In general, too, the conquerors would be better than the conquered
(most merits in early society are more or less military merits), but
they would not be very much better, for the lowest steps in the
ladder of civilisation are very steep, and the effort to mount them
is slow and tedious. And this is probably the better if they are to
produce a good and quick effect in civilising those they have
conquered. The experience of the English in India shows--if it shows
anything--that a highly civilised race may fail in producing a
rapidly excellent effect on a less civilised race, because it is too
good and too different. The two are not en rapport together; the
merits of the one are not the merits prized by the other; the
manner-language of the one is not the manner-language of the other.
The higher being is not and cannot be a model for the lower; he
could not mould himself on it if he would, and would not if he
could. Consequently, the two races have long lived together, 'near
and yet far off,' daily seeing one another and daily interchanging
superficial thoughts, but in the depths of their mind separated by a
whole era of civilisation, and so affecting one another only a
little in comparison with what might have been hoped. But in early
societies there were no such great differences, and the rather
superior conqueror must have easily improved the rather inferior
conquered.
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