III. In attempting to define corruption, emphasis was laid upon the condition that the duty misperformed or neglected for personal reasons must be _recognised_. The latter word needs further elucidation. Political duties are defined at great length, of course, in constitutions, laws, and charters. Yet with all our care in providing laws to govern our governors it cannot be maintained that political duty is always so clear as to be easily recognisable. It may indeed be the case that we have at times clouded the situation by the very number and complexity of our legislative acts. Able lawyers frequently differ, for instance, in their views regarding the powers and limitations affecting the action of a mayor under a city charter in a given case. Again, the amount of work required of limited bodies of men is sometimes so great that its full performance is physically impossible, even if we assume perfect comprehension and perfect efficiency on their part. Thus our municipal police forces, it is often asserted, are quite insufficient to execute all the laws and ordinances which it is their duty to enforce. The discretion which they must therefore exercise is an extremely dangerous one, and the continuance of its exercise, suggesting the possibility of suppressing this or that law for personal reasons, is very apt to be provocative of corrupt manipulation. Apart from the difficulty of clearly perceiving duty, owing to the number and complexity of our legal requirements, certain degrees of difficulty, varying with the nature of the political service required, deserve consideration. A public official whose work is purely administrative and ministerial would supposedly have a relatively clear path before him. Deflection from it should be easily recognisable and punishable. Thus the making of inspections or the granting of permits by authorised officials would seem to be too open for corrupt influences to tamper with. Yet even here the complexities and volume of the business presented and the material interests involved lead to many dishonest practices, as shown in the granting of liquor licenses and building permits, the inspection of life-saving devices, and so on. Judicial authorities have statutes and precedents to guide them, but every new case presents peculiar circumstances which may furnish opportunity or concealment for a sinister deflection. When we come to superior executive officers who are intrusted with large discretionary powers, and to legislators whose main function is the determination of policy, it is evident that the path of duty is frequently indefinite. To officials so situated personal advantages may offer themselves on both sides of a given question. Amid so complicated a play of motives as must assail these authorities, it becomes at times a matter of almost infinite difficulty to distinguish and disentangle those more or less remotely personal and venal and to give proper weight to those