A MODERN SYMPOSIUM
is what we should choose; but I am sure it is the law of the world in which we live. Through the whole realm of nature every kind exists only to be the means of supporting life in another. Everywhere the higher preys upon the lower; everywhere the Good is parasitic on the Bad. And as in nature, so in human society. Read history with an impartial mind, read it in the white light, and you will see that there has never been a great civilization that was not based upon iniquity. Those who have eyes to see have always admitted, and always will, that the greatest civilization of Europe was that of Greece. And of that civilization not merely an accompaniment but the essential condition was slavery. Take away that and you take away Pericles, Phidias, Sophocles, Plato. Dismiss Greece, if you like. Where then will you turn? To the Middle Ages? You encounter feudalism and serfdom. To the modern world? You run against wage-labour. Ah, but, you say, we look to the future. We shall abolish wage-labour, as we have abolished slavery. We shall have an equitable society in which everybody will do productive work, and nobody will live at the cost of others. I do not know whether you
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