n to put you into a position to
do your duty in a signal manner. Duty is done upon truisms.

But let discoveries in morals or in physics have come; suppose any extent
of political amelioration you please; and grant that the more outward
evils have been conquered by combined effort. Let our drains flow like
rivulets, and imagine that light and air permeate those dwellings which
now moulder in a loathsome obscurity. Let the poor be cared for in their
health, their amusements, their education, and their labour. Still the
great work for an employer of labour remains for ever to be renewed; that
which consists in the daily intercourse of life, in that perpetual
exercise of care and kindness concerning those small things which, small
as they may be, are nevertheless the chief part of men's lives. Perhaps
the greatest possible amelioration of the human lot is to be found in the
improvement of our notions of the duties of master to man. It were hard
to say what could be named as an equivalent for even a slight improvement
in that respect, seeing that there is no day in which millions upon
millions of transactions do not come within its limits. If this relation
were but a little improved, with what a different mind would the great
mass of men go to their work in the morning, from the slave who toils
amid rice fields in Georgia to the serf in Lithuanian forests. Nor would
those far above the extremes of serfdom fail to reap a large part of the
benefit. It cannot be argued that civilization renders men independent:
it often fastens but more firmly the fetters of servitude--at least it
binds them upon limbs more easy to be galled. Its tendency is to give
harsh words the power of blows. Consider what a thing it is to be
master. To have the king-like privilege of addressing others first, to
comment for ever on their conduct, while you are free from any reciprocal
animadversion. Think what an immeasurable difference it must make,
whether your subordinate feels that all he does is sure to be taken for
the best, that he will meet with continual graciousness, that he has a
master who is good lord and brother to him: or whether he lives in
constant doubt, timidity, and discomfort, with a restless desire of
escape ever uppermost in his mind. I do not apply this only to the
ordinary relation of master and servant. You sometimes see the most
cruel use made even of a slight social superiority, where the cruelty is
enhanced by th