But here another objection may be raised, to wit, that in view of the vast advance that has been made by mankind from primeval savagery to the present complex social state, it is impossible to apply to the higher man the same name as to the lower man; for if _we_ are savages, what are the Bushmen or the Esquimaux? Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. It may be doubted whether of late years Europe has been pleasanter as a residential district than Cathay; but, letting that pass, must we not admit that a real culture implies something more than material and mental opulence? “Civilization,” as a French writer has lately said, “is not in this terrible trumpery: if it is not in the heart of man, then it exists nowhere.”[46] It is easy to frame “ethnical periods,” as is done in Morgan’s _Ancient Society_, in which are postulated the three phases--Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilization--the last-named commencing with the invention of a Phonetic Alphabet; but such a definition, when put to practical test, seems a somewhat fanciful one. The brute who tortures or butchers a sentient fellow-being remains a brute, whether a Phonetic Alphabet has been invented or not. He has not learnt the ABC of civilization. What is needed, for the measurement of human progress, is a standard of ethical, not ethnical refinement. That mankind has already advanced so far is a sign, not that it has now reached its zenith, but that it has yet further to advance; and this advance will be delayed, not promoted, by the refusal to recognize that the physical and mental sciences have far outrun the moral--that, despite our multifarious discoveries and accomplishments, we are still barbarians at heart. In this sense, then, we are savages; and the knowledge of that fact is the first step toward civilization. There is a line which pious zoophilists are fond of quoting to sportsmen or other thoughtless persons who ill-use their humbler fellow-creatures: Remember, He who made thee made the brute. The reminder is wholesome, for kinship is too apt to be forgotten; but I would venture to interpret that significant verse in a much more literal sense; for it must be confessed that many a human being, if judged by his actions, is not only _related_ to the brute, but is _himself_ the brute. The old Greek maxim, “Know thyself,” is the starting-point of all reformation. Through this knowledge, and only through it, can come the patience which forgives because it fully understands: “Comprendre c’est pardonner” is assuredly one of the world’s greatest sayings. He pardons all, who all can understand.