"What Is Man?" published by Mark Twain in 1906 is a dialogue between a young man and an older man jaded to the world. It involves ideas of destiny and free will as well as of psychological egoism. The Old Man asserted that the human being is merely a machine and nothing more. The Young Man objects and asks him to go into particulars and furnish his reasons for his position. This collection of short stories covers a wide range of Twain's interests: the serious the political and the ironically humorous.