Note 8 — Chapter I · METHOD AND DIVISIONS.

As little can the other attempts, which have been made, to classify the savages according to their general culture, serve our purpose8. So the method of investigation that would seem the best is not applicable here. Therefore we are also unable to ascertain whether, as some writers assert, slavery at a certain stage of social development is universal. Bagehot says of slavery: “There is a wonderful presumption in its favour; it is one of the institutions which, at a certain stage of growth, all nations in all countries choose and cleave to”9. Grünberg expresses the same view: “No people has always and in all phases of its development been unacquainted with slavery”10. According to Spencer “observation of all societies in all times shows that slavery is the rule and freedom the exception”11. And Tourmagne exclaims: “This almost universal scourge, going back to the very origin of the nations and affecting all of them, is it not to be regarded as a social stage that every people has to traverse, as an evolution which it is obliged to undergo, before it can attain to the higher degrees of civilization”12? If we had an ascending series of stages of culture, we might inquire whether, within the limits of savagery (for the civilized and semi-civilized peoples fall beyond the scope of the present volume) there is a stage at which slavery is universal. But, as we have already remarked, this is not yet possible.