Any association with a given end will have laws determined with reference to that end. When we pass, however, from the organ to the tissue, we still have an organic structure with certain rules of conduct and corresponding instincts, but we no longer have a definite end or a fixed material. The material, that is, is to be regarded as developing and determining the development of the subsidiary organs. And since the most efficient society normally survives, we may inversely infer from the survival of a society that it has developed the properties on which its efficiency depends. The actual laws existing at any period may not represent the greatest degree of efficiency possible; but they must be an approximate statement of the essential conditions. The moral law, as applicable to all members of a society, defines some of the most important qualities of the social tissue. It is as independent of the legislature as are the movements of the planets. This is true whether you resolve morality into reason or make it dependent upon utility. The action of any set of people can no more change the nature of facts than that of logical necessities. This is, however, fully true only of morality as it ought to be in correspondence with facts. Actual morality corresponds to men's theories about facts, and it may, therefore, deviate from what the code would be if they were incapable of error. But it is plain that, though it varies, it must vary within incomparably narrower limits than other systems of law, because its variation is determined by far more general conditions; it maintains itself, so to speak, by the direct action of the organic instincts. The doctrines of the greatest moral teacher, though somewhat in advance of prevailing standards, are successful only in proportion as they are congenial to existing sentiments, give articulate shape to thoughts already obscurely present in the social medium. Like Socrates, the reformer must be something of a midwife. Morality grows, and is not made; that is, it is the fruit of a gradual evolution of the organic instinct continued through many generations. The ordinary mind resists any change in principles instilled into it from birth; the great masses are sluggish in movement. The moral law has to be expressed in the form: "Be this," not "Do this." The existence of a character such that variations of circumstances will cause no deviation from morality is the only security for morals. The legislator is forced to classify conduct by its objective manifestations. But the cunning of the man who desires to evade the code can still devise innumerable methods of accomplishing his end indirectly. Law permits what it does not prohibit, and is, therefore, in danger of producing hypocrisy instead of virtue.