individual to his society, ensure, though by a slower process, the
general uniformity of a national character.... And so long as the
assimilating influences productive of it continue at work, it is
folly to suppose any one grade of a community can be morally
different from the rest. In whichever rank you see corruption, be
assured it equally pervades all ranks--be assured it is the
symptom of a bad social diathesis. Whilst the virus of depravity
exists in one part of the body-politic, no other part can remain
healthy."--SOCIAL STATICS, chap. xx. 7.

(21) Some twenty-eight years since, the author wrote and published the
following passage, not without practical knowledge of the subject;
and notwithstanding the great amelioration in the lot of factory-
workers, effected mainly through the noble efforts of Lord
Shaftesbury, the description is still to a large extent true:--
"The factory system, however much it may have added to the wealth
of the country, has had a most deleterious effect on the domestic
condition of the people. It has invaded the sanctuary of home,
and broken up family and social ties. It has taken the wife from
the husband, and the children from their parents. Especially has
its tendency been to lower the character of woman. The
performance of domestic duties is her proper office,--the
management of her household, the rearing of her family, the
economizing of the family means, the supplying of the family
wants. But the factory takes her from all these duties. Homes
become no longer homes. Children grow up uneducated and
neglected. The finer affections become blunted. Woman is no more
the gentle wife, companion, and friend of man, but his fellow-
labourer and fellow-drudge. She is exposed to influences which
too often efface that modesty of thought and conduct which is one