1.] [Footnote 024: Omne tulit punctum, qui miscuit utile dulci.

Horace.] * * * * * CHAP.

VI.
We proceed now to the consideration of the _commerce_: in consequence of which, people, endued with the same feelings and faculties as ourselves, were made subject to the laws and limitations of _possession_.
This commerce of the human species was of a very early date.

It was founded on the idea that men were _property_; and, as this idea was coeval with the first order of _involuntary_ slaves, it must have arisen, (if the date, which we previously affixed to that order, be right) in the first practices of barter.

The Story of Joseph, as recorded in the sacred writings, whom his brothers sold from an envious suspicion of his future greatness, is an ample testimony of the truth of this conjecture.