The forecast now almost concluded, imperfect and visionary as it must necessarily be, was commenced with some reflections on the rate of future progress made probable by the movements of the recent past. But nothing whatever can be deduced from what history, remote or recent, shows us, to suggest that any stable institution can be created otherwise than by steady development: it is only the speed of development which is likely to alter, and even this will only alter by a progression gaining impetus from the influence of its own components. Whether we consider material improvements effected by science and invention and the interaction of these; or social improvements effected by readjustment of the conditions of life forced upon us through the influence of intellectual and moral changes in the individual units of society making themselves felt as aggregated forces; the manner of attainment is nearly identical. It is commonly objected to this view, that whereas science and invention commonly progress in a movement characterised (so to speak) by a succession of jerks, social conditions change imperceptibly. But thus to object is to overlook the fact that, while no doubt society develops from time to time certain needs whose growth is so steady as to preclude the possibility of pointing to a final moment when the satisfaction of them has become at length inevitable, yet, when this satisfaction is gained by legislative enactment, there is always a moment when the public, ripe for a given reform, takes definite possession of it. For example (to name a comparatively recent case), no doubt the desire for some method by which the public could distinguish between foreign and home-made articles of merchandise had for some time been generally felt before the passing of the Merchandise Marks Act fixed a moment at which all dubiety on the subject would vanish, by endeavouring to require that any imported object bearing marks calculated to give the impression that it had been manufactured in England should also bear a definite and correct statement as to its place of origin. Whether we consider this enactment to have been desirable or not, it is impossible to deny that there was a specific moment when it took effect. And similarly, the bill for the repression of secret commissions in business has come so near to being passed through Parliament that many people imagine it to be already law, though it is not, at the time of writing, even (in a technical sense) before the legislature. Without question, therefore, public opinion is ripe for this reform, and has with great gradualness become so: but the reform itself, when it takes place (as it may quite conceivably have taken place by the time this book is printed), will occur suddenly. There will be a day when the manager of a business house could, with immunity from any overt punishment except the loss of his employment, receive a secret bribe from another house with