310 THE ETHICAL KINSHIP 



* Seek, mangled one, some place of wonted rest, 



No more of rest, but now thy dying bed ; 

 The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head. 

 The cold earth with thy bloody bosom pressed. 



* Oft, as by winding Nith I, musing, wait 



The sober eve or hail the cheerful dawn, 

 I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn. 

 And curse the ruffian's aim and mourn thy hapless fate.' 



We human beings, in our conduct toward the 

 races of beings associated with us on this planet, 

 are almost pure savages. We are not even half 

 civilised. And this fact is certain to bring upon 

 us the criticism and condemnation of the more 

 enlightened generations to come. The fact is 

 apparent to-day, however — ^just as apparent as the 

 barbarity of the Romans — to everyone who will 

 take the trouble to rid himself of the prejudices 

 which enslave and blind him, and view human 

 phenomena from an un-human, extra-terrestrial 

 point of view. 



To most persons — to all except to a few — every- 

 thing is simply a matter of habit and education. 

 And a majority of persons, too, can become 

 educated to one thing about as easily and com- 

 pletely as they can to another. In Mr. Huxley's 

 * Man's Place in Nature ' there is reprinted from 

 an old volume the picture of a butcher's shop as 

 it is said to have existed among the savage Anziques 

 of Africa in the sixteenth century. Mr. Huxley 

 says that the original engraving claims to represent 

 an actual fact, and that he has himself no doubt 

 but it does really stand for just what it purports to 



