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Show 62 LIBERTY AND f!LAVERY. for the inhabitants of Utopia; but, if we might choose our own teachers in political wisdom, we should decidedly prefer those who have an eye for facts as well as abstractions. If we may borrow a figure from Mr. Macaulay, the legislator who sees no difference among men, but proposes the same kind of government for all, acts about as wisely as a tailor who should measure the Apollo Belvidere to cut clothes for all his customers-for the pigmies as well as for the giants. § VI. The sixth fallacy of the abolitionist. It is asserted by Dr. Wayland that the institution of slave1·y is condemned as "a violation of the plainest dictates of natural justice," by "the natural conscience of man, from at least as far back as the time of Aristotle." If any one should infer that Aristotle himself condemned the institution of slavery, he would be g1·ossly decci vcd; for it is known to every one who has read the Politics of Ar·istotle that he 1s, under certain circumstances, a strenuous ad~ vocate of the natural justice, as well as of the political wisdom, of slavery. lienee we shall Hnppose that Dr. Wayland does not mean to include Aristotle in his broad assertion, but AUOUMENTS OF ADOLITIONISTS. G3 only those who came after him. Even iu this sense, or to this extent, his positive assertion is so diamett·ically opposed to the plainest facts of hi;tory, that it is diflicttlt to conceive how he could have persuaded himself of its truth. It is .certain that, on other occasions, be was perfectly aware of the fact that the natural conscience of man, from the time of Aristotle down to that of the Christian era, was in favor of the institution of slavery; for as often as it has served his purpose to assert this fact, he has not hesitated to do so. Thus, "the universal existence of slavery at the time of Christ," says he, "took its origin from the moral darkness of the age. The immortality of the soul was unknown. Out of the Hebrew nation not a man on earth bad any true conception of the character of the Deity or of our relations and obligations to him. The law of universal love to man had never been heard of."* No wonder he here argues that slavery received tlte uniJJersal sanction of the heathen world, since so great was the moral darkness in which they were involved. This darh.-uess was so great, if we may believe the author, that the men of one nation esteemed * Letters o.n Slavery, p. 89. |