Religions are founded, fraternal societies are formed, armies are marshalled, and nations are grown about a sympathetic idea, to which the majority subscribe. The aim is always the same: growth, protection, harmony, happiness, Heaven. But the growth is slow, the protection is only partial, the harmony is incomplete, perfect happiness is impossible, and Heaven is indefinite and remote; because their organization tolerates selfishness as a necessary "mark of Cain," instead of being built on the foundation of Emancipation. All true calculation must recognize a unit of value; in menticulture the only true unit is Emancipation. In harmony, instruments cannot be tuned from several standards; there must be one key-note; and harmony in menticulture can only come from the key-note--Emancipation. SLAVES OR FREEMEN--WHICH? Within the memory of many now living, Society was dominated by the belief that human body-slavery was a Divine institution. Thirty-five years ago a great war was waged against the institution in this country, at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives, and thousands of millions of dollars worth of property. That war resulted not only in killing the institution itself, but also in the extirpation of the idea of its Divine origin. [Sidenote: Body-Slavery Overcome] It is no longer a question of debate in any part of the civilized word, but an established international understanding, that slavery is not only unjust to the enslaved, but an evil, the effects of which are shared by the master. [Sidenote: Mercenary Fashion a Cruel Master] Negro slavery in America was, however, a mild and beneficent institution, as compared to the voluntary servitude to Mercenary Fashion, which enthrals so many at the present time. Mercenary Fashion places burdens on rich and poor alike, and costs Society more lives and property yearly, than all that was wasted during the war of the Rebellion. Most of the masters of the negro were kindly and considerate, and not a few of the negro uncles and aunties now living, regret the "good old times when marster and missus did all the plannin' and pervidin', and all we uns had to do was work, and sing and dance." [Sidenote: Ostentation Panders to Fashion]