They have been going on for some time past.

The changes are less striking as society advances, and we find fewer alterations for us to notice.
Probably each generation will have less change to record than the generation that preceded; still every one who is tolerably advanced in life must feel that, comparing its beginning and its close, he has witnessed two epochs, and that in advanced life he looks on a different world from one which he can remember.

To elucidate this fact has been my present object, and in attempting this task I cannot but feel how trifling and unsatisfactory my remarks must seem to many who have a more enlarged and minute acquaintance with Scottish life and manners than I have.

But I shall be encouraged to hope for a favourable, or at least an indulgent, sentence upon these Reminiscences, if to any of my readers I shall have opened a fresh insight into the subject of social changes amongst us.

Many causes have their effect upon the habits and customs of mankind, and of late years such causes have been greatly multiplied in number and activity.