“Can it, after all, be said,” answered Professor Dean, thoughtfully, “that mankind at large has really gained any practical good by that progressive evolution known as civilization? Suppose you were the chief of a great tribe existing under primitive conditions, and suppose that you, possessed of all the knowledge of modern life which you have to-day, were confronted with the proposition as to whether you would leave the tribe as it was, or would introduce all the conditions of our present advanced civilization, what would be your decision?” “Without having given the matter much thought,” replied Mr. Kearns, “my offhand answer would be, I suppose, that I should divest my primitives of breech-clouts and put them into top-hats and trousers, and supply them with churches, theatres, hospitals, hotels, a stock-exchange, a police headquarters, and all the other and usual adjuncts of civilization.” “And if I were the chief of such tribe, and you brought such proposition to me, I should hesitate long before accepting it,” rejoined the Professor. “I should ponder carefully whether it was not my bounden duty to the tribe to decapitate you, lest you should escape and give the world knowledge of the existence of me and my tribe and thus bring to us by force the civilization which you proffered. What would your civilization mean to the tribe? It would give us great cities and the million and one artificial adjuncts which form part and parcel of modern life. Would the men of the tribe be as happy, as healthy, or as really comfortable in the teeming tenements, or box-like flat houses of the cities which had sprung up, as they were under their tents upon the plains? For those tenements and flat houses they would have to pay rent, and to earn that rent they would be compelled in many instances to convert themselves and their families into industrial slaves. Who ever heard of so-called savages being evicted for non-payment of rent, or dying by the hundreds for want of food as a consequence of economic conditions? And yet, let a great city spring up and you have thousands of such cases every year! You have spoken of the churches which your civilization would erect, but for every church which your great city of modern civilization would bring into existence, it would also create ten, nay one hundred, drinking-shops and gambling-houses and brothels. And as to morality, is a primitive community without churches ever as immoral as a civilized community with a church to every other block? You have spoken, too, of hospitals. It is true, your civilization would bring fine hospitals, with an army of doctors and vast stores of drugs, but with these your civilization, with its artificial forms of life, would bring into existence a thousand and one diseases utterly unknown to men living in a primitive state. Your cures might be very comprehensive and marvelous, but surely it would be infinitely better to escape the diseases themselves, in the first place.