This is MARK TWAIN'S skeptical assessment of free will, and determinism, religious belief, and the nature of humanity. He put off publishing it for 25 years, and then released it anonymously in a limited edition of 250 copies. The book takes the form of a Socratic dialogue between a romantic young idealist and an elderly, who debate such issues as whether man is a machine or a free actor, whether personal merit is meaningless given how our environment shapes who we are, and whether man has any impulse other than pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain. Colorful, irreverent, romantic, skeptical, a master of comic asides, a bittersweet humorist, and an unflinching critic of human pretensions. Mark Twain speaks to us across time with verve and wisdom.