294 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



slavery: a supply of free land. The reason for this is 

 found in the nature of slave labor. The slave was usually 

 unskilled at methods of cultivation, since as a warrior be- 

 fore his capture and humiliation, he was accustomed to 

 regard manual labor as degrading. Moreover, his labor 

 was reluctant, hence he was not interested in making it 

 efficient. And further than this, the slave was stupid and 

 ignorant of right methods. Because of these traits of the 

 slave, his work was wasteful and extravagant. Conse- 

 quently, the only way to get increasing returns from agri- 

 cultural work of this sort, was to set the slave at a new 

 tract of virgin soil as soon as he had used up the vital 

 qualities and destroyed the fertility of the land which he 

 had been cultivating. It paid better to bring fresh land 

 under the plow, than to put more effort into old land ; it 

 was more profitable to increase acreage than to redouble 

 effort. And so, as long as there was a boundless expanse 

 of good land available, slave labor, which implied super- 

 ficial cultivation, was still economical, but as soon as the 

 supply of land decreased through occupation or exhaus- 

 tion of its resources, slavery waned in importance. Thus, 

 although slavery was an institution of great importance 

 in prehistoric and ancient times, with the virtual exhaus- 

 tion of free land, slavery in modern society has gone, 

 never to return. 



One consequence of this creation of a surplus, whether 

 by slave labor, or otherwise, has been that certain classes 

 in the community have not found it necessary to devote 

 their entire time to depressing and enervating labor. 

 Some individuals were afforded leisure from the drudgery 

 which dulls the finer sensibilities and reduces bodily 

 vitality. With the attainment of leisure, came the possi- 

 bility of an increased development of Art, Literature, 



