282 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 



his skin is umvder, and those who do these things 

 or cause them to be done are murderers just as 

 actually as highwaymen are who blow off the heads 

 of hapless wayfarers for their guineas. If these 

 things seem untrue^ it is not because they are untrue, 

 but because those to whom they seem so are unable 

 to judge conduct from the quadrupedal point of view. 

 If there were in this world beings as much more 

 clever than Caucasians as Caucasians are more 

 clever than cows and sheep, and these beings 

 should regard themselves as the darlings of the 

 gods and should attach a fictitious dignity and 

 importance to their own lives, but should look 

 upon Caucasians as simply so much *beef' and 

 ' mutton,' these bleached terrorists of the world 

 would in the course of a few generations of ex- 

 perience probably become sufficiently illumined 

 to realise that current human conceptions of cows 

 and sheep are not only preposterous, but fiendish. 



VII. The Origin of Provincialism. 



Human provincialism, all of it, is the conse- 

 quence of a common cause — the provincialism of the 

 savage. Back of the provincialism of the savage 

 is, of course, the antecedent fact of primordial 

 egoism. The savage is the common ancestor of 

 all men, and as such has imparted to all men 

 their general characters of mind and heart. 

 Everything that grows, whether it be a tree, a 

 human being, a grass blade, or a race, grows from 

 something. This something, this germ or embryo 

 from which each thing springs, imparts to the 



