By R. S. ROSS.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 3, Issue 44, 12 January 1912, Page 9

By R. S. ROSS.

It- is extraordinary! The Skeleton and the Cupboard at once suggest themselves;. So do the Substance and the Shadow I shall not say which is which. 1 Ji.ivo road "What is Alan:" . And what is "What is Man?" It is a book —Aiark Twain's secret book. Dear old Mark Twain ! It is a hundred to one you won't find any notice of the Twok in the "Age" or the "Argus." Neither "Elzevir" nor "Archie" Strong are likely to review it, though both writers provide delightful columns for us. Of books that really matter—world's books, eternal books--our press sometimes tells us, but never if the books happen to bo revolutionary books. I mean by "revolutionary" books those books calculated to aid in the reconstruction of society or in the rise of a new (and working-class) economic order. The one outstanding work of the first decade of the twentieth century is -Capital,' Vols. 11. and H1... by Karl Marx, yet no Australian daily paper, no leading weekly or monthly journal, noticed its complete appearance for the first time in English during that decade. Not, 1 should K ay. because such papers did not realise the imiKirtance ol the event (.and 1 mean "eyent,")^— for if Napoleon altered the map of Europe, Marx altered the interpretation and course oi history—but because proletarian science and philosophy are hated and feared. Two newer books clamantly calling for attention by their very basioness — their difference of viewpoint, and their correction of error —are Kropotkin's "The Great French Revolution,'''' and Gustavo Hervo's "My Country. Right or Wrong," yet both have practically been boycotted by our leading papers. Not owing to lack of weight, or learning, have they been treated so. No. They are educative, agitatory, overturning, working-class. Rooks directed against the bouigeoise and their institutions —the church included —are necessarily unacceptable to the bourgeois press. So. when nearly all "our great dailies" had labelled Ferrer "beast," they were not likely to mention a book which proved him martyr. "The Martyrdom of Ferrer," by McCabe, won no re\ iows . I! I 1 Now, in the ordinary course of things a new book by Mark Twain—especially a posthumous work —would have set the literary world a-quivering, but stony silence instead has boon/ its fate. And such a book I The most remarkable, the seusationak'st. the most fundamental of all Mark Twain's books. This and more—a book of the most radically sceptical character: an essay accepting and expounding Determinism, professing Rationalism. You will not mow ask "AVhy?" the stony silence. He who runs may read. "What ia Man?" has just been issued for tho Rationalist Press Association by Watts and Co. It bears a preface dated February, 1905, in which the author tells us that the_studies for his papers were begun 25 or 27 years before, and the papers written in 1898. He says he had examined them once or twice a year since, and found them satisfactory. He is satisfied they speak the truth. Circulated privately some years ago, the papors are now given to tho world in a cloth-bound book of some 170 pages, price 3s Gd (postage added) in Melbourne. Mark Twain, being dead, yet speaketh—and speaketh as he candidly avows he dared not while living. Consider: Mark Twain, Boss Humorist, author of a sheaf of famous books, loved everywhere for his brilliant quaininess/his sallies, his genialty, his wit—this man at heart, philosopher; in secret, a wrestler with problems compared to which your Sphinx riddle is child's play. All the while —the while of more years than many of us have lived —colossal laugh-maker publicly, and privately trying to probe the deeps of things. Jokyil and Hyde in fiction, and Win. Sharp plus Fiona McLcod in fact, are not more the violent contrast of dualistic oneness presented by Mark Twain. It IS an extraordinary Fpcc-Ui.-le.

Nevertheless (as I think I have oft-' n remarked aforetime.) the book's the thing. Most vital hooks are dull and heavy, but this one isn't; ~ On the contrary, it is awesomely fascinating- It is in the form of a dialogue betAcen an old man and a young'man. They had been conversing. The Old Man had asserted that the human being is merely a machine, and nothing mom. The-..Young, Man objected, and asked the Odd Man to go into particulars and lui'nish reasons for his pnsitiuiiV Meice brisk. pointed, fierce argumentation ■ upon: Man the machine. pergonal praise, training, morality, the rhiiikiug-pro-cess, eiiviroiiiueiri., thought and insiiru i and so forth—with in the end a very 'flattened-out thing called Free Will. Mark Twain is nothing if not or; ginal, and his method, and his matt--in "What is Alan-" are alike strikingly fresh and resistingly magnetic. L is all very plain, but very pnzy.liny,. ami if one is bo.h -convinced and ball fed. it may be only b'cause one has been in the rapids ol an intellectual Niagara. Illustrations, as one would expect: are abundant, and hero Mark Twain's wide experience and understanding of Human Nature admirably serve his serious purpose!*. His powers of analysis, his parabolic adeptness, his skill in epigram are nil brought- to bear in .the of Fort to demonstrate that man's side impulse is the Securing of His Owif Approval. THE LAW. ! "This" (says his Old Man) "is the I law; keep it in your mind: From his | cradle to his grave a man never does I a single thing which has any FIRST | AND FOREMOST object hut one to secure peace of mind. «-iiii-it 11 •*' comfort, for HIMSELF." Asked by the Young Alan if be v-1 c going to condense into an adinoini ;■•> ; bis plan for the genera! l>ctter.i < i.; of the race's condition hew lie v. o'.ib' word it, the Old Man icplic-: THE ADMONITION. "Diligontlv train voiir idias l"l'WARDand STILL UPW A Ii I) v >;,! a summit where you nil! lind ;. Ie chiefest pleasure in ooiidm t we'-.i while contenting y.mi. will, Im *i;-e in confer heiieH'. l - upon your in i_!:' .■ ; i I and the community." The Old Man admits that t i • ■■ nothing new in ; in- -- t iiai it ; ■:,- i taiclit in tin a , r iieioiiv v. m ■ < - upon: Y.M.: "If v.c for v.. r.-.1.0 of ■■.. <.!.;.;. h;;;; >.. .'.■;.. ;.: ■- the other schemes aim at and produce the same result —RIGHT LIVING —has yours an advantage 'over the others:" 0.M.: "One, jes— a large one. h has no concealments., no deceptions. When a. man leads a right and valuable life under it he. is not deceived as to the REAL 'chief motive which impels him to do it—in thos« other cases he is." There is an arrestivc little story on page 36 one would like to quote in full, and indeed much of the dialogue also, but I must content myself with one typical excerpt: Y.M. (after a quarter of all hour.i: "1 have reflected." O.M.:'"You mean you have tried to change your opinion—as an experiment;'" V.M.:' "Yes." 0.M.: "AVith success?" Y.M.: "No. It remains the same; it is impossible to change it." 0.M.: "I am sorry, but you see. yourself, that your mind is merely & machine, nothing more. You have no command over it; it ha 6 no command over itself—it is worked SOLELY from the outside. That is tho law of its make; it is the law of all machines." Y.M.: "Can't I EVER change one of these automatic opinions:''' 0.M.: "No. You can't vourscli'. but EXTERIOR INFLUENCES can do it." Y.M.: "And exterior ones ONLY?" 0.M.: "A'es —exterior ones only." Y.M.: "That position is untenable —I may say ludicrously untenable."' 0.M.: "What makes you think so?" Y.M.: "I don't merely think it; I know it. Suppose. I resolve to enter upon a course of thought, and study, and reading, with the deliberate purpose of changing .that opinion, and suppose I succeed. THAT is not the work of an .exterior impulse: the whole of it is mine and personal., for I originated the project." 0.M.: "Not a Bhred of it. It grew out of this talk with mc. But for that it would never have occurred to you. No man ever originates anything. All his thought. allhis H impulses come FROM THE OUTSIDE." Let mc say that "What is Man?" is peculiarly a book whose every sentence needs to be read and weighed, and therefore will require a second and third reading, for at the first reading one is carried on and on by the argument and its intense personal interest, aand may not stay to reason it out. Most people will challenge the Old Man's conclusions, mainly owirc to tho

fact that, whatever our Determinism, life is run on the assumption of Free iVill. No mother, for instance, will iclisb the contention that, though she go naked, "lane, and suffer toiture for her child, she docs it for reward and 'would do it for your child it she could get the same pay."

The conclusion of the whole matter is that within us there dwells a "Master" who must be obeyed, and be is Monarch of .ALL the mechanism we name Alan. And lest you be alarmed, and thoughtlessly cry out* with ' our Young Alan. "This is an infernal philosophy of yours." let mc remind you of ihe solemn, if laconic, rejoinder, ."It isn't a philosophy; it is a fact." The things in life to face are the facts. For •■our consolation, too, let mc print, a ew prcgne.nt words by Joseph.McPabe: 'Religions and philosophies have been .put on ami off by communities of men .without any vital effect' on their conduct. So it is wi,li this (horny question ;-.i moral responsibility. The onorjtnpus ; ;;:e.t.d ol t\: :r:,i.i:iist principles in btir. '. 'fie.has h-f to no demoralisation:';'.: Thedid grows belter. .And it is*at : least M.!."al- that, if we can defect to what.an /•lormous eM-i,.; character is due-to external conditions, we have more-hope of influencing ihe character, of the mass •;:f men than we ever had before." This is a .near-enough restatement of ; the Marxian Materialist Conception of History. -' . h

Anyhow, get Mark . Twain's secret nook. It is a valuable text book for the wage-earner whose tim.e nor pocket do not permit of laborious research into heredity and environment. "* On these questions, every man and woman must know something.