Besides material inducements almost every object of human desire may tempt to corrupt action. Social position, personal reputation, office, power, the favour of women, the gratification of revenge—all these have been artfully adapted by corruptionists to bear with the greatest weight upon the tempted individual. Far more often, however, temptations of this kind originate within. They are the more dangerous because they prevail with men of much higher type than venal voters or boodling aldermen. But it will be objected that these are not necessarily objects of corrupt desire; that on the contrary they are currently recognised as part of the necessary driving power of political and other human activities, and praised as such by contemporaries and historians alike. The point is well taken in so far as it is maintained that such rewards are not necessarily sought by corrupt means. So far as that is concerned, the money which a corrupt legislator accepts is not bad in itself, nor need it be put by him to other than very creditable uses. The major evil lies in the deflection from duty which the money bought, in the resultant deterioration of character and in the contagion of bad example. Precisely the same thing may be said of the so-called higher objects of desire to gain which men sell their political honour. This distinction goes far toward disposing of the objection that such motives are not corrupt because they are currently recognised as necessary and beneficial in political life. So far as their effect is the reinforcement of the influences which make for the performance of public duty there is no reason why they should not be regarded as good. To regard them in the same way when they have a directly contrary moral effect is a pernicious perversion of a true idea. Nevertheless the fact must be faced that the public conscience is often deceived on this point; and that as a consequence practices are tolerated which will not bear the most cursory moral inspection. Sometimes these practices become so common that all consciousness of wrong-doing is lost. On this ground it might be maintained with reason that they are not corrupt according to the conventional morality of the time. It is this condition of affairs which makes the subtler aspects of corruption so much more dangerous and so much less easy to cope with than common bribery. Yet even here the outlook is hopeful. Corruption in its more insidious forms is not the vice of low intellects. Hence in many cases education of the public conscience will either suffice to banish these forms of evil or may be depended upon to find the legal means of destroying them. Our own recent experience with the abolition of railroad passes is a case in point, although passes can hardly be considered an extremely subtle means of corruption.