From our point of view, slavery is a bad thing, but when it first came into existence it was a step upward and onward. If we take the history of slave societies and nations we shall soon find that their laws, their customs and their institutions were based upon the mode of producing wealth through the labor of slaves. There were two classes into which society was divided, a class of masters and a class of slaves. When slavery broke down and gave way to feudalism there were new ways of producing wealth. The laws of feudal societies, their customs and institutions, changed to meet the needs brought about through the new methods of making things. Under slavery, the slaves made wealth for their masters and were doled out food enough to keep them alive. The slave had no rights. Under feudalism, the serfs produced wealth for the lords parts of the time, working for themselves the rest of the time. They had some rights. The bounds of freedom were widened. Under neither of these systems was there a regular system of paying wages in money, such as we have to-day. The slave gave up all his product and took what the master was pleased to give him in the way of food, clothing and shelter. The serf divided his time between producing for the owner of the soil and producing for his family. The slave produced what his owner wanted; the serf produced what either he himself or his lord wanted. There came a time, about three hundred years ago, when the feudal system broke down before the beginnings of capitalism, the system which we are living under to-day, and which we Socialists think is breaking down as all other social systems have broken down before it. Under this system men have worked for wages and not because they wanted the things they were producing, nor because the men who employed them wanted the things, _but simply because the things could be sold and a profit made in the sale_. You will remember, Jonathan, that in a former letter I dealt with the nature of wealth. We saw then that wealth in our modern society consists of an abundance of things which can be sold. At bottom, we do not make things because it is well that they should be made, because the makers need them, but simply because the capitalists see possibilities of selling the things at a profit.