Higgins' Philosophy Professor Higgins is seen throughout
Pygmalion as a very rude man. While one may expect a well
educated man, such as Higgins, to be a gentleman, he is far
from it. Higgins believes that how you treated someone is
not important, as long as you treat everyone equally. The
great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners or good
manners or any other particular sort of manners, but having
the same manner for all human souls: in short, behaving as if
you were in Heaven, where there are no third-class
carriages, and one soul is as good as another. -Higgins, Act
V Pygmalion. Higgins presents this theory to Eliza, in hope
of justifying his treatment of her. This theory would be fine
IF Higgins himself lived by it. Henry Higgins, however, lives
by a variety of variations of this philosophy. It is easily seen
how Higgins follows this theory. He is consistently rude
towards Eliza, Mrs. Pearce, and his mother. His manner is
the same to each of them, in accordance to his philosophy.
However the Higgins we see at the parties and in good times
with Pickering is well mannered. This apparent discrepancy
between Higgins' actions and his word, may not exist,
depending on the interpretation of this theory. There are two
possible translations of Higgins' philosophy. It can be viewed
as treating everyone the same all of the time or treating
everyone equally at a particular time. It is obvious that
Higgins does not treat everyone equally all of the time, as
witnessed by his actions when he is in "one of his states" (as
Mrs. Higgins' parlor maid calls it). The Higgins that we see in
Mrs. Higgins' parlor is not the same Higgins we see at the
parties. When in "the sta ...