Animals ratherthan the Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals. Twain hits point after point of why the human race is more flawed, cruel, and corrupt than other Higher Animals. Mark Twainclaims that he draws his conclusions from observations of experiments that he has done.         For example, Twain’s first point is about how some hunters once killed seventy-two buffalos and used but one and left the remaining seventy-one buffalos to rot away (Twain 540). He then goes on to talk about how he experimented with an anaconda and seven young calves. Twain says, “you would come to find that in this case the anaconda would only kill one of those calves, eat it, and then lay back satisfied.” (Twain 541) This can be interrupted as you may witness that animal’s kill for a purpose of survival while humans just kill to kill. Mark Twain also says that “humans will continue to step on others for their own self-gain while animals such as the squirrel will only accumulate enough so they will get by in life.” (Twain 542). Then he says, “that man, harbors insult and waits for the day when he can get revenge whereas the passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals.” (Twain 542) Next, he states that “man is not the only animal that laughs, but he is the only that blushes. He will not enter a room bare naked whereas animals hide nothing; they are not ashamed.” (Twain 543) Another
important point is that men are always engaged in warfare. Man offers oneself as mercenaries to fight in wars that hardly matter to them where animals engage in individual fights, but never in organized masses. Another statement is that man has murdered innocent people because of their different religious beliefs, but have you ever witnessed an animal killing others for religious reasons? Twain concludes his essay by saying that the cause for man’s cruelty is “the Moral Sense.” He states that man is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is what makes him descend to the bottom level of species. It is what enables him to do wrong. Without it, man would at once rise to the level of the Higher Animals.                We should disagree with Twain because we can’t just base the human race off of all the bad things, we have done but instead, take a look at the good within the human race. There is something he missed about humans. We have to look outside of all the bad and evil and recognize people who are becoming vegetarians to save an animal, going green to save the planet or people who become doctors to treat sick people. If we didn’t have a moral sense, how would we be capable of doing these things? Mark Twain is pointing out too many of the flaws that the human race has, and not enough of the qualities that we possess. Kindness among the human race is a quality I’ve been able to see and experience my entire life, but one example that comes to mind when I think about the good within people is when I was in downtown San Antonio, I saw this old