The same thing has always been true in every society; but the names, powers, superstitions have been so extremely complicated that no one could follow the laws of interlocking motive, except by inference and prophetic insight. Take the case of a very selfish man fighting his way up through society in the reign of Louis XVIII. He meets a Bourbon influence, an ecclesiastical influence, a Napoleonic influence, a republican influence. He grapples with every man he meets, using the hooks of self-interest in that man. The forces at work under Louis XVIII. were as simple as with us. Only the nomenclature is different, and more complex. It is easy in America to see the working of one man’s selfishness upon another’s. Let alone the market overt, it is easy to trace the subtle social relations, when they are for the bad. It was easy to follow the effect of your conduct in asking the dishonest business magnate to dinner, because the young man spoke of it. He was shocked and injured. But we also found out by the episode that before you did the thing, you were really a factor for good in his life, holding up his conscience and his ideals. The inexpressible subtlety in the mechanism of man makes the transmission of the force for good as easy as that of the force for evil. They are of the same character, and very often flow through the same channels. There is no more mystery in the one case than in the other. Consider what is done in the course of any practical movement for reform. A bad bill is pending at Albany. In order to beat it, a party of men whose characters are trusted, get on a train, and the whole State watches them proceed to Albany. This is often enough to defeat a measure. The good their pilgrimage does, is done then and there instantly, by example, by suggestion. If, when they get to Albany, they sell out their cause, the harm they do is done then and there by example, by suggestion. They make some concession which lessens friction but suggests Tammany Hall. This is the only part of the transaction that reaches the great public. Ask the laboring man and he will give you a digest of the whole episode in a shrug. If a reform candidate is running on the platform “Thou shalt not steal,” and the boss desires to corrupt him, the boss asks him to drop in for a chat. If he goes, every one hears of it the next day, and every one is a little corrupted himself. A thousand well-meaning men say he did right. Had he resisted, these same men would have cried “Bravo!” and thereafter taken a higher view of human nature. It is by a succession of such minute shocks of good or bad example that communities are affected. The truth seems to be that our lives are ruled by laws of influence which are in themselves exceedingly direct. But the operation of them is concealed from us by our preoccupation over details.