The relations between civilized and uncivilized races; a prize essay read in the theatre, Oxford, June 8, 1864 - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 edition. Excerpt: ... i. T'HE later course of European thought may be described as the-L battle of Impartiality against Power. National prejudice and the wrecks of mediaeval fanaticism conspired to check the immortal spirit they could not bind. Civilization has been a fellowsufferer with philosophy and religion. Men have always been apt to regard it as the exclusive product of one age and clime, and to strive to impress on less favoured racesa a stereotyped form of their own imagining. Rarely, and how rarely! the race whose path they cross is equal to them in body, and hardly inferior to them in mind, then, while the penalty bears heavily on the mind, the body is exempt. The one becomes weak and stunted, the other is a Samson yet, though asleep and in chains. But when the invading race is at once both stronger and wiser, sometimes quickly by the sword, sometimes slowly by its awkward kindness, it too often kills both mind and body. And this is the danger to apprehend for native races, when the common talk of Englishmen allows but one enlightened age and country. What England is to them, that was the Spain of Charles V. to the followers of Cortes and Pizarro; out of Spain civilization was not,--the scanty remnants of the Indian nations are the fruits of their policy. May not the unpopularity of English rule in the East be traced up to a current opinion that civilization and barbarism differ, not only in degree, but in kind? The error may perhaps have arisen for want of observing the phenomena. Many as these are, and not always distinct, the deduction on the whole may be briefly stated thus. Civilization and barbarism are not absolute, but relative, not real, but conventional, the outer links in an unbroken chain reaching from the Andaman Islanderb (we no...