The earliest records of the human race begin with accounts of slavery. The first slave was probably a war captive whose life had been spared, and slavery probably originated when the nations emerging from the savagery of early times discovered that the prisoner captured in war could render to the conqueror more service alive than dead; and it became a very early custom that all persons captured in war and not ransomed by their fellows should remain the property of the conqueror to be used by him at will or sold to others. It is seen that slavery in its inception was in some degree an innocent and humane institution, because it saved many lives and resulted in much development in building, agriculture and the crude manufacturing of early times. It is convenient to divide the history of slavery into two epochs, ancient and modern, although there are times in the history of several nations when ancient slavery assumed the modern form. The ancient slaves were the prisoners captured in war, the hereditary slaves, and persons who, by the laws of their country, became slaves by the commission of crime or inability to meet their debts. Modern slavery assumed a more brutal aspect. Here the slave was not the result of wars, but the direct object of them, and we find nations engaged in the shameful traffic of deliberately declaring war upon a foreign and inoffensive people for the purpose of obtaining possession of their bodies to carry them away for sale in foreign countries. The modern slave for four centuries was a distinct article of commerce, quoted and bargained for in the markets and reckoned on as a medium of exchange. For the history of ancient slavery we turn first to Egypt, and find abundant evidence of the use of slaves from the very earliest times. Egypt thrived, and its native population was overflowing; but notwithstanding this, thousands of slaves were brought into the country by the early Wars of Conquest. Most of these slaves, for lack of other work, were put to labor on vast monuments, buildings, shrines and temples. The great Pyramid of Gizeh, near Memphis, the smaller pyramids near it and the ruins near Thebes, and the Karnak, still remain as mysterious and wonderful records of the skill of the Egyptian builders, and as mute evidence of the use of vast numbers of slaves.