It is the same idea, the same superstition, after an interval of three thousand years." "Yes, it is curious.

I was thinking the whole time that one had a picture of ancient civilization before one.

The wreaths of flowers, these swaggering figures with their trophies of war, this gay crowd, distributing food and drink, these young girls with their crowns, is it not all exactly the manner in which the people of the Stone Age or the savages of to-day would feast their heroes?
Cannot one understand in this that at the beginning of civilization war was the highest object in state and society, an opportunity of enrichment by booty, and a festival for youth?
Nowadays we ought to have got far enough to see in war only a weary fulfilling of duty, a barbarous waste of labor, of which we are inwardly ashamed; and we should keep away from this noisy festival as from the execution of a criminal, which may be necessary, but is painful to witness.

The progress from barbarism to civilization is frightfully slow." "It is true; we are still carrying ancient barbarism round our necks, and without a great deal of rubbing you will easily find the primitive savage under the skin of our dear contemporaries who are able to construe Latin beautifully.

And these are not the only gloomy thoughts which this spectacle gives me.