If we are not mistaken, it may even be said that the degree of refinement that a community has attained is discernible by taking as a standpoint the merchantable character of truth. Wherever civilisation is advancing, the ultimate unserviceability of lying becomes the more apparent, and there ensues in consequence a depreciation in the value of veracity. The more widely truth is recognised, the more does it deteriorate in price, while falsehood ceases to arouse its former measure of reprobation. Then it is, and not, indeed, until then, that the old blundering remedy by means of oaths and oath-taking is laid aside as out of date and no longer availing. Nowadays, at least among most races of mankind, the ordinary inducements to veracity are of themselves felt to be sufficiently powerful as to leave no ground for contending that truthfulness should be the subject of rewards and bounties. No money value is attached as of right to the performance of an obvious duty, but in remoter times the recognition of such a doctrine, could it have been recognised at all, would have spared the coffers of Roman sesterces and have made the work of the Athenian pay-clerks hang lightly on their hands. The fact would seem to be that the prevalency of this deliberative swearing will always be found in inverse ratio to the prevalency of truth. The later civilisations may, therefore, be said to have profited by centuries of untruthfulness in that they have learnt the preponderating advantages of an intelligible code of truth. To seek an illustration by comparison of two periods perfectly dissimilar, it may be affirmed that there was no greater proportion of really truthful men in France at the period, say, of Voltaire, than twelve hundred years previously at the period of Gregory of Tours. But the countrymen of Voltaire had become fairly apprised of the expediency of common veracity, and their assertions, in consequence, were not accustomed to be disbelieved. But among the Fredegondes, the Clotaires, and the Cunegondes of Gregory's Frankish history, the case is wholly different. In that day it might almost be supposed from a perusal of the work that the faculty of truth-telling was lost, or more correctly that it had never arisen, so necessary was it considered to put a statement to the severest test before the possibility of its accuracy could be admitted. In an indulgent, selfish, but disciplined civilisation, a statement is generally presumed to be true which bears the ordinary impress of veracity. In periods considerably less intellectual and enlightened, we shall find that nothing is presumed to be true until it has been subjected to a searching process of corroboration. It is in fact this process of corroboration that has furnished all ranks of swearers with their necessary side-arms and equipment.