"
Granting this, the popular advocates of civilisation certainly are not the
most civilised of individuals. They appear to consider yellow ochre and
peacocks' feathers the climax of barbarism--marabouts and kalydor the acme
of refinement. A ring through the nose calls forth their deepest pity--a
diamond drop to the ear commands their highest respect. To them, nothing
can show a more degraded state of nature than a New Zealand chief, with his
distinctive coat of arms emblazoned on the skin of his face; nor anything
of greater social elevation than an English peer, with the glittering label
of his "nobility" tacked to his breast. To a rational mind, the one is not
a whit more barbarous than the other; they being, as Sir Joshua observes,
the real barbarians who, like these _soi-disant_ civilisers, would look
upon their own monstrosities as the sole standard of excellence.
The philosophy of the present age, however, is peculiarly the philosophy of
outsides. Few dive deeper into the human breast than the bosom of the
shirt. Who could doubt the heart that beats beneath a cambric front? or who
imagine that hand accustomed to dirty work which is enveloped in white kid?
What Prometheus was to the physical, Stultz is to the moral man--the one
made human beings out of clay, the other cuts characters out of
broad-cloth.
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