Page:The rise, progress, and phases of human slavery.djvu/30

 other; they appear never to have conceived the possibility of any other. Even the slaves themselves never complained of slavery as an institution; they never demanded liberty in the sense we demand it. When they did complain, it was not because they thought that one class ought not to be a master-class and the other a slave-class: that was an idea quite beyond them. When they complained—and they often did complain, and sometimes rebel too—it was either because they found their masters harsh and cruel, and wished to exchange them for new and better ones, or because they hoped, by breaking their fetters and becoming soldiers, pirates, or adventurers of some kind, to exchange their condition as slaves for the more enviable one of slave-owners. History records several insurrections of slaves that took place in ancient times; but in no one instance does it appear that the insurgents took up arms for the principle of equality, or for any cause common to other slaves as well as to themselves. Of this fact we shall adduce some notable evidences in the progress of this inquiry. For the present, we shall content ourselves with the assertion that, as a general rule, the religious doctrine of men's equality before God, and the political and social doctrine of man's equality before the law, or as a member of society, were doctrines utterly unknown to, or uncared for amongst, the old pagan world. In hazarding this assertion, we would be understood as applying it to all classes and callings of the ancients alike—to philosophers, poets, orators, and statesmen, as well as to mechanics, labourers, house-servants, even the very lowest description of menial slaves. That one or two philosophers and poets, here and there, may be found to have uttered sentiments prophetic of "the good time coming," or indicative of a tacit belief that man was made for a higher and brighter destiny than was his then lot, we pretend not to deny. But that any class or calling of men existed in the old pagan world who believed in, much less contended for, the political and social rights of man as man is what, we fearlessly assert, cannot be proved from any historical authority extant. With the exception of the Essenes of Judæa and the Therapeutæ of Egypt, we know of no attempt having been made in ancient times to realise the social views latterly so prevalent amongst the working classes in France, Germany, and, indeed, in most parts of Central and Western Europe, England included. The Essenes and Therapeutæ, however, can hardly be considered an exception to the general rule, seeing that the latter was a Christian sect, and that the Essenes, being Jews, believed in the same God that all Christians professed to worship. Besides, the Essenes were but a very small sect, hardly exceeding 4,000 souls in all; and though they held and practised the theory of human equality, and proscribed slavery from amongst them, yet, like the Shakers of America, they so mixed up absolute celibacy, and other ascetic doctrines and practices, with their community-system that, in the very nature of things, they could never be more than a small, isolated sect, utterly incapable of influencing, by creed or example, the destinies of the human race.

But how the cause of human liberty came to be hopeless under the old pagan systems, and how Christianity itself has hitherto failed in its divine mission, must be the subject of future chapters.