n which slaves were unfortunately held from
the circumstances of the commerce, did not fail of producing, in the
same instant, its _own_ effect. It depressed their minds; it numbed
their faculties; and, by preventing those sparks of genius from blazing
forth, which had otherwise been conspicuous; it gave them the appearance
of being endued with inferiour capacities than the rest of mankind. This
effect of the _treatment_ had made so considerable a progress, as
to have been a matter of observation in the days of Homer.

For half _his_ senses Jove conveys away,
_Whom_ once he dooms to see the _servile_ day.[021]

Thus then did the _commerce_, by classing them originally with
_brutes_, and the consequent _treatment_, by cramping their
_abilities_, and hindering them from becoming _conspicuous_,
give to these unfortunate people, at a very early period, the most
unfavourable _appearance_. The rising generations, who received
both the commerce and treatment from their ancestors, and who had always
been accustomed to behold their _effects_, did not consider these
_effects_ as _incidental_: they judged only from what they
saw; they believed the _appearances_ to be _real_; and hence
arose the combined principle, that slaves were an _inferiour_ order
of men, and perfectly void of _understanding_. Upon this
_principle_ it was, that the former treatment began to be fully
confirmed and established; and as this _principle_ was handed down
and disseminated, so it became, in succeeding ages, an _excuse_ for
any severity, that despotism might suggest.

We may observe here, that as all nations had this excuse in common, as
arising from the _circumstances_ above-mentioned, so the Greeks
first, and the Romans afterwards, had an _additional excuse_, as
arising from their own _vanity_.

The former having conquered Troy, and having united themselves under one
common name and interest, began, from that period, to distinguish the
rest of the world by the title of _barbarians_; inferring by such
an appellation, "that they were men who were only noble in their own
country; that they had no right, from their _nature_, to authority
or command; that, on the contrary, so low were their capacities, they
were _destined_ by nature _to obey_, and to live in a state of
perpetual drudgery and subjugation."[022] Conformable with this opinion
was the treatment, which was accordingly prescribed to a
_barbarian_. The philosopher Aristotle himself, in