348 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



That incapacity for higher work led to this specialization, is 

 a belief we shall readily accept on remembering that among 

 ourselves the class of &quot; night-men/ 7 still extant I suppose in 

 some places, must have been formed of the inferior; since 

 only those who could not otherwise maintain themselves 

 would adopt so disgusting a business. Of course, the servile 

 classes have been formed mainly of captives and their 

 descendants; and since, in the average of cases, conquered 

 peoples have been in some way or other inferior to their con- 

 querors, we may consider the division of labour between the 

 slave-classes and the ruling classes as having a psycho- 

 physical origin. It was probably thus with the helots of 

 Sparta, and it has certainly been thus with the heathen 

 Negro peoples who have been, during so many generations, 

 kidnapped by their Christian masters. But this is not a uni 

 versal relation ; for the superior are sometimes conquered by 

 the more numerous or more savage inferior. Something of 

 the kind happened in Mexico, where the civilized Toltecs 

 were overrun by the barbarous Chechemecas and Aztecs, 

 who, becoming the rulers, doubtless forced the better men 

 to perform the worse functions. But the clearest cases are 

 furnished by Greece and Rome. Victories in their wars 

 depended on other causes than mental or physical superiori 

 ties. Says Grote of the Greeks &quot; Slavery was a calamity, 

 which in that period of insecurity might befall anyone.&quot; 

 How little, among the Romans, slavery implied a lower na 

 ture, is proved by various facts cited in the last division of 

 this work, dealing with the professions ; and is again proved 

 by the following passage from Mommsen. 



11 Business . . . was uniformly carried on by means of slaves. The 

 money-lenders and bankers instituted . . . additional counting-houses 

 and branch banks under the direction of their slaves and freedmen. 

 The company which had leased the customs-duties from the state 

 appointed chiefly their slaves and freedmen to levy them at each 

 custom-house. Every one who took contracts for buildings bought 

 architect-slaves; everyone who undertook to provide spectacles or 

 gladiatorial games . . . purchased or trained a company of slaves . . . 



