the days of faith and energy, when eminent persons might hope, by a worthy fulfilment of their social destination, to rise to the rank of gods or demigods, after the example of Bacchus, Hercules, and others. This consideration may show how all the political energies of the religious spirit were applied by polytheism as far as their nature admitted, so that nothing remained but for their intensity to decline. This decline, so mourned at the time as depriving mankind of one of its most powerful actuating forces, but in no way hindering social development, may teach us the value of analogous apprehensions in our own day, when men anticipate social degeneracy from the extinction of the theological régime which mankind is discovering to be unnecessary.

Two charac

teristics of the polity.

forms of such

Our next consideration must be of the radical conditions of the corresponding régime, whose aim and spirit we have been reviewing: in other words, we must examine the chief characteristics which, common to all the a régime, are evidently indispensable to its practical organization. These are the institution of Slavery, and the confounding of the spiritual and temporal powers, which together constitute the main difference between the polytheistic organism of ancient, and the monotheistic organism of modern societies.

Slavery.

We are all aware how indispensable Slavery was to the social economy of antiquity; but we are apt to overlook the principle of that relation. We have only to extend to the individual case the explanation hitherto applied to nations, of the warlike destination of ancient society, as a necessary means of progression. It is easily seen how slavery was engendered by war, which was its chief source, and its first general corrective. The righteous horror with which we regard existing slavery naturally blinds us to the immense progression which it constituted and caused when it everywhere succeeded to cannibalism or the sacrifice of captives, and the conqueror, curbing his vindictive passions, could become sensible of the advantages he might derive from the services of his captive, by annexing him, as an inferior auxiliary, to the family he ruled. Such an advance implies an industrial, and moral progression much more considerable than is commonly supposed. It was a sagacious remark of Bossuet's that the etymology of the term reminds us that the slave was originally a prisoner of war who was spared instead of being devoured or sacrificed, according to prior custom. It is probable that without such a resource the blind military passion of the first ages of society would have destroyed nearly the whole race: and thus the immediate benefits of such an institution require no more vindication than its naturalness. Its service to the ulterior development of humanity is no less indisputable, though it is less appreciated. There could have been no sufficient expansion of the military régime if all pacific labours had not been assigned to slaves;

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189

so that slavery, resulting from war, served afterwards to sustain it, not only as a main recompense of victory, but as a permanent condition of the conflict. And again, slavery was no less important to the vanquished, who were thus constrained to an industrial life, notwithstanding their constitutional repugnance to it. Slavery was thus to the individual what we have seen that conquest was to nations. The more we consider the original aversion of our defective nature to regular and sustained toil, the more we shall be convinced that slavery opened the only general issue for the industrial development of humanity; and the better we shall see how labour, accepted at first as a ransom of life, became afterwards the principle of emancipation. Thus it was that ancient slavery grew to be, in relation to human progress, an indispensable means of general education, which could not have been otherwise supplied, while it was, at the same time, a merely necessary condition of special development.

Among the many differences which distinguish the ancient from our dreadful modern slavery, the conspicuous fact that the one was in harmony with the spirit of the age, while the other is opposed to it, is enough to condemn the latter. The existing slaveholder enjoys repose at the expense of the toil of his victim; whereas, the ancient conqueror and his captive worked in virtual concert, the activity of each promoting that of the other. Though slaves were, in those days, much more numerous than their masters, slavery existed through a long course of ages without any but extremely rare crises of danger; whereas modern slavery has maintained only an irksome existence for three centuries past, in the midst of frightful and always imminent dangers, notwithstanding the material preponderance of the owners, powerfully assisted by metropolitan civilization. The difference is that the ancient slavery was a normal state, originated by war, and sustained by a multitude of accessory tendencies; whereas modern slavery is simply a factitious anomaly.

The relation of slavery to polytheism, may not be evident at first sight, certain as it is made by historical analysis. If we consider, however, that the encouragement of slavery is a mere prolongation of the encouragement afforded to the spirit of conquest, we shall see that this theological state is in harmony with both. Polytheism, in fact, corresponds to slavery, as fetichism does to the extermination of captives, and monotheism, as we shall see, to the emancipation of serfs. Fetichism and monotheism are adverse to slavery, the one because it is a religion too individual and local to establish any bond between the conqueror and the conquered strong enough to restrain natural ferocity; and the other, because it is universal enough to preclude so profound an inequality between the worshippers of the same true God. Both are adverse to slavery for the same reasons which make conquest an exceptional pursuit for them. The intermediate theological state was therefore the one

appropriate to slavery,-being general enough to afford the necessary bond, and special enough to maintain social distance. The victor and the vanquished preserved their respective gods, while there was a common property in their religion which sufficed for a certain agreement; their relation being moreover consecrated by the subordination of the inferior to the superior gods. Thus it was that polytheism precluded the slaughter of captives on the one hand, and their regular emancipation on the other; and thus it consolidated and sanctioned their habitual bondage.

Concentration of spiritual

power.

The next prominent feature of the ancient social economy is the confusion between the spiritual and the temporal powers, united in the same chiefs; whereas their and temporal systematic separation is one of the chief political attributes of modern civilization. Speculative authority, which was then purely sacerdotal, and active power, which was essentially military, were always incorporated under the polytheistic régime; and such a combination was a requisite to the action of this régime on human development. This is the point which we have next to examine.

There could be no recognition, in ancient times, of the separation that was established in the Middle Ages, under the happy prevalence of Catholicism, between the moral power which regulates the thoughts and inclinations, and the political power which is concerned with actions and results. Such a separation supposes a development of the social organism far greater than that of the period when the simplicity and confusion of political ideas precluded any systematic distinction between the establishment of general principles of society and their special and daily use. Nor could such a division take place till each of the two powers had asserted its proper existence, derived from an independent origin; whereas, in ancient times, they were derived from each other, whether military command was simply an accessory of sacerdotal authority, or sacerdotal authority was merely an instrument of military domination. Nor, again, could such a separation take place at a time when the existing polity was confined to a chief city, however it might be destined to spread till it comprehended large populations whereas, in the Middle Ages, the chief ground of the division was the necessity of attaching to a common spiritual power nations too remote and diverse to be brought into any resemblance in their temporal governments.

Thus the political spirit of antiquity had no more marked characteristic than the pervading confusion between morals and laws, opinions and acts; the same authority presiding over them all, whatever the form of government might otherwise be. Even in contingencies most favourable to the establishment of a distinct spiritual power,-as when a citizen was made dictator without executive office,-even this possession of supreme legislative power

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never suggested any permanent separation between the moral and the political authority. The schemes of philosophers are always a reflection of the genius of their time; and we find in the boldest proposals of ancient philosophers no hint of a distinction between the regulation of opinions and that of acts; and yet the recognized existence of this class of speculative men among the principal Greek nations must be regarded as the first step towards this very separation. Those of them who went furthest in prescribing a government of philosophers had no other idea than of those philosophers being temporal as well as moral rulers; an arrangement which would have been a greater curse to them than any imperfection of social order under which they were living. This commingling of authority was no less indispensable to the function of the polytheistic régime than it was in itself inevitable. Military activity could not have done its work if the same class had not been at once pontiffs and military chiefs, sustaining the rigorous interior discipline required by the nature and duration of the wars of the time; and again, those wars could not have produced their necessary effect if there had not been a collective action in each armed nation upon exterior societies, such as can arise only from a concentration of authority. The continuous development of the spirit of conquest required, in ancient times, a fulness of obedience and a unity of conception altogether incompatible with our modern notions of two coexisting social authorities: and we shall have occasion to observe how closely the division of authority was connected with the decline of the aggressive military system into one purely defensive. If we observe apparent exceptions, as in the case of Mohammedanism, we shall always find, on close observation, that with the monotheism has coexisted the ancient commingling of authority as well as the spirit of conquest.

It is easy to see how irreconcilable polytheism is with the separation of powers which we shall find to be characteristic of monotheism. Without homogeneousness and consistency, the priesthood could not be securely independent of the temporal power; and the multiplicity of deities rendered such conditions impossible, through the dispersion of theological action which they must cause. At this distance of time, it is difficult for us to conceive of the rivalries which must have existed among different orders of ancient priests, through the inevitable competition of their numerous divinities, whose respective prerogatives, however carefully regulated, could not but frequently conflict; and this must have so far overruled the common instinct of the priesthood as to have precluded or dissolved any considerable sacerdotal coalition, if the temporal power had ever so little desire to hinder it. Whatever were the alliances, avowed or secret, of the various priesthoods, among the best-known polytheistic nations, those priesthoods had a proper and isolated existence till they were all reduced to subjection by the

temporal authority, which laid hold of the chief religious functions. Any apparent exception may be considered hereafter: it is enough to say here that it is contrary to the nature of polytheism to allow the existence of a spiritual power, independent of a corresponding temporal power, unless the one is reduced to be the mere appendage or instrument of the other.

Thus we see how the chief political wants of antiquity were met by polytheism, inasmuch as it aided the development of the spirit of conquest, and then established that concentration of social authority which was indispensable to that development. If it be objected that this concentration became the principle of the most degrading despotism, in the hands of infamous rulers; the reply is, that we must judge of the régime by its period of highest perfection, and not by any effects belonging to its season of decline. The declining period of all provisional influences exhibits the mischiefs of a too long protraction of any institution: and the case of the military régime, with its confusion of social powers, is no exception. When the uses of the system were obtained, dangers which had before been restrained or concealed manifested themselves, in proof that its provisional office was now fulfilled. It only remains for me to observe, under this view of the subject, that there is a close affinity between the two great conditions of the ancient polity. The abolition of slavery has always, as we shall presently find, been coincident with the separation of spiritual and temporal power: a natural consequence of that conjunction of the two authorities which conferred a religious sanction on the dominion of the master, and at the same time exempted this domestic subordination from all such sacerdotal interposition as might restrain that absolute dominion. Next to the political analysis comes the moral. I may dismiss it very briefly, so small are its difficulties and its Morality. importance, in comparison with those of the political analysis of this régime. The institution of slavery and the concentration of the spiritual and temporal powers indicate the necessary moral inferiority of the polytheistic to the monotheistic stage of human development.

Morality is profoundly vitiated throughout its relations, personal, Moral effects domestic, and social, by the mere existence of of Slavery. slavery. There is no occasion to say much of its injurious influence on the servile class; for it cannot be necessary to prove that there must be degradation where there is no sense of human dignity, and where the moral nature is wholly neglected, and the evils of servility neutralize all the benefits of labour. Important as such considerations must be, since the bulk of modern population has issued from this unhappy class, and bears only too evident marks of such an origin, the case may be left as it stands before the observation of us all, on account of its being unquestionable. We have therefore only to comment on the effect of