Note 335 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

We have remarked before that the slave-trade facilitates the keeping of slaves, because purchased slaves are less likely to escape than captives335. Here too we have to deal with the vis inertiae rather than with an impossibility in the strict sense of keeping slaves. It will not, probably, often be the case that agricultural savages would be quite unable to retain their slaves, if they were really very anxious to keep them; but it may often occur that they are not yet fully aware of the use of slaves, and therefore do not want to take the pains of supervising them, though, if slavery were thoroughly established, it would prove very profitable; in such case the objective want exists, but the subjective want is not yet felt. In this case, too, the slave-trade, by rendering escape of the slaves more difficult, will tend to establish the custom of keeping slaves.