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In that first period of co-ordinate activity among men, the irreconcilable male energy was forced into service by the immediate pressure of pain and fear. Slavery was one step short of slaughter, as such accepted, as such hated. All that deep-rooted aversion to labour—sense of scorn for it, shame in it, honour in being free of it—was superimposed upon humanity at this period, and has never been fully outgrown. This terrible period, its wrong, its shame, its agony, its hopelessness, deeply impressed the growing brain of man, and, as this period was of great duration, it made possible to our minds the prodigious concepts of eternal torture.

Later, in the second stage of coerced action, that of wage labour, we have the reward used instead of the penalty. We will not whip the man if he does not work, but we will not feed him unless he does.

Our governing concept being that action is produced only by these means, we must needs use one or the other. Since we believe that if the slave were not in fear of punishment he would not work, or that if the employee were not in hope of pay he would not work, we act upon our belief consistently enough. We have outgrown the period where we believed we had a right to enforce labour by inflicting punishment; but we have not outgrown the only less primitive belief that we have a right to enforce it by withholding the reward. We do not yet, to any extent, recognise the other forces under which human beings act.