Such reckless usage is similar to that of the party politicians criticised above, and it is similarly adapted to produce either a callous levity or a sour distrust of social integrity which in the end must react unfavourably upon every constructive effort for social betterment. * * * * * IV. The motive of a corrupt act must be _some advantage more or less directly personal_. The grosser the nature of the advantage sought and the more directly selfish the purpose, the worse from the moral point of view is the transaction. Thus in the case of venal voters or boodling aldermen we have direct transfers of money or its equivalent, to be employed later, it may be, solely to the advantage of the men who sell themselves. Or still more reprehensible, high police officials or even mayors of cities may be in receipt of sums which they know were paid originally by criminals or prostitutes for license to disobey the law. Perhaps we are too prone to think of all political corruption as consisting essentially of such gross cases and sordid transactions. In one way it is unfortunate that this is not the case, for, if it were, the task of defining and uprooting the evil by law would be comparatively easy. As a matter of fact we have to deal with every possible _nuance_ of corruption, shading off from the most palpably illegal and immoral acts to apparently harmless transactions that are of everyday occurrence even in circles that would hotly deny the least imputation of wrong-doing.