Hubert Howe Bancroft

What is civilization? What is the act of civilizing? To reclaim from a savage or barbarous state; to educate; to refine? What is a savage or barbarous state? A wild, uncultivated state; a state of Nature?... "The terms savage and civilized, as applied to races of men, are relative and not absolute terms. At best these words mark only-broad shifting stages in human progress; the one near the point of departure, the other farther on toward the unattainable end.
This progress is one and universal, though of varying rapidity and extent; there are degrees in savagism, and there are degrees in civilization; indeed, though placed in opposition, the one is but a degree of the other."