What Is Man? by Mark Twain

Interesting story. It’s a series of conversations between an old man and a young man. The old man posits that man is essentially a machine whose character is the product of his inborn temperament, outside influences, and nothing else. This makes us no different than animals. The young man tries to argue against these ideas, but all his arguments break down. Other interesting ideas include that there is no life-long search of truth, we only seek until we find something suitable and then spend the rest of our lives defending that truth; that our only goal is to satisfy our hunger for self-approval; and that all our virtues come from God.

It’s not a full book, but not super short, either. I think it took me a little over an hour to read.


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