Other aspects of civilization, not so essential, are hardly less encouraging than the developments on which I have hitherto dwelt. Drunkenness, formerly an almost universal vice, is on the decrease. Among the educated classes it is only met with exceptionally, and is recognized as a morbid aberration; among the lower classes it continually grows less. The statistics of the savings banks show an ever-growing determination to save. The masses who used to rejoice in dirt now manifest an increasingly vigorous desire for a cleanliness that demands soap and baths. This indicates control of impulse, of the inclination for alcoholic drinks and the tendency to squander, and an increase of self-respect which recognizes dirt to be humiliating. These are activities of the moral feelings, their material activities. If, in spite of these material proofs of the progress of Morality in all social functions and in many individual habits, serious-minded men still maintain that it stands still or even that it shows retrogression compared with former times, this view, which is undoubtedly a mistaken one, is due to wrong interpretation of facts. Bouillier's remark that "social progress instead of increasing individual Morality weakens it, because society, in proportion as it is better organized, saves the individual the trouble of a number of virtuous actions" has a perfectly correct point of departure. Many tasks of neighbourly kindness and humane joint responsibility which used to be left to the inclination, the free choice and the noble zeal of individuals, and could be carried out or neglected by them, are now methodically fulfilled by the community. Saint Martin no longer needs to divide his cloak to give half to a poor shivering man. The public charity commission gives him winter clothes if he cannot afford to buy any. No knights are needed to protect innocence, weakness and humility from oppressors. The oppressed appeal successfully to the police, the court of justice, or, by writing to the papers, to public opinion. There is no need for Knights Templar or Knights of St. John to care for strangers and tend the sick. Inns and public hospitals are at their disposal. To-day there would be neither occasion nor reason for the miracle of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who against the orders of her hard husband took to the starving bread which was turned into roses. The poor are regularly fed in municipal and communal kitchens. Individual deeds of mercy are less necessary now than formerly, when, if they occurred, they were the outcome of exceptionally noble and devout sympathy and heroic self-sacrifice.