In the whole vocabulary of politics it would be difficult to point out any single term that is more frequently employed than the word “corruption.” Party orators and writers, journalists, “muck rakers,” and reformers all use it with the utmost freedom, and it occurs not uncommonly in the less ephemeral pages of political philosophers and historians. Transactions and conditions of very different kinds are stigmatised in this way, in many cases doubtless with entire justice; but apparently there is little disposition to inquire into the essential nature of corruption itself and to discriminate in the use of the word. Detailed definitions of corrupt practices and bribery are, of course, to be found in every highly developed legal code, but these are scarcely broad enough to cover the whole concept as seen from the viewpoint of political science or ethics. The sanctions of positive law are applied only to those more flagrant practices which past experience has shown to be so pernicious that sentiment has crystallised into statutory prohibitions and adverse judicial decisions. Even within this comparatively limited circle clearness and precision are but imperfectly attained. Popular disgust is frequently expressed at the ineptitude of the law’s definitions and the deviousness of the law’s procedure, as a result of which prosecutions of notoriously delinquent officials, politicians, and contractors so often and so ignominiously fail in the courts. If once we step outside the circle of legality, however, we find extremely confused, conflicting, and even unfair states of moral opinion regarding corruption. Public anger at some exposed villainy of this sort is apt to be both blind and exacting. Reform movements directed against corrupt abuses are no more free than are regular political organisations from partisan misrepresentation and partisan passion. With all their faults, however, it is largely from such forces and movements that we must expect not only higher standards of public morality, but also a clearer and more comprehensive legislative and judicial treatment of corrupt practices in the future. For this reason it would seem to be desirable, if possible, to formulate some fairly definite concept of corruption, broader than the purely legal view of the subject and applicable in a general way to the protean forms which evil of this sort assumes in practice.