It would hardly be possible to give a concrete proof of the contrary; if for no other reason because for a long time there have been no savages in the strict sense of the word anywhere on earth. By savages we mean human beings in their primitive, zoological condition who have developed solely according to the biological forms of the species and under the influence of surrounding Nature and have taken over nothing of an intellectual character from the group to which they belong. All savages of whom we know form societies which for the most part are not even loosely, but firmly, knit together, with laws that may seem nonsensical and barbaric to us, but are none the less binding with clearly defined duties which they impose on every member, with sanctions whose cruelty supersedes that of any punishment permitted by civilization. A man who is a member of a society, no matter how primitive it may be, may certainly have a conscience, but the point is that he is not a savage, but the contrary of a savage, namely: a social being who has received an education from his society, who is bound to conform to its habits, customs and views, and who in all his actions must consider its opinion. But these conditions, as I have shown, produce a conscience, the representative of society in the consciousness of the individual. Conscience is no innate feature of man uninfluenced by society, it is not a product of Nature, it is the result of education; he who possesses a conscience is no savage, but a person formed by discipline and subservient to it; conscience is the fruit of civilization, of a certain civilization; in itself it represents progress compared with the primitive state of man. Consequently it is an objectionable contradiction to talk of conscience and at the same time deny moral progress.