meaning, such as the terms "animism"
and "survival," happily introduced by Professor Tylor. But most
phenomena belonging to our science have not yet been investigated, so
it is no wonder that different writers (sometimes even the same writer
on different pages) give different names to the same phenomenon,
whereas, on the other hand, sometimes the same term (e.g., matriarchate)
is applied to widely different phenomena. As for the subject we are
about to treat of, we shall presently see that several writers have
given a definition of slavery; but no one has taken the trouble to
inquire whether his definition can be of any practical use in social
science. Therefore, we shall try to give a good definition and justify
it.

But we may not content ourselves with this; we must also pay attention
to the meaning of the term "slavery" as commonly employed. There are two
reasons for this. First, we must always rely upon the statements of
ethnographers. If an ethnographer states that some savage tribe carries
on slavery, without defining in what this "slavery" consists, we have to
ask: What may our informant have meant? And as he is likely to have used
the word in the sense generally attached to it, we have to inquire: What
is the ordinary meaning of the term "slavery"?

The second reason is this. Several theoretical writers speak of slavery
without defining what they mean by it; and we cannot avail ourselves of
their remarks without knowing what meaning they attach to this term. And
as they too may be supposed to have used it in the sense in which it is
generally used, we have again to inquire: What is the meaning of the
term "slavery" in ordinary language?

The general use of the word, as is so often the case, is rather
inaccurate. Ingram says:

Careless or rhetorical writers use the words "slave" and
"slavery" in a very lax way. Thus, when protesting against the
so-called "Subjection of Women," they absurdly apply those
terms to the condition of the wife in the modern society of the
west--designations which are inappropriate even in the case of
the inmate of Indian zenanas; and they speak of the modern
worker as a "wage-slave," even though he is backed by a
powerful trade-union. Passion has a language of its own, and
poets and orators must doubtless be permitted to denote by the
word "slavery" the position of subjects of a state who labor
under civil disabilities or are