A circumstance which has probably contributed largely, in recent times, to aggravate the feeling of false shame is the new departure which, in commercial communities, has been taken by class-distinctions.  The old line, which formed a sharp separation between the nobility and all other classes, has been almost effaced, and in its place have been substituted many shades of difference between different grades of society, together with a broad line of demarcation between what may be called the genteel and the ungenteel classes.  It was a certain advantage of the old line that it could not be passed, and, hence, though there might be some jealousy felt towards the nobility as a class, there were none of the heart-burnings which attach to an uncertain position or a futile effort to rise.  In modern society, on the other hand, there is hardly any one whose position is so fixed, that he may not easily rise above or fall below it, and hence there is constant room for social ambition, social disappointment, and social jealousy.  Again, the broad line of gentility, which now corresponds most closely with the old distinction of nobility, is determined by such a number of considerations,—­birth, connexions, means, manners, education, with the arbitrary, though almost essential, condition of not being engaged in retail trade,—­that those who are just excluded by it are apt to feel their position somewhat unintelligible, and, therefore, all the more galling to their pride and self-respect It would be curious to ascertain what proportion of the minor inconveniences and vexations of modern life is due to the perplexity, on the one side, and the soreness, on the other, created by the exclusiveness of class-distinctions.  That these distinctions are an evil, in themselves, there can, I think, be no doubt.  Men cannot, of course, all know one another, much less be on terms of intimacy with one another, and the degree of their acquaintance or intimacy will always be largely dependent on community of tastes, interests, occupations, and early associations.  But these facts afford no reason why one set of men should look down with superciliousness and disdain on another set of men who have not enjoyed the same early advantages or are not at present endowed with the same gifts or accomplishments as themselves, or why they should hold aloof from them when there is any opportunity of common action or social intercourse.  The pride of class is eminently unreasonable, and, in those who profess to believe in Christianity, pre-eminently inconsistent.  It will always, probably, continue to exist, but we may hope that it will be progressively modified by the advance of education, by the spread of social sympathy, and by a growing habit of reflexion.  The ideal social condition would be one in which, though men continued to form themselves into groups, no one thought the worse or the more lightly of another, because he belonged to a different group from himself.