Page:The Ladies' and Gentlemen's Etiquette.djvu/18

CIVILIZATION may be defined as that process of social culture which removes men and women from the natural or savage state into one wherein are called out those higher moral and intellectual qualities and capacities which in the uncivilized individual are only in an embryonic condition.

I know that exception will be taken to this definition by many who are unwise worshipers of Nature in her crudest manifestations, and who think that only right which is primitively natural. But let us consider. In the natural state man is a savage. He wears only sufficient clothing to protect him from the inclemencies of the weather. Though eating constitutes one of his greatest enjoyments, he has not yet invented any of those arts which refine and intensify it, but finds sensual pleasure in the mere gluttonous satisfaction of appetite. In his purely