Lastly, let it be remembered that the servile condition remains as truly an institution of the State when it attaches permanently and irrevocably at any one time to a particular set of human beings as when it attaches to a particular class throughout their lives. Thus the laws of Paganism permitted the slave to be enfranchised by his master: it further permitted children or prisoners to be sold into slavery. The Servile Institution, though perpetually changing in the elements of its composition, was still an unchanging factor in the State. Similarly, though the State should only subject to slavery those who had less than a certain income, while leaving men free by inheritance or otherwise to pass out of, and by loss to pass into, the slave class, that slave class, though fluctuating as to its composition, would still permanently exist. Thus, if the modern industrial State shall make a law by which servile conditions shall not attach to those capable of earning more than a certain sum by their own labour, but shall attach to those who earn less than this sum; or if the modern industrial State defines manual labour in a particular fashion, renders it compulsory during a fixed time for those who undertake it, but leaves them free to turn later to other occupations if they choose, undoubtedly such distinctions, though they attach to conditions and not to individuals, establish the Servile Institution. Some considerable number must be manual workers by definition, and while they were so defined would be slaves. Here again the composition of the Servile class would fluctuate, but the class would be permanent and large enough to stamp all society. I need not insist upon the practical effect: that such a class, once established, tends to be fixed in the great majority of those which make it up, and that the individuals entering or leaving it tend to become few compared to the whole mass. There is one last point to be considered in this definition. It is this:-- Since, in the nature of things, a free society must enforce a contract (a free society consisting in nothing else but the enforcement of free contracts), how far can that be called a Servile condition which is the result of contract nominally or really free? In other words, is not a contract to labour, however freely entered into, servile of its nature when enforced by the State? For instance, I have no food or clothing, nor do I possess the means of production whereby I can produce any wealth in exchange for such. I am so circumstanced that an owner of the Means of Production will not allow me access to those Means unless I sign a contract to serve him for a week at a wage of bare subsistence. Does the State in enforcing that contract make me for that week a slave?