Having now made use of all the original material the possession of which led me into the preparation of the present paper, it might at this point properly be brought to a close; but I am tempted to go on and touch on one further point which has long been with me a matter of doubt, and in regard to which I have been disposed to reach opposite conclusions at different times,--I refer to the comparative morality of the last century and that which is now closing. Has there been during the nineteenth century, taken as a whole, a distinct advance in the matter of sexual morality as compared with the eighteenth? Or has the change, which it is admitted has taken place, been only in outward appearance, while beneath a surface of greater refinement human nature remains ever and always the same? It is unquestionably true that in a large and widely differentiated community like that in which we live the individual, no matter who he is, knows very little of what may be called the real "true inwardness" of his surroundings. Any one who wishes to satisfy himself on this point need only seek out some elderly and retired country doctor or lawyer of an observing turn of mind and retentive memory, and then, if the inquirer should be fortunate enough to lead such an one into a confidential mood, listen to his reminiscences. It has been my privilege to accomplish this result on several occasions; and I may freely say that I have always emerged from those interviews in a more or less morally dishevelled condition. After them I have for considerable periods entertained grave and abiding doubts whether, except in outward appearance and respect for conventionalities, the present could claim any superiority over the past. A cursory inspection of the criminal and immoral literature of the day, which the printing-press now empties out in a volume heretofore undreamed of, tends strongly to confirm this feeling of doubt,--which becomes almost a conviction when, from time to time, the realistic details of some Lord Colin Campbell or Sir Charles Dilke or Charles Stewart Parnell scandal are paraded in the newspapers. Yet, such staggering evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, I find myself unable to get away from the record; and that record, so far as it has cursorily reached me in the course of my investigations, leads me to conclude that the real moral improvement of the year 1891, as compared with the conditions in that respect existing in the year 1691 or even 1791, is not less marked and encouraging than is the change of language and expression permissible in the days of Shakspeare and of Defoe and of Fielding to that to which we are accustomed in the pages of Scott, Thackeray and Hawthorne.