ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 123 



Political opponents are no longer beheaded on the accession of 

 a new party to power ; neither are they thrust into dungeons nor 

 exiled, as formerly. Persecution for opinion's sake has practically 

 ceased. Scientific men are no longer burned at the stake, like Bruno 

 and Servetus, nor made to recant, like Galileo and Buffon. Witch- 

 craft has dwindled into innocent palmistry, and heresy is only pun- 

 ished in a few backward communities by a mild form of social 

 ostracism. Imprisonment for debt has been abolished, and the 

 P'leet and the galleys are things of the past. Primogeniture and 

 entail have disappeared from most codes of law, and trial by jury 

 has been instituted in the most influential states. The slave trade 

 has been suppressed wherever European powers have acquired su- 

 premacy, and slavery has been abolished in all the most enlight- 

 ened countries. Vast public and private charities have been insti- 

 tuted, and societies for the prevention of cruelty to children and 

 to animals receive the sanction of law. And finally a great moral 

 crusade, with a display of far more zeal than knowledge, is being 

 preached against the admitted evils of intemperance. 



There has, then, been some moral progress within the historic 

 period, but, considering the amount of moral agitation, it has been 

 slight. 



It is the characteristic of moral progress that it takes place rhyth- 

 mically. In the achievement of moral reforms there are always 

 experienced partial and temporary failures, prolonged interruptions, 

 serious reverses, and constantly recurring waves of reaction, so 

 that at no time has it been possible for the candid observer to 

 perceive that any certain advance was being made. The- ground 

 continually being lost is never appreciably less then the ground 

 gained, and none but the ignorant, the blinded, or the oversanguine 

 see much cause for congratulation. In the great ocean of moral 

 action so nearly equal are the tidal ebbs and flows that only the stoi- 

 cal philosopher whose vision ranges back into the remotest past or 

 forward unto the remotest future, with utter contempt for the 

 transient present, can perceive the minute increments of secular 

 change — much as the geologist, provided with his vast time- 

 measures, perceives the changes that are slowly taking place on the 

 coasts of continents washed by the tides and waves ot the appar- 

 ently changeless ocean of waters. 



Such is moral progress in society. With it we may now compare, 

 or rather contrast, the other form of social progress which we have 

 distinguished as material. 



