"It is seldom that we know anything accurately on any subject that
we have not made matter of careful study," said Mr. Monk, "and very
often do not do so even then. We are very apt to think that we men
and women understand one another; but most probably you know nothing
even of the modes of thought of the man who lives next door to you."
"I suppose not."
"There are general laws current in the world as to morality. 'Thou
shalt not steal,' for instance. That has necessarily been current as
a law through all nations. But the first man you meet in the street
will have ideas about theft so different from yours, that, if you
knew them as you know your own, you would say that this law and yours
were not even founded on the same principle. It is compatible with
this man's honesty to cheat you in a matter of horseflesh, with that
man's in a traffic of railway shares, with that other man's as to a
woman's fortune; with a fourth's anything may be done for a seat in
Parliament, while the fifth man, who stands high among us, and who
implores his God every Sunday to write that law on his heart, spends
every hour of his daily toil in a system of fraud, and is regarded as
a pattern of the national commerce!"
Mr. Monk and Phineas were dining together at Mr.
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