506 THE EXPEDIENT OF INEQUALITY. 



A third expedient of nature is The inequality of con- 

 ditions. Sloth is the natural state of man ; prolonged 

 and monotonous labour is hard for him to bear. The 

 savage can follow a trail through the forest, or can lie 

 in ambush for days at a time ; this pertinacity 

 and patience are native to his mind ; they belong to 

 the animalsfrom whom he is descended: but the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil is a new kind of labour, and it is only 

 followed from compulsion. It is probable that when 

 domestic slavery was invented, a great service was 

 rendered to mankind, and it has already been shown that 

 when prisoners of war were tamed and broken in, women 

 were set free, and became beautiful, long haired, low- 

 voiced, sweet-eyed creatures, delicate in form, modest 

 in demeanour, and refined in soul. It was also by 

 means of Slavery that a system of superfluous labour 

 was established ; for women, when slaves, are made 

 only to labour for the essentials of life. It was by 

 means of Slavery that leisure was created, that the 

 priests were enabled to make experiments, and to cul- 

 tivate the arts, that the great public buildings of the 

 ancient lands were raised. It was Slavery which 

 arrested the progress of Greece ; but it was also 

 Slavery which enabled all the free men of a Greek 

 town to be sculptors, poets, and philosophers. 

 Slavery is now happily extinct, and can never be 

 revived under the sanction of civilized authority. But 

 a European Government ought perhaps to introduce 

 compulsory labour among the barbarous races that 

 acknowledge its sovereignty and occupy its land. 

 Children are ruled and schooled by force, and it is 

 not an empty metaphor to say that savages are chil- 

 dren. If they were made to work, not for the benefit of 

 others, but for their own, if the rewards of their labour 



