[176] Lady Minto, _Life of Lord Minto_, i., 90; Wilberforce, _Life of Wilberforce_, i., 48. [177] Anson, _Law of the Constitution_, ii., 129. CHAPTER XIII. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PROGRESS. (1760-1801.) The first forty-one years of the reign are marked by important social and economic changes, some of which began earlier, and some were not fully carried out till later. Though the cursory review of them attempted in this chapter will extend beyond the date which we have already reached, it seems time to say something of such matters, and a look ahead will make the later narrative more complete and intelligible. With the painful exception of a deterioration in the condition of the poor, these changes were for the better. Manners became more decent, pity was more easily evoked by human suffering, and culture more widely diffused. Moral improvement may be traced to a revival of practical religion and to a general reaction from the artificial cast of thought of earlier days, while as forces on the same side may be reckoned the influence of the king and, in a greater degree, that exercised by a number of distinguished men such as Johnson and Burke. Ideas elaborated and propounded by French philosophers shook the smug satisfaction of the world in what was hard, shallow, and insincere, and combined with the stress of a great war to complete the slow progress of a change in English taste. After long hesitation literature and art finally turned from unreality and convention, and drew inspiration direct from nature. As regards material progress, manufactures and commerce were enormously increased by the use of mechanical inventions, and the productive power of the soil by improvements in agriculture. The conditions of industry changed and, as must ever be the case, industrial revolution brought suffering on the poor.