Cecil saw that Essex and Ralegh were the only men considerable enough to thwart his own project of supremacy. He had disposed of Essex; he had urged him on to his ruin by appearing to favour his ambitions. Ralegh remained. And Ralegh's overthrow was deliberately schemed, and quietly carried into execution. In Cecil's scheme the most unpleasant aspect of the time is apparent. The acquisition of home and foreign knowledge was necessarily accompanied by an intricate system of espionage. It was incumbent upon a man in Cecil's position to use spies and agents at home and abroad, to check and recheck all information that came to him. He must keep himself in touch with the under-current of feeling, in order that he might be prepared for emergency; and to a large extent upon this knowledge, which he was bound to acquire, was based his own power, and on his power he was perfectly justified in thinking that the safety of the country rested. It is for the moralist to decide between what is under-hand and what is politic. It would seem that the two were inextricably mingled, not because of the depravity of the men living at that time, but simply because of the extreme difficulty of acquiring exact information. Morality has perhaps changed less than appears on the surface. Morality, however, has been modified by the application of the powers of steam and of electricity more perceptibly than by the spread of religion. The character of life has changed rather than the character of men. Deceit is a confession of weakness, either in the deceiver or in the deceived; and the range of man's power was then limited by barriers which no longer exist.