Note 41 — Chapter IX · DEFINITION OF THE WORD “CIVILIZATION” (continued); DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS OF CIVILIZED SOCIETIES; OUR CIVILIZATION IS NOT SUPERIOR TO THOSE WHICH HAVE GONE BEFORE

It is also in connexion with these that we find the main cause of the false judgments passed on foreign peoples. Because the externals of their civilization are unlike the corresponding parts of our own, we are often apt to infer hastily that they are either barbarians or of less worth than ourselves. Nothing could be more superficial, and so more doubtful, than a conclusion drawn from such premises.