Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/350

336 not until a moral inherent strength arises sufficient to burst the fetters of despotism, is a people fit for a better or milder form of government; for not until this inherent power is manifest is there sufficient cohesive force in society to hold it together without being hooped by some such band as despotism. Besides thus cementing society, war generates many virtues, such as courage, discipline, obedience, chivalrous bearing, noble thought; and the virtues of war, as well as its vices, help to mould national character.

Slavery to the present day has its defenders, and from the first it has been a preventive of a worse evil—slaughter. Savages make slaves of their prisoners of war, and if they do not preserve them for slaves they kill them. The origin of the word, servus, from servare, to preserve, denotes humane thought rather than cruelty. Discipline is always necessary to development, and slavery is another form of savage discipline. Then, by systems of slavery, great works were accomplished, which, in the absence of arts and inventions, would not have been possible without slavery. And again, in early societies where leisure is so necessary to mental cultivation and so difficult to obtain, slavery, by promoting leisure, aids elevation and refinement. Slaves constitute a distinct class, devoted wholly to labor, thereby enabling another class to live without labor, or to labor with the intellect rather than with the hands.

Primordially, society was an aggregation of nomadic families, every head of a family having equal rights, and every individual such power and influence as he could acquire and maintain. In all the ordinary avocations of savage life this was sufficient; there was room for all, and the widest liberty was possessed by each. And in this happy state does mankind ever remain until forced out of it. In unity and coöperation alone can great things be accomplished; but men will not unite until forced to it. Now, in times of war—and with savages war is the rule and not the exception—some closer union is necessary to avoid extinction; for, other things being equal, the people who are most firmly united and most strongly ruled are sure to prevail in war. The idea of unity in order to be effectual must be embodied in a unit; some one must be made chief, and the others must obey, as in a band of wild beasts that follow the one most conspicuous for its prowess and cunning. But the military principle alone would never lay the foundation of a strong government, for with every cessation from hostilities there would be a corresponding relaxation of government.

Another necessity for government here arises, but which likewise is not the cause of government, for government springs from force and not from utility. These men do not want government, they do not want culture; how, then, is an arm to be found sufficiently strong to bridle their wild passions? In reason they are children, in passion, men; to restrain the strong passions of strong, non-reasoning men