works throughout the community, actuating some men in its higher, others in its lower forms; but, except where the force of tradition or prejudice is too strong for it, invariably moulding conduct into accordance with the more complex requirements of advancing civilisation.  Its action, of course, is not wholly advantageous.  Growing needs and more complicated relations suggest to men fresh devices for compassing their selfish ends, such as the various forms of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy, as well as more enlarged or more effective schemes of beneficence, stricter or more intelligent applications of the principle of justice, and possibilities of higher and freer developments of their faculties.  But, on the whole, and setting aside as exceptional certain periods of retrogression, such as the decline of the Roman Empire, the evolution of society seems to be attended by the progress of morality, and specially by the amelioration of social relations, whether between individuals, families, or states.  The intelligence that apprehends the greater good re-acts upon the desire to attain it, and the result is the combination of more rational aims with a purer interest in the pursuit of them.

This tendency in society at large to modify and re-adjust its conduct in conformity with fuller and more improved conceptions of well-being, which are themselves suggested by a growing experience, is reinforced, especially in the later stages of civilisation, by the consciously reflective action of philosophers and reformers.  It is the function of these classes not only to give expression to the thoughts which are working obscurely in the minds of other men, but also to detect those aspects and bearings of conduct which are not obvious to the general intelligence.  This task is effected partly by tracing actions to their indirect and remote results, partly by more distinctly realising their results, whether immediate or remote, direct or indirect, and partly by generalising them, that is to say, by considering what would happen to society if men generally were to act in that manner.  Thus, take the case of lying.  In primitive states of society, and even in some more advanced nations, no great opprobrium attaches to telling a lie.  In ancient Greece, for instance, veracity by no means occupied the same prominent position among the virtues that it does among ourselves, and, even now, Teutonic races are generally credited with a peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of truthfulness.  This improved sentiment as regards veracity is, no doubt, partly due to the realisation of its importance and of the inconveniences which result from the breaches of it, especially in commercial affairs, by the members of a community at large; but it must also, to a great extent, have been produced by the definite teaching conveyed in books, and by moral and religious instructors.  Follow out a lie to all its consequences, realise the feelings of the person deceived by it, when he has discovered