By means of slavery the art of production was advanced. The Gibeonite and the Helot must work and not fight. Thus by forced labour, the repugnance against work which is so powerful among the barbarous and half-civilized, is overcome; systematic industry is developed; the human race is helped forward in this mysterious way. Both the theocratic and the military caste demanded a servile class, inseparable from the spirit of barbarism, and the worship of many Gods, which falls as that spirit dies out, and the recognition of one God, Father of all, drives selfishness out of the heart. In an age of Polytheism, Slavery and War were in harmony with the institutions of society and the spirit of the age. Murder and Cannibalism, two other shoots from the same stock, had enjoyed their day. All are revolting to the spirit of Monotheism; at variance with its idea of life; uncertain and dangerous; monstrous anomalies full of deadly peril. The Priesthood of Polytheism—like all castes based on a lie—upheld the system of slavery, which rested on the same foundation with itself. The slavery of sacerdotal governments is more oppressive and degrading than that of a military despotism. It binds the Soul—makes distinctions in the nature of men. The Prophet would free men; but the priest enslaves. As Polytheism does its work, and Man developes his nature higher than the selfish, the condition of the slave is made better. It becomes a religious duty to free the bondsmen at their master's death, as formerly the priests had burned them on his funeral pile, or buried them alive in his tomb to attend him in the realm of shades.[1] Just as civilization
- ↑ See, who will, the mingling of profound and superficial remarks on this subject in Montesquieu, ubi sup., Liv. XV. Grotius, De jure Belli ac Pacis, Lib. III. Ch. vii. viii. Selden, De jure naturali, &c., ed. 1680, Lib. I. Ch. v. p. 174, and Lib. VII. VIII. XII. et al. See the valuable treatise of Charles Comte, Traité de la Législation, ou Exposition des Lois générales suivant lesquelles les Peuples prospérent, dépérissent ou restent stationaire, &c. &c., 3rd ed., Bruxelles, 1837, Liv. V., the whole of which is devoted to the subject of slavery and its influence in ancient and modern times. We need only compare the popular opinion respecting slavery among the Jews, with that of the Greeks or Romans, in their best days, to see the influences of Monotheism and Polytheism in regard to this subject. See some remarks on the Jewish slavery in Michaelis's Laws of Moses. Slavery in the East has in general been of a much milder character than in any other portion of the world. Wolf somewhere says the Greeks received this relic of barbarism from the Asiatics. If so, they made the evil institution worse than they found it. According to Burckhardt, it exists in a very mild form among the Mahometans, everywhere. Of course his remarks do not apply to the Turks, the most cruel of Mussulmen. Perhaps
