15.7. 7. Another Origin of the Right of Slavery.
There is another origin
of the right of slavery, and even of the most cruel slavery which is to
be seen among men.
There are countries where the excess of heat enervates the body, and
renders men so slothful and dispirited that nothing but the fear of
chastisement can oblige them to perform any laborious duty: slavery is
there more reconcilable to reason; and the master being as lazy with
respect to his sovereign as his slave is with regard to him, this adds a
political to a civil slavery.
Aristotle
[9]
endeavours to prove that there are natural slaves; but
what he says is far from proving it. If there be any such, I believe
they are those of whom I have been speaking.
But as all men are born equal, slavery must be accounted unnatural,
though in some countries it be founded on natural reason; and a wide
difference ought to be made between such countries, and those in which
even natural reason rejects it, as in Europe, where it has been so
happily abolished.
Plutarch, in the Life of Numa, says that in Saturn's time there was
neither slave nor master. Christianity has restored that age in our
climates.
Footnotes
