Romance of Primitive Slavery 159 



fore, has not been able to produce the civilization 

 of man; rather it is civilization which has made 

 slavery. During tens of thousands of years man 

 must have survived without slavery, and in this 

 long period he raised himself to so great a height 

 above the other animals that we may say he 

 became civilized. 



The proof that slavery could not have been a 

 primitive institution is found in the fact that the 

 establishment of slavery can only take place in 

 a relatively advanced state of society. It pre- 

 supposes _the existence of the State, i.e., an 

 organized group with definite boundaries in which 

 the bond uniting the citizens is territorial, and in 

 which the division of labour has already been 

 carried very far. In fact, slavery requires a 

 powerful public force which can carry out its will 

 by imposing fear, without which the slaves would 

 not consent to submit to the sufferings of servitude. 

 The slave always has the tendency to leave his 

 master and flee. In order to prevent him from 

 doing so, it is necessary to have him under sur- 

 veillance, more or less vigilantly organized; and 

 this surveillance necessarily presupposes territorial 

 limits clearly marked, because it could not be 

 extended to the confines of the universe. But 

 the organization of States on the basis of territory 

 is a very recent fact in history. While the human 

 species has existed for possibly five hundred 

 thousand years, the most ancient organized State 

 was formed at most, ten thousand years ago. At 



