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Show 22 ON THE SLAVERY AND CoMMERCE from fo low an ell:imation. They were tamed, like beall:s, by the Jl:ings of hunger and the lalh, and their education was direCted to the fame end, to make them commodious inll:ruments of labour for their polfelfors. This treatment, which thus proceeded in the ages of barbarifm, from the low ell:imation, in which !laves were unfortunately held from the circumll:ances of the commerce, did not fail of producing, in the fame inll:ant, its own effeCt. It deprefied their minds; it numbed their faculties; and, by preventing thofe fparks of genius from blazing forth, which had otl1erwife been confpicuous; it gave them the appearance of being endued with inferiour capacities than the rell: of mankind. This effeCt of the tnatment had made fa confidcrable a progrefs, as to have been a matter of obfervation in the days of Homer. * For half his fenfes Jove conveys away, Whom once he dooms to fee the fer·vi/e day. • Hornet. ?dyf. P. 3:zz. In the lateft edition of Homer~ the word, whtch we have tranllatedftnflJ, is Af~Tih or <virtue, but the old and proper reading is Nc~r. as appears from Plato ~e Legibus, ch, 6, where he quotes it on a fimil:tr occafion. Thus, OF THE HuMAN SPECIES. Thus then did the commerce, by claffing them originally with brutes, and the confequent treatment, by cramping their abilities, and hindering them from becoming co'!fPicuous, give to thefe unfortunate people, at a very early period, the moll: unfavourable appearance. The riling generations, who received both the commerce and treatment from their ancell:ors, and who had a! ways been accull:omed to behold their iffeCis, did not confider thefe ejjeCis as incidental: they judged only from what they £1w; they believed the appearances to be real; and hence arofe the combined principle, that flaves were an iiferiour order of men, and perfeCtly void of undetjlanding. Upon this principle it was, that theformer treatment began to be fully confirmed and ell:abli01ed; and as this principle was handed down and dilfeminated, fo it became, in fucceeding ages, an excufe for any feverity, that defpotifm might fuggeil:. We may obferve here, that as all nations had this excufe in common, as arifing from the circun!flances above-mentioned, fo the Greeks fidl:, and the Romans afterwards, B 4 had |