stinctly the
other way. In weighing the evidence, we must bear in mind, that the much
greater public attention at present paid to such matters, is itself a
source of error--is apt to generate the belief that evils now becoming
recognised, are evils that have recently arisen; when in truth they have
merely been hitherto disregarded, or less regarded. It has been clearly
thus with crime, with distress, with popular ignorance; and it is very
probably thus with trading-dishonesties. As it is true of individual
beings, that their height in the scale of creation may be measured by
the degree of their self-consciousness; so, in a sense, it is true of
societies. Advanced and highly-organised societies are distinguished
from lower ones by the evolution of something that stands for a _social
self-consciousness_--a consciousness in each citizen, of the state of
the aggregate of citizens. Among ourselves there has, happily, been of
late years a remarkable growth of this social self-consciousness; and we
believe that to this is chiefly ascribable the impression that
commercial malpractices are increasing.

Such facts as have come down to us respecting the trade of past times,
confirm this view. In his "Complete English Tradesman," Defoe mentions,
among other manoeuvres of retailers, the false lights which they
introduced into their shops, for the purpose of giving delusive
appearances to their goods. He comments on the "shop rhetorick," the
"flux of falsehoods," which tradesmen habitually uttered to their
customers; and quotes their defence as being that they could not live
without lying. He says, too, that there was scarce a shopkeeper who had
not a bag of spurious or debased coin, from which he gave change
whenever he could; and that men, even the most honest, triumphed in
their skill in getting rid of bad money. These facts show that the
mercantile morals of that day were, at any rate, not better than ours;
and if we call to mind the numerous Acts of Parliament passed in old
times to prevent frauds of all kinds, we perceive the like implication.
As much may, indeed, be safely inferred from the general state of
society.

When, reign after reign, governments debased the coinage, the moral
tone of the middle classes could scarcely have been higher than now.
Among generations whose sympathy with the claims of fellow-creatures was
so weak, that the slave-trade was not only thought justifiable, but the
initiator of it was rewarded by