"Assuredly. No American, no modern of any race, I fancy, can divest himself of the notion that one man is as good as another; in the eyes of God, they add--meaning in their own eyes. No Greek, no ancient of any race, I fancy, could have burdened himself with so preposterous a delusion. Democracy has killed my point of view. It has substituted progress for civilization. To appreciate things of beauty, as do the Americans, a man requires intelligence. Intelligence is compatible with progress. To create them, as did the Greeks, he requires intelligence and something else as well: time. Democracy, in abolishing slavery, has eliminated that element of time--an element which is indispensable to civilization." "We have some fine slavery in America at this moment." "I am using the word in the antique sense. Your modern slavery is of another kind. It has all the drawbacks and few of the advantages of the classic variety. It gives leisure to the wrong people--to those who praise the dignity of labour. Men who talk about the Dignity of Labour had better say as little as possible about civilization, for fear of confusing it with the North Pole." The American laughed. "That's one for me!" he remarked. "On the contrary! You are an admirable example of that happy graft which we mentioned just now." "Progress and civilization!" exclaimed Mr. Heard. "One uses those words so much in my walk of life that, thinking it over, I begin to wonder whether they mean more than this: that there are perpetual readjustments going on. They are supposed to indicate an upward movement, some vague step in the direction of betterment which, frankly, I confess myself unable to perceive. What is the use of civilization if it makes a man unhappy and unhealthy? The uncivilized African native is happy and healthy. The poor creatures among whom I worked, in the slums of London, are neither the one nor the other; they are civilized. I glance down the ages, and see nothing but--change! And perhaps not even change. Mere differences of opinion as to the value of this or that in different times and places." "Pardon me! I was using the words in a specific sense. What I mean by progress is the welding together of society for whatever ends. Progress is a centripetal movement, obliterating man in the mass. Civilization is centrifugal; it permits, it postulates, the assertion of personality. The terms are, therefore, not synonymous. They stand for hostile and divergent movements. Progress subordinates. Civilization co-ordinates. The individual emerges in civilization. He is submerged in progress." "You might call civilization a placid lake," said the American, "and the other a river or torrent." "Exactly!" remarked Mr. Heard. "The one is static, the other dynamic. And which of the two, Count, would you say was the more beneficial to humanity?"