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what certainly existed in Athens, a dangerous extension of this: an argument
that because Englishmen are superior creatures (rule better, administer better,
are more thorough gentlemen &c) therefore they should be allowed a little extra
latitude. This principle – that the Higher, because it is higher, has a right to
behave worse – seems to me in the abstract true (with all sorts of qualifications
e.g. that he must not, by behaving worse, himself become worse) but in practice
so poisonously dangerous that it had better never be acted upon. Two or three
imperialist friends of mine would, I think, hold this doctrine openly, and many
hold it unconsciously – tending to be rather amused at a little bullying or
sharp practice against a Venezuelan or a Chinaman or even a Frenchman, and of
course, through normal lack of sympathy, as a rule fearfully underrating the in-
tensity of other people's suffering.

I don't suppose you will seriously disagree with any of this. It is about the
amount of it, the proportions of one element and the other, and the proper way to
behave about it in order to improve it, that we should differ. And I always

what certainly existed in Athens, a dangerous extension of this: an argument that because Englishmen are superior creatures (rule better, administer better, are more thorough gentlemen &c) therefore they should be allowed a little extra latitude. This principle – that the Higher, because it is higher, has a right to behave worse – seems to me in the abstract true (with all sorts of qualifications e.g. that he must not, by behaving worse, himself become worse) but in practice so poisonously dangerous that it had better never be acted upon. Two or three imperialist friends of mine would, I think, hold this doctrine openly, and many hold it unconsciously – tending to be rather amused at a little bullying or sharp practice against a Venezuelan or a Chinaman or even a Frenchman, and of course, through normal lack of sympathy, as a rule fearfully underrating the intensity of other people's suffering.

I don't suppose you will seriously disagree with any of this. It is about the amount of it, the proportions of one element and the other, and the proper way to behave about it in order to improve it, that we should differ. And I always