Still it must be said that some of the Roman philosophers, especially Cicero and Seneca, lay stress in their writings, upon the universal brotherhood of man. They have much to say about the intrinsic worth of the human soul. While these ideas are largely borrowed from the Greeks, or at least suggested by Greek philosophers, the Romans are singularly eloquent in proclaiming them. But slavery is never attacked by name. It is doubtful whether a passage can be found in any Greek or Roman writer explicitly asserting that it is wrong for one man to hold another in bondage. This may be due to the conviction that such a doctrine would be extremely dangerous among a large servile population, even if the government allowed entire freedom of speech. The New Testament is almost silent about slavery. Its authors did not wish to give utterance to any views that could be used by their enemies as the basis for a charge of disaffection with the “powers that be.” Again, slavery in some form was universal. Servitude was held to be the proper condition of a large part of the human race. No man who lived during the existence of the Roman empire would have ventured to predict the ultimate downfall of slavery. It is interesting to note in this connection that Basil Hall, writing as late as 1828, while admitting everything that could be alleged on the evils of slavery, thought that to do away with it seemed “so completely beyond the reach of any human exertions that I consider the abolition of slavery as one of the most profitless of all possible subjects of discussion.” On the supposition, then, that slavery must continue indefinitely, if it could ever be abolished, it was the duty of the philanthropist to do what he could to ameliorate the condition of the servile class by educating their masters in the principles of a humane philosophy, rather than to incur the risk of making it worse by the suggestion of emancipation. If the good man is kind to his beast, he cannot fail to treat kindly his bondman. It does not seem inconsistent with the general tenor of Seneca’s writings to assume that he thought the best way to mitigate the condition of the slaves was to indoctrinate their owners with a philosophy that would accord to them kind treatment, rather than to seek to bring about their liberation. Besides, the slaves themselves were not often conscious of their unfortunate legal status. The best they desired for themselves was that they might fall into the hands of a good master. That such men were not altogether wanting, even among the Romans, is evident from the many instances of rare devotion shown by their slaves.