Mark Twain's Difference Between Man And Higher Animals

“These experiments convinced me that there is a difference between man and the higher animals: he is avaricious and miserly; they are not.” This quote by Mark Twain portrays his stance on the idea of mankind’s feeling of superiority over other species. Although some people believe mankind is superior on Earth, the reality is the human species is the lowest species due to the fact that we are the only species to experience greed and stinginess. Humans have the urge to always collect more, more of anything, even if it is more than necessary. “ I was aware that many men who have accumulated more millions of money than they can ever use have shown ribid hunger for more, and have not scruple to cheat the ignorant and the helpless out of their poor servings in order to partially appease that appetite. (Twain, 13)” This is an example of greed, instead of using ones’ earnings that is useless to them and giving it to someone that could benefit more from it, one often keeps it. This proves mankind 's trait of greed is consistent, but who is to say that it is not also common in higher animals? Well Mark Twain put this to the test with his experiments, “ 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 supply, and could not be persuaded to add to it either honestly or by chicane (Twain,