"The people of Europe today live in better built houses than they did a hundred years ago. This is considered an emblem of civilization, and this is also a matter to promote bodily happiness....
Formerly, they wore skins and used as their weapons spears. Now... they wear a variety of clothing, and, instead of spears they carry with them revolvers... If people of a certain country, who have hitherto not been in the habit of wearing much clothing, boots, etc., adopt European clothing, they are supposed to have a become civilized out of savagery...
Formerly, the fewest men wrote books that were most valuable. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people's mind..
This is considered the height of civilization... As men progress... Men will not need the use of their hands and feet... Everything will be done by machinery.
Formerly, when people wanted to fight with one another, they measured between them their bodily strength; now it is possible to take away thousands of lives by one man working behind a gun from a hill. This is civilization...
Formerly, men worked in the open air only so much as they liked. Now, thousands of workmen meet together and for the sake of maintenance work in factories or mines. Their condition is worse than that of beasts. They are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires...
Formerly, men were made slaves under physical compulsion, now they are enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy...
Formerly, people had two or three meals consisting of homemade bread and vegetables' now, they require something to eat every two hours; so that they have hardly leisure for anything else...
What more need I say? ... Civilization seeks to increase bodily comforts, and it fails miserably even in doing so...
[The English] deserve our sympathy. They are a shrewd nation and I, therefore, believe they will cast off the evil. They are enterprising and industrious, and their mode of thought is not inherently immoral. Neither are they bad at heart. I, therefore, respect them. Civilization is not an incurable disease, but it should never be forgotten that the English people are at present afflicted by it."
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