not necessarily a
vice. Because we do not like the taste of one another it does not follow
that the cannibal is a person of depraved appetite. Because, as a rule,
we have but one wife and several mistresses each it is not certain that
polygamy is everywhere--nor, for that matter, anywhere--either wrong or
inexpedient. Our habit of wearing clothes does not prove that conscience
of the body, the sense of shame, is charged with a divine mandate; for
like the conscience of the spirit it is the creature of what it seems to
create: it comes to the habit of wearing clothes. And for those who hold
that the purpose of civilization is morality it may be said that peoples
which are the most nearly naked are, in our sense, the most nearly
moral. Because the brutality of the civilized slave owners and dealers
created a conquering sentiment against slavery it is not intelligent to
assume that slavery is a maleficent thing amongst Oriental peoples (for
example) where the slave is not oppressed.

Some of these same Orientals whom we are pleased to term half-civilized
have no regard for truth. "Takest thou me for a Christian dog," said
one of them, "that I should be the slave of my word?" So far as I can
perceive the "Christian dog" is no more the slave of his word than the
True Believer, and I think the savage--allowing for the fact that his
inveracity has dominion over fewer things--as great a liar as either of
them. For my part, I do not know what, in all circumstances, is right
or wrong; but I know, if right, it is at least stupid to judge an
uncivilized people by the standards of morality and intelligence set up
by civilized ones. An infinitesimal proportion of civilized men do not,
and there is much to be said for civilization if they are the product of
it.

Life in civilized countries is so complex that men there have more ways
to be good than savages have, and more to be bad; more to be happy, and
more to be miserable. And in each way to be good or bad, their generally
superior knowledge--their knowledge of more things--enables them to
commit greater excesses than the savage could widi the same opportunity.
The civilized philanthropist wreaks upon his fellow creatures a
ranker philanthropy, the civilized scoundrel a sturdier rascality.
And--splendid triumph of enlightenment!--the two characters are, in
civilisation, commonly combined in one person.

I know of no savage custom or habit of thought which has not its mate
in civ