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 conceivably have taken place by the time this book is printed), will occur suddenly. There will be a day when the manager of a business house could, with immunity from any overt punishment except the loss of his employment, receive a secret bribe from another house with which he was doing business on behalf of his master; and a succeeding day on which, for the same offence against commercial integrity, he could be charged before a magistrate and ultimately punished by the law. Thus the difference between scientific progress and social progress is not so great as has been sometimes imagined. And on the other hand, although to the casual observer scientific discoveries and new inventions often appear to have been attained at a single step, to a person interested in the particular branch of science, or the particular path of invention where a new achievement occurs, it is generally quite evident that the latter has been led up to by steady progress extending over a long period. The existence of unidentified constituents in atmospheric air, for instance, must have been long suspected before the isolation of argon gave, to the public eye, the impression of a sudden discovery: and astronomical disturbances have generally puzzled a great army of observers for a long time before the public is indulged by the announcement of a "new" star in the heavens.

To the reader who has been good enough to