The youth spoke with timidity, and Eric encouraged him.
"Explain more fully what you mean by that."
"Perhaps the Turks or the Chinese consider us barbarous."
"You would have, then," Eric said, to help him on, "some unmistakable token whereby a people, an age, a religion, a man, can perceive whether they are in the great current of universal, historical civilization?"
"Yes, that is what I mean."
"Well, then, consider wherein does a cultivated man differ from an uncultivated?"
"He differs from him in having good thoughts and clear views."
"Where does he get these?"
"Out of himself."
"And how does he learn to sharpen them, and to round them off?"