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 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 A STUDY OF THE RIGHTS, THE ORIGIN. 
 
 AND THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF 
 
 THE WEALTHIER CLASSES 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. MALLOCK 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'is life WORTH LIVING?' 'a HUMAN DOCUMBNT,' 
 ' UVBOUR AND THE POPULAR WELFARE,' ETC. 
 
 Toute civilisation est I'cEuvre des aristocrates. 
 
 Kenan. 
 'Tis thus the spirit of a single mind 
 
 Makes that of multitudes take one direction, 
 As roll the waters to the breathing wind, 
 
 Or roams the herd beneath the bull's protection. 
 Or as a little dog will lead the blind, 
 
 Or a bell-wether form the flock's connection 
 By tinkling sounds, when they go forth to victual, 
 Such is the sway of your great men o'er little. 
 
 There was not now a liiggace-boy but sought 
 
 Danger and spoil with ardour much increased; 
 And why .' Because a little — odd — old man, 
 Stript to his shirt, was come to lead the van. 
 
 BVRON. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
 1898 
 
 All right! reserved
 
 Copyright, 1898, 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 NorirooB ^ttBS 
 
 J. S. Cufhing k Co. — Berwick & Smith 
 
 Norwood Mats. U.S.A..
 
 1+1 
 
 60 b. I 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The word aristocracy as used in the title of this 
 volume has no exclusive, and indeed no special, 
 reference to a class distinguished by hereditary- 
 political privileges, by titles, or by heraldic pedigree. 
 It here means the exceptionally gifted and efficient 
 minority, no matter what the position in which its 
 members may have been born, or what the sphere 
 of social progress in which their exceptional effi- 
 ciency shows itself. I have chosen the word 
 aristocracy in preference to the word oligarchy 
 because it means not only the rule of the few, 
 but of the best or the most efficient of the few. 
 
 Of the various questions involved in the general 
 argument of the work, many would, if they were 
 to be examined exhaustively, demand entire treat- 
 ises to themselves rather than chapters. This is 
 specially true of such questions as the nature of 
 men's congenital inequalities, the effects of different 
 classes of motive in producing different classes of 
 action, and the effects of equal education on un- 
 equal talents and temperaments. But the practical 
 bearings of an argument are more readily grasped
 
 vi ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 when its various parts are set forth with com- 
 parative brevity, than they are when the attention 
 claimed for each is minute enough to do it justice 
 as a separate subject of inquiry ; and it has 
 appeared to me that in the present condition of 
 opinion, prevalent social fallacies may be more 
 easily combated by putting the case against them 
 in a form which will render it intelligible to every- 
 body, and by leaving many points to be elaborated, 
 if necessary, elsewhere. 
 
 I may also add that the conclusions here arrived 
 at, with whatever completeness they might have 
 explained, elaborated, and defended, would not, 
 in my opinion, do more than partially answer 
 the questions to which they refer. This volume 
 aims only at establishing what are the social rights 
 and social functions, in progressive communities, 
 of the few. The entire question of their duties 
 and proper liabilities, whether imposed on them by 
 themselves or by the State, has been left untouched. 
 This side of the question I hope to deal with here- 
 after. It is enough to observe here that it is 
 impossible to define the duties of the few, of the 
 rich, of the powerful, of the highly gifted, and to 
 secure that these duties shall be performed by 
 them, unless we first understand the extent of the 
 functions which they inevitably perform, and admit 
 frankly the indefeasible character of their rights.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 CHAPTER I '' 
 
 The Fundamental Error in Modern Sociological Study 
 
 PACK 
 
 Science during the middle of this century excited popular interest mainly 
 
 on account of its bearing on the doctrines of Christianity . . 3 
 
 Its popularity is now beginning to depend on its bearing not on religious 
 
 problems, but on social ......... 3 
 
 Science itself is undergoing a corresponding change .... 4 
 
 Its characteristic aim during the middle of the century was to deal with 
 
 physical and physiological evolution 4 
 
 Its characteristic aim now is to deal with the evolution of society . . 5 
 Social science itself is not wholly new ....... 5 
 
 What is new is the application to it of the evolutionary theory . , 6 
 This excites men by suggesting great social changes in the future, . . 7 
 which will give a speculative meaning to the history of humanity, . . 8 
 or secure for men now existing, or for their children, practical social ad- 
 vantages 8 
 
 Men have thus a double reason for being interested in social science, 
 
 and sociologists a doul^ reason for studying it; . . . . 9 
 and it has attracted a number of men of genius, who have applied to it 
 
 methods learned in the schoOT of physical science .... 9 
 Yet despite their genius and their diligence, all parties complain that the 
 
 results of their study are inconclusive . . ^P ... 10 
 Professor Marshall and Mr. Kidd, for instance, complain of the fact, but 
 
 can suggest no explanation of it . lo 
 
 What can the explanation be? 11 
 
 vii
 
 vm 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 The answer will be found in the fact just referred to — that social science 
 
 attempts to answer two distinct sets of questions; . . . .12 
 
 and one set — namely, the speculative — it has answered with great 
 
 success; 12 
 
 it has failed only in attempting to answer practical questions . . .13 
 
 Now the phenomena with which it has dealt successfully are phenomena 
 
 of social aggregates, considered as wholes; 13 
 
 but the practical problems of to-day, with which it has dealt unsuccess- 
 fully, arise out of the conflict between different parts of aggregates . 15 
 
 Social science has failed as a practical guide because it has not recog- 
 nised this distinction; . . . . . . . . .16 
 
 and hence arise most of the errors of the political philosophy of this cen- 
 tury 16 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Attempt to merge the Great Man in the 
 Aggregate 
 
 Whatever may be done by some men, or classes of men, sociologists are 
 at present accustomed to attribute to tnan .... 
 
 Mr. Kidd's Social Evolution, for instance, is based entirely on this pro 
 cedure 
 
 He quotes with approval two other writers who have been guilty of it; 
 
 who both attribute to man what is done by only a few men; . 
 
 and the consequences of their reasoning are ludicrous . 
 
 Mr. Kidd's reasoning itself is not less ludicrous. The first half of his 
 argument is that religion prompts the few to surrender advantages 
 to the many, which, if they chose to do so, they could keep . 
 
 The second half is that the many could have taken these advantages 
 from the few, and that religion alone prevented them from doing 
 so 
 
 This contradiction is entirely due to the faA that, having first divided 
 the social aggregate into two classes, he then obliterates his division, 
 and thinks of tha^both as " man " 
 
 Mr. Kidd's confusion ^^he result of no accidental error. It is the inev 
 itable result of a radically fallacious method ; . . . , 
 
 and of this method the chief exponent is Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 
 as a short summary of his arguments will show .... 
 
 17 
 
 17 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 24 
 25
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Mr. Spencer starts with saying that the chief impediment to social 
 
 science is the great-man theory; 25 
 
 for, if the appearance of the great man is incalculable, progress, if it de- 
 pends on him, must be incalculable also; 26 
 
 but if the great man is not a miraculous apparition, he owes his great- 
 ness to causes outside himself; ....... 27 
 
 and it is these causes which really produce the effects of which he is the 
 
 proximate initiator .......... 27 
 
 These effects, therefore, are to be explained by reference not to the great 
 
 man, but to the causes that are behind the great man ... 28 
 The true causes, says Mr. Spencer, of all social phenomena are physical 
 
 environment and men's natural character 29 
 
 The first physical cause of progress was an exceptionally fertile soil . 29 
 
 and an exceptionally bracing climate 29 
 
 All the conquering races came from fertile and bracing regions . . 30 
 There were other regions more fertile, but these were enervating; and 
 hence the inhabitants of the former enslaved the weaker inhabitants 
 
 of the latter 30 
 
 Again, division of labour, on which industrial progress depends, was 
 
 caused by difference in the products of different localities, . . 31 
 which led to the localisation of industries ...... 32 
 
 The localisation of industries in its turn led to road-making; ... 33 
 and roads made possible the centralisation of authority and interchange 
 
 of ideas 33 
 
 Next, as to men's natural character, which is the other cause of prog- 
 ress, 33 
 
 their primitive character did not fit them to progress, .... 34 
 till it was gradually improved by the evolution of marriage and the 
 
 family — especially of monogamy 34 
 
 Monogamy represents the survival of the fittest kind of sexual union . 35 
 It developed the affections and the practice of efficient co-operation . 35 
 The family being established, the nation gradually rose from it . -36 
 One family increased, and gave rise to many families, which were obliged, 
 
 in order to get food, to separate into different groups; ... 36 
 and the recompounding of these groups, for purposes of defence or 
 
 aggression, formed the nation; . 37 
 
 all government being in its origin military 37 
 
 But as the arts of life progress, industry emancipates itself from govern- 
 mental control, and becomes its own master, and also forms the 
 basis of political democracy 37
 
 X ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Now, if we consider all these conclusions of Mr. Spencer's, • • . 39 
 
 we shall find them to be all conclusions about aggregates as wholes, not 
 
 about parts of aggregates 39 
 
 The only differences recognised by him between men are differences be- 
 tween one homogeneous aggregate and another, .... 40 
 
 and differences between similar men who happen to be occupied dif- 
 ferently 41 
 
 But, as has already been said, the social problems of to-day arise out of 
 a conflict between different parts of the same aggregate; therefore 
 the phenomena of the aggregate as a whole do not help us . -42 
 
 The conflict between the parts of the aggregate arises from inequalities 
 
 of position ........... 43 
 
 of which Mr. Spencer's sociology takes no account .... 44 
 
 Social problems arise out of the desire of those whose positions are in- 
 ferior to have their positions changed; ...... 45 
 
 and the practical question is, is the change they desire possible? . . 45 
 
 To answer this question we must examine into the causes why such and 
 
 such individuals are in inferior, and others in superior positions . 46 
 
 Are inequalities in position due to alterable and accidental circum- 
 stances? 47 
 
 Or are they due to congenital inequalities which no one can ever do 
 
 away with? ........... 47 
 
 Social inequalities are partly due to circumstances; .... 48 
 
 but most people will admit that congenital inequalities in talent have 
 
 much to do with them 48 
 
 Why then insist on this fact? 49 
 
 Because this fact is precisely what our contemporary sociologists ignore, 49 
 
 as Mr. Spencer shows us by his distinct admissions and assertions, as 
 
 well as by the character of his conclusions 50 
 
 His condemnation of the great-man theory is a removal of all congenital 
 
 inequalities from his field of study; . . . . . . -5^ 
 
 and he actually defines an aggregate as being composed of approxi- 
 mately equal units 52 
 
 His failure and that of others, as practical sociologists, arises from their 
 
 building on this false hypothesis 53
 
 CONTENTS 3d 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Great Men, as the true Cause of Progress 
 
 PAGB 
 
 The ignoring of natural inequalities is a deliberate procedure. Let us 
 
 see how it is defended 55 
 
 Let us examine Mr. Spencer's defence of it 55 
 
 He defends it in two ways ; 55 
 
 (i) by saying that the great man does not really do what he seems 
 
 to do; 55 
 
 (2) by saying that what he seems to do is not really much ... 56 
 
 He admits that the great man does do something exceptional in war; . 57 
 but denies that he does anything exceptional in the sphere of peaceful 
 
 progress 57 
 
 But how does the great man fulfil his function in war? By ordering 
 
 others 58 
 
 The great man, in peace, does precisely the same thing .... 59 
 Mr. Spencer, for example, orders the compositors who put his books 
 
 into type 59 
 
 The inventor orders the men by whom his inventions are manu- 
 factured 60 
 
 The great man of business orders his employees 61 
 
 The hotel-keeper orders his staff 62 
 
 All these men resemble the great military commander; and if the 
 
 latter is a social cause, so are the former 63 
 
 Next, as to the contention that the great man is the proximate cause 
 
 only, and not the true cause — 63 
 
 This, as Mr. Spencer and those popular writers of to-day show us, . 64 
 
 resolves itself into four arguments : 65 
 
 (1) That every first discovery involves all that have gone before it; . 66 
 
 (2) that the discoverer's ability itself is the product of past circum- 
 stances; 66 
 
 (3) that often the same discovery is made by several men at once; . 66 
 
 (4) that the difference between the great and the ordinary man is 
 slight 66 
 
 Simultaneous discovery only shows that several great men, instead of 
 
 one, are greater than others 67 
 
 The extent of the great man's superiority depends on how it is meas- 
 ured 68
 
 xii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 It may be slight to the speculative philosopher, but to the practical man 
 
 it is all-important .......... 69 
 
 As for the two other arguments, which admit the great man's greatness, 
 
 but deny that it is his own 71 
 
 they are both true speculatively, but are practically untrue, or irrele- 
 vant; 71 
 
 just as statements of averages and classification of goods may be true 
 
 and relevant for one purpose, and false and irrelevant for another 72 
 Thus the argument that the great man owes his faculties to his ances- 
 tors, and through his ancestors to the society which helped to 
 develop his ancestors, though a speculative truism, • • • 73 
 leads to nothing but absurdities if we apply it to practical life . . 74 
 For if the great workers owe their greatness to the whole of past 
 society, the men who shirk work owe their idleness to it; and if 
 the former deserve no reward, the latter deserve no punishment . 75 
 The same argument applies to morals; and if accepted, we should have 
 to admit that nobody really did, or was really responsible for, any- 
 thing 76 
 
 Finally, let us take the argument that most of what the great man 
 does depends on past discoveries and past achievements, to which 
 
 he does but add a little 77 
 
 If this argument means anything, it must mean that greatness is com- 
 moner than it is vulgarly thought 78 
 
 But is this the case? Does Shakespeare's debt to his antecedents make 
 
 Shakespeares more numerous? 79 
 
 Shakespeare's contemporaries had the same national antecedents that 
 
 he had; but they could not do what he did 80 
 
 Men inherit the past only in so far as they can assimilate it . . .80 
 Socialists say that inventions once made become common property . 81 
 
 This is absolutely untrue 81 
 
 The discoveries and inventions of the past are the property of those 
 
 only who can absorb and use them .82 
 
 Thus the introduction of the past into the question leaves the differences 
 
 between the great man and others undiminished .... 82 
 If the ordinary m.an does anything, the great man does a great deal more 83 
 and in practical reasoning he is a true cause for the sociologist . . 83 
 And, curiously enough, Mr. Spencer unconsciously admits this . . 84 
 He declares that the Napoleonic wars were entirely due to the malefi- 
 cent greatness of Napoleon 84
 
 CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAGB 
 
 He defends patents because they represent the very substance of the in- 
 
 venter's own mind; 86 
 
 and he attributes the modern improvement in steel manufacture to Sir 
 
 H. Bessemer ........... 87 
 
 So much, then, being established, we must consider two difficulties sug- 
 gested by it 88 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Great Man as distinguished from the Physiologi- 
 cally Fittest Survivor 
 
 It may be objected that modern sociology does not, as here asserted, 
 neglect the great man, for it adopts the doctrine of the survival of 
 
 the fittest 89 
 
 It may be asked, on the other hand, what place the great man has in 
 
 an exclusively evolutionary theory of progress 90 
 
 The fittest survivor is not the same as the great man .... 90 
 
 He plays a part in progress, but not the same part go 
 
 The fittest men, by surviving, raise the general level of the race, and 
 
 promote progress only in this way gi 
 
 The great man promotes progress by being superior to his contempo- 
 raries 92 
 
 The movement of progress is double; . 93 
 
 one movement being very slow, the other rapid g3 
 
 The survival of the fittest causes the slow movement . . . . g3 
 
 The rapid movement is caused by the great man g5 
 
 Next, as to evolution — what does the word mean? .... 95 
 Its great practical characteristic, as put forward by Darwin, is that it is 
 
 opposed to the doctrine of design, or divine intention; ... 96 
 and yet, according to Darwin, species resulted from the intention of 
 
 each animal to live and propagate 96 
 
 Species, therefore, according to the evolutionist, is the result of inten- 
 tion, but not the result intended 97 
 
 Evolution, in fact, is the reasonable sequence of the unintended . . 97 
 
 This is as true of social evolution as it is of biological .... 97 
 Many of the social conditions of any age result from the past, but were 
 
 intended by nobody in the past; 98 
 
 for instance, many of the social effects of railways and cheap printing . 98
 
 xiv ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Therefore, whenever any great man produces some change intentionally 
 
 he has to work with unintended materials 99 
 
 We can see this in the progress of dramatic art; 99 
 
 also in the progress of philosophy loo 
 
 And yet in each case the intended elements are equal or are greater 
 
 than the unintended loo 
 
 We see the same thing in the history of the Times printing press . . lOl 
 It was the result of many kinds of unintended progress, constantly re- 
 
 ^. combined by intention 102 
 
 Evolution, in fact, is the unintended result of the intentions of great 
 
 men 104 
 
 The unintended or evolved element in progress is what concerns the 
 
 speculative philosopher 105 
 
 The intended element, which originates directly in the great man, is 
 
 what is of interest for practical purposes 106 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Nature and the Degrees of the Superiorities of 
 Great Men 
 
 The causality of the great man being established, we must consider 
 
 more precisely what greatness is IH 
 
 Mr. Spencer will help us to a general definition of it . . . .112 
 He divides the human race into the clever, the ordinary, and the 
 
 stupid . . . . . . . . . . . -IIS 
 
 Now if all the race were stupid, it is plain there would be no progress; . 114 
 nor would there be any if all the race were ordinary; . . . ,114 
 therefore progress must be due to the clever, who are, as Mr. Spencer 
 
 S3.y5, 3k " scattered few" . 115 
 
 This is the great-man theory reasonably stated 1 15 
 
 For great men are not necessarily heroes, as Carlyle thought, . .116 
 
 nor divided absolutely from all other men 1 16 
 
 Greatness is various in kind and degree, 117 
 
 but, at all events, there is a certain minority of men who resemble 
 
 each other in being more efficient than the majority . . • "7 
 
 We see this in poetry, 1 18 
 
 in singers, 118
 
 CONTENTS XV 
 
 rxcs 
 
 in the scholarship of boys at the same school, Iig 
 
 and similarly in practical life Iig 
 
 Enough men, as it is, have equal opportunities, to show how unequal 
 
 men are in their powers of using them , . . . . .120 
 No doubt a man may be ordinary in one respect and great in another; 120 
 
 but the majority are not great in any I2i 
 
 The measure of a man's greatness as an agent of social progress is the 
 
 overt results actually produced by him . . . . . .121 
 
 A selfish doctor, if successful, is greater than a devoted doctor, if 
 
 unsuccessful . . . . . . . . . . .122 
 
 The fact that many men who produce no social results seem better and 
 
 more brilliant than many men who do produce them, makes some 
 
 argue that these results require no greatness for their production . 122 
 But the most efficient forms of greatness have often nothing brilliant 
 
 about them 123 
 
 124 
 125 
 125 
 125 
 
 126 
 127 
 
 127 
 
 A lofty imagination is often the enemy to practical efficiency; 
 and great efficiency is often independent of exceptional intellect . 
 Intellect is required for progress, e.g. in invention; 
 
 but the inventor by himself is often helpless, 
 
 and has to ally himself with men whose exceptional gifts are unimpres 
 
 sive and even vulgar 
 
 Greatness is not one quality, but various combinations of many 
 Greatness, then, is merely those qualities which, in any domain of prog 
 
 ress, make the few more efficient than the many 
 The great-man theory, then, merely asserts that if some men were not 
 
 more efficient than most men, no progress would take place at all 128 
 But great men, in spite of these differences, all promote progress in the 
 
 same way 128 
 
 CHAPTER II 4 
 
 Progress the Result of a Struggle not for Survival 
 BUT for Domination 
 
 In order to see how the great man promotes progress, we must consider 
 
 that whilst the fittest survivor only promotes it . . . . 130 
 
 by living, whilst others die, 130 
 
 the great man promotes progress by helping others to live . . • 131 
 He promotes progress not by what he does himself, but by what he 
 
 helps others to do 132
 
 xvi ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 We can see this by considering the progress of knowledge which, as 
 
 J. S. Mill says, is the foundation of all progress . . . . X32 
 
 But all progress in knowledge is the work of " decidedly exceptional 
 
 individuals i^ 1 34 
 
 as Mill admits, though in curiously confused language . . . • I35 
 
 Now how do the exceptional individuals, when they acquire knowledge, 
 
 promote progress by doing so? 136 
 
 They promote progress by conveying their knowledge to, and imposing 
 
 their conclusions on, others . 137 
 
 A similar thing is true of invention, which is knowledge applied . .138 
 
 Invention promotes progress only because the inventor influences the 
 
 actions of the workmen who make and use his machines . •139 
 
 The man of business ability promotes progress also only by so ordering 
 
 others that the precise wants of the public are supplied . . .140 
 / And the same principle is obviously true in the domain of war, politics, 
 
 and religion 141 
 
 Greatness, however, is not in all cases equally beneficial . . . 142 
 
 The influence of some great men is more advantageous than that of 
 
 others 143 
 
 Progress, then, involves a struggle through which the fittest great men 
 shall secure influence over others, and destroy the influence of the 
 less fit 143 
 
 We now come to another point of difference between the fittest great 
 
 man and the fittest survivor 143 
 
 The social counterpart to the Darwinian struggle for survival is to be 
 
 found in the struggle of labourers to find employment . . . 144 
 
 But this is not the struggle to which historical progress is due . . I45 
 
 For the most rapid progress has taken place without any increased fit- 
 ness in the labourers 145 
 
 The progressive struggle in industry is confined entirely to the em- 
 ployers; 146 
 
 > and in every domain of progress it is confined to the leaders, to the 
 
 exclusion of those who are led ....... 146 
 
 In the progressive struggle between great men, the mass of the com- 
 munity play no part whatever 147 
 
 Let us take, for instance, two rival hotel-keepers 148 
 
 One becomes bankrupt, and the other takes over his hotel and his 
 
 staff 148 
 
 The sole struggle is between the employers, not the employed . . 148
 
 CONTENTS xvii 
 
 FAGB 
 
 The staff of the unsuccessful hotel-keeper gain, not lose, by being em- 
 ployed by the successful 149 
 
 Historical progress, then, results from a struggle not for subsistence, 
 
 but for domination 149 
 
 CHAPTER III ' 
 
 The Means by which the Great Man applies his 
 Greatness to Wealth-Production 
 
 All gain by the domination of the fittest, except the few who fail to 
 
 secure power for themselves , . . . . . . • ^S^ 
 
 We must consider, however, that the great men who struggle for 
 
 domination would not do so without some strong motive ; . • ^$2 
 and also that they cannot dominate others except by some particular 
 
 means 153 
 
 Now the question of motive we will treat of hereafter. At present we 
 
 will confine ourselves to the question of means . . . '153 
 
 These vary in each domain of social activity 153 
 
 In some they are too obvious to need discussion 154 
 
 We need consider what they are only in the domains of politics and 
 
 wealth-production 155 
 
 The question is most important in its bearings on wealth-production . 156 
 The great man in wealth-production can influence the actions of others 
 
 by two means only — by the slave-system and the wage-system . 157 
 The slave-system secures obedience by coercion, the wage-system by 
 
 inducement ........... 157 
 
 Wage-capital, not fixed capital, gives the primary power to capitalism 
 
 as a productive agent 158 
 
 Wage-capital is an accumulation of the necessaries of life, . . • ^59 
 
 owned or controlled by a few persons, 159 
 
 and apportioned by them amongst many, on certain conditions . .160 
 Karl Marx entirely misunderstood what these conditions are . . .160 
 The essence of these conditions is that the many shall be technically 
 
 directed by the few l6l 
 
 The question of how much the few appropriate of the product is a 
 
 separate question altogether 162 
 
 The corvee system or slavery would make wage-capital superfluous; 
 
 and this shows what the essential function of wage-capital is . .162
 
 xviii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGB 
 
 So-called " co-operation " is merely the wage-system disguised . . 163 
 
 There are, then, only two alternatives — the wage-system and the slave- 
 system; 164 
 
 as we shall find by considering how the socialists can only escape the 
 
 wage-system by substituting slavery . . . . . . .165 
 
 For they would secure industrial obedience by coercion, . . .166 
 
 not through the worker's desire to earn his living. And this is the 
 
 essence of slavery . . . . . . . . . .166 
 
 Next let us consider the means by which the great directors of industry 
 
 compete against one another ........ 167 
 
 Under capitalism they do so, owing to the fact that the man who 
 cannot direct industry so as to please the public loses his capital, 
 and with it the means of direction 167 
 
 The wage-system is the only efficient means of competition of this 
 
 kind 168 
 
 The socialists, though they affect to be opposed to competition alto- 
 gether 168 
 
 re-introduce it into their own system 170 
 
 the only change being that it is associated with the slave-system, which 
 
 is very cumbrous and inefficient . . . . . . .170 
 
 Competition between employers, then, is a part of every system that 
 
 permits of progress; . . . . . . . . .172 
 
 and since the re-introduction of slavery is practically impossible, we 
 must regard the wage-system as a permanent feature of progressive 
 societies. . . . . . . . . . . .172 
 
 We might reduce society to ashes, but this system and capitalistic 
 
 competition would arise out of them ; . . . . . .173 
 
 for capitalistic competition means the domination of the fittest great men 174 
 / The industrial obedience of the many to the few is the fundamental 
 ^ condition of progress 174 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The Means by which the Great Man acquires Power 
 IN Politics 
 
 In discussing the means by which the great man wields power in 
 politics, the debatable question differs from the question raised by 
 his power in industry; 176
 
 CONTENTS xix 
 
 PAGB 
 
 for the points that are debated in the case of the great wealth-producer 
 
 are admitted by all in the case of the governor . . , .176 
 
 The greatest democrat admits that the governor must be an exceptional 
 
 man, ............ 177 
 
 and also that he must be chosen by elective competition . . -177 
 
 There is a competitive element even in autocracies, , . . .178 
 
 and democracies are essentially competitive . . . . . .178 
 
 All parties also agree that laws must be enforced by pains and 
 
 penalties 179 
 
 Democrats are peculiar only in their theory that the sole greatness re- 
 quired in their governors is a perceptive and executive greatness, 
 which will enable them to carry out the spontaneous wishes of the 
 many . . . . . . . . . . . -179 
 
 This is the only point in which the democratic theory differs from the 
 
 aristocratic ........... 180 
 
 The democratic ruler is, theoretically, a balance for weighing the wills 
 
 of the many, ........... 181 
 
 or a machine for executing their "mandates"; 182 
 
 and there are signs which might suggest that the few in politics are 
 
 really becoming the mere instruments of the many .... 182 
 
 But these signs are deceptive; for what seems the will of the many, 
 
 really depends on the action of another minority . . . .183 
 
 Opinions, to derive power from the numbers who hold them, must be 
 
 identical; 184 
 
 but they seldom are identical till a few men have manipulated them . 184 
 
 Thus what seems to be the opinion of the many is generally dependent 
 
 on the influence of a few ........ 185 
 
 The many, for instance, would never have had any opinions on 
 Free Trade or Bimetallism if the few had not worked on 
 them 185 
 
 Popular opinion requires exceptional men, as nuclei, round which to 
 
 form itself 187 
 
 Thus even in what seems extremest democracy the few are essential . 188 
 
 Democrats, however, may argue that under democracy the few do, in 
 
 the long-run, carry out the wishes of the many .... 188 
 
 Even were this true, the current formulas of democracy would be false, 
 for unequal men would be essential to executing the wishes of 
 equals 189 
 
 Now in reality the few are never mere passive agents; .... 189
 
 XX ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 but nevertheless the many do impress their will on them to a great 
 
 extent 190 
 
 The question is to a'.^a/ extent ? 191 
 
 This introduces us to a new side of the problem — the extent of the 
 
 power of the many .......... 191 
 
 This is greater in politics than in industry; 192 
 
 and yet when we think it over we shall see that it is great in most 
 
 domains of activity 192 
 
 We had to take it for granted at starting. We must now examine it .193 
 
 BOOK III 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 How TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE PaRTS CONTRIBUTED TO 
 
 A Joint Product by the Few and by the Many 
 
 Mill declares that when two agencies are essential to producing an 
 
 effect, their respective contributions to it cannot be discriminated . 197 
 Mill argues thus with special reference to land and labour; . . . 198 
 but he overlooks what in actual life is the main feature of the case . 198 
 
 The labour remaining the same, the product varies with the quality of 
 
 the land 198 
 
 The extra product resulting from labour on superior land is due to 
 
 land, not labour .......... 199 
 
 This is easily proved by a number of analogous illustrations . . . 199 
 Mill errs by ignoring the changing character of the effect . . . 201 
 The case of labour directed by different great men is the same as the 
 
 case of labour applied to different qualities of land. The great 
 
 men produce the increment 202 
 
 Labour, however, must be held to produce that minimum necessary to 
 
 support the labourer, ......... 203 
 
 both in agriculture 203 
 
 and in all kinds of production 204 
 
 The great man produces the increment that would not be produced if 
 
 his influence ceased ......... 204 
 
 Labour, it is true, is essential to the production of the increment also; 205
 
 CONTENTS xxi 
 
 ?AGB 
 
 but we cannot draw any conclusions from the hypothesis of labour 
 
 ceasing; 205 
 
 for the labourer would have to labour whether the great men were there 
 
 or no 206 
 
 The cessation of the great man's influence is a practical alternative; the 
 
 cessation of labour is not, ........ 206 
 
 as we see by frequent examples ........ 206 
 
 Thus the great man, in the most practical sense, produces what labour 
 
 would not produce in his absence 208 
 
 An analysis of practical reasoning as to causes generally will show us 
 
 the truth of this 208 
 
 For practical purposes the cause of an effect is that cause only which 
 
 may or may not be present; 209 
 
 as we see when men discuss the cause of a fire, . . . . ,210 
 
 or of the accuracy of a chronometer, 2IO 
 
 or the causes of danger to a man hanging on to a rope . . . .211 
 But there is another means of discriminating between the products of 
 
 exceptional men and ordinary men 212 
 
 This is by an analysis of the faculties necessary to produce the product . 213 
 
 Are these faculties possessed by all, or by a few only? .... 213 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Nature and Scope of purely Democratic Action, 
 OR THE Action of Average Men in Co-operation 
 
 Carlyle was wrong in his claim for the great man because he failed to 
 note that his powers were conditioned by the capacities of the 
 ordinary men influenced by him ....... 215 
 
 The socialists are wrong because, seeing that the many do something, 
 
 they argue that they do everything 215 
 
 What the many do is limited. We must see precisely what the limits 
 
 are 216 
 
 If a Russian conspirator employs a hundred workmen to dig what they 
 
 think is a cellar, but is a mine for blowing up the Czar, . . . 216 
 
 the conspirator contributes the entire criminal character of the enter- 
 prise 217 
 
 When a choir sings Handel's music, Handel contributes the specific 
 
 character of the sounds sung by them . . . . . .217
 
 xxii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Let us turn to the facts of progress, 217 
 
 and begin with economic progress and progress in knowledge . . 2l8 
 
 In the case of economic progress we must apply the method of inquiring 
 what is produced by labour with and without the assistance of the 
 
 great man 2i8 
 
 To the question of progress in knowledge we must apply the method of 
 
 inquiring what faculties are involved in it . . . . . 219 
 
 These are faculties entirely confined to the few ..... 219 
 
 And now let us turn to political government ...... 220 
 
 What can the faculties of average men do when left to themselves? . 220 
 
 They can accomplish only the simplest actions, 220 
 
 and formulate only the simplest demands 221 
 
 The moment matters become at all complex the faculties of the excep- 
 tional man are required 221 
 
 Now in any civilised country few governmental measures are really 
 
 simple ............ 222 
 
 Exceptional men must simplify them for the many 222 
 
 Thus the voice of the many, in all complex cases, echoes the voice of 
 
 the few 223 
 
 This, however, is not the end of the matter; 224 
 
 for the details of governmental measures are not the whole of govern- 
 ment ............ 224 
 
 The true power of democracy is to be seen in religious and family life . 224 
 
 Though the influence of the great man in religion is enormous, . . 225 
 yet religions have only grown and endured because they touch the heart 
 
 of the average man 225 
 
 Christianity exemplifies this fact, 225 
 
 and especially Catholicism ......... 226 
 
 The doctrines formulated by the aristocracy of Popes and Councils 
 
 originated among the mass of common believers .... 227 
 
 Theologians and councils merely reasoned on the materials thus given 
 
 them 228 
 
 Catholicism shows the great part played by the many so clearly, because 
 
 the part played by the few is defined by it so sharply . . . 228 
 Catholicism, however, is only alluded to here because it illustrates the 
 
 essential nature of truly democratic action 229 
 
 Thus enlightened by it, let us turn back to family life .... 230 
 Catholicism shows that democracy is a natural coincidence of con- 
 clusions ... 231
 
 CONTENTS xxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The home life of a nation depends on the same coincidence, or on spon- 
 taneously similar propensities . . . . . . . •231 
 
 This truly democratic coincidence forces all governments to accommo- 
 date themselves to it 233 
 
 The same democratic power determines the structure of our houses, . 233 
 
 and the furniture and other commodities in them, ..... 234 
 
 and indeed all economic products 234 
 
 For though in the process of production the many are dependent on the 
 
 few 235 
 
 (a fact which the powers of trade unionism do but make more appar- 
 ent), 235 
 
 yet it is the wants and tastes of the many which determine what shall be 
 
 produced; 238 
 
 and though great men elicit these wants by first supplying them, . . 239 
 
 the wants themselves must be latent in the nature of the many, and when 
 
 once aroused are essentially democratic phenomena . . . 239 
 
 Thus though economic supply is aristocratic, economic demand is purely 
 
 democratic ........... 240 
 
 The most gifted brewer cannot make the public drink beer they do not 
 
 like 241 
 
 Now in politics also there is a similar demand and supply; . . . 242 
 
 but the truly democratic demand in politics is not for laws . . . 242 
 
 The demand for laws is not the counterpart of a demand for commodi- 
 ties, for commodities are demanded for their own sake, laws for the 
 sake of their results 243 
 
 The demand for laws is like a demand that commodities shall be made 
 
 by some special kind of machinery 243 
 
 No one makes this latter demand. Economic demand is single; politi- 
 cal demand is double 244 
 
 Political democracy is vulgarly identified with the demand not for social 
 
 goods, but for machinery ........ 244 
 
 But in so far as democracy is a demand not for goods but for machinery, 
 
 it is not purely democratic ........ 245 
 
 The demands of the many are manipulated by the few .... 245 
 
 Why, then, is democracy especially associated with the demand in which 
 
 its power is least? 246 
 
 Because it is the only sphere of activity in which the many can interfere 
 
 with the machinery of supply at all; 246 
 
 and they can interfere with it here because the effects of political gov-
 
 xxiv ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 FACE 
 
 ernment on life are less close and important than the effects of busi- 
 ness management on business; 247 
 
 and in any case the apparent power of the many is even here controlled 
 
 by the few 247 
 
 The power of the many is a power to determine the quality of civilisa- 
 tion and progress, not to produce them 248 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ,r 
 
 The Qualities of the Ordinary as opposed to the 
 Great Man 
 
 It will be objected that the conclusions reached in the last chapter dero- 
 gate from the dignity of the average man 250 
 
 But they do not really do so; 251 
 
 for since the great man, as here technically defined, is the man who in- 
 fluences others so as to promote progress, . . . . • 25 1 
 the ordinary man, as opposed to him, need not be stupid . . .252 
 He is merely the man whose talents do not increase the efficiency of 
 
 other men 252 
 
 Poets, in this technical sense, are ordinary men ..... 252 
 
 So are the most skilful manual workers, ....... 253 
 
 for very great manual skill does not promote progress or influence 
 
 others, 254 
 
 unless it can be metamorphosed into the shape of orders given to 
 
 others ............ 256 
 
 Again, brilliance or charm in private life does not promote progress . 256 
 Therefore ordinary men, who do not promote progress, are not asserted 
 
 to be lacking in high qualities . . . . . . . -257 
 
 Indeed, what is really interesting in human nature is the typical part of 
 
 it, not the exceptional, ......... 258 
 
 as we may see by referring to art and poetry ...... 258 
 
 Average opinion also on social matters is for each class the wise 
 
 opinion; 259 
 
 and the average faculties shared by all are in one sense the test of 
 
 truth 259 
 
 Therefore in denying to the average man the powers that promote 
 
 progress ... 260
 
 CONTENTS XXV 
 
 FACE 
 
 we are not degrading the average man. We are merely asserting that 
 
 these powers form but a small part of life 260 
 
 Socialists can object to this conclusion only because it establishes the 
 
 claim of exceptional men to exceptional wealth .... 262 
 They cannot have any theoretical objections to it, for they are beginning 
 
 to recognise the importance of the exceptional man themselves, . 263 
 and only obscure the fact for purposes of popular agitation . . . 264 
 So far, however, as the reasoning of this book has gone already, no 
 
 claim has been made for the great man to which socialists need 
 
 object; ............ 264 
 
 for we have assumed that he keeps none of the exceptional wealth he 
 
 makes, for himself, 265 
 
 but that he works exactly on the terms the socialists would dictate to 
 
 him 266 
 
 It now remains to consider whether he would really do so . . . 266 
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Dependence of Exceptional Action on the Attaina- 
 bility OF Exceptional Reward, or the Necessary Cor- 
 respondence BETWEEN THE MOTIVES TO ACTION AND ITS 
 
 Results 
 
 Great men differ from ordinary men in degree only, not in kind, . . 271 
 
 and the use of exceptional powers is conditioned like the use of ordinary 
 
 powers ............ 272 
 
 Now let us take the most universal powers possessed by man, viz. those 
 
 used in acquiring the simplest food ....... 272 
 
 Man's powers in agriculture would be latent unless man wanted food 
 
 and the earth's surface were cultivable ...... 272 
 
 Thus the exercise of the simplest faculties depends on the want of some 
 
 certain object, and the possibility of attaining it ... . 273 
 
 If this is true of the commonest faculties, which aim at supplying neces- 
 saries, much more is it true of rare faculties, which aim at producing 
 superfluities 273
 
 xxvi ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Society, then, if great men are to work in it, must be so constituted as to 
 
 make the reward they desire possible ...... 274 
 
 In so doing society makes a contract with its great men; . . . 274 
 
 and this is a contract which is being constantly revised .... 275 
 
 The great men themselves are the ultimate fixers of their own price . 276 
 Here is the final proof that living great men, not past conditions, are 
 
 the c?^MSts practically involved in progress ..... 276 
 
 Thus living great men are masters of the situation ..... 277 
 
 because no one can tell that they have exceptional powers till they 
 
 choose to show them ......... 277 
 
 They cannot, therefore, be coerced from withou% like ordinary workers . 278 
 
 They must be induced to work by a reward ...... 278 
 
 which they themselves feel to be sufficient 279 
 
 Hence the great man's character and requirements impress themselves 
 
 on the structure of society 279 
 
 This is what socialists constantly forget 280 
 
 and they propose to equalise matters by not offering great men any ex- 
 ceptional reward 281 
 
 They forget to ask whether, under these circumstances, great men would 
 
 exercise or reveal their exceptional powers at all . . . . 281 
 
 Exceptional rewards are essential to exceptional action .... 282 
 
 We must inquire what the required exceptional rewards are . . . 283 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Motives of the Exceptional Wealth-Producer 
 
 Socialists, though often forgetting the necessity of exceptional motives, 
 
 often remember it, ......... . 284 
 
 and endeavour to show that socialistic society would have sufficient re- 
 wards to offer to its great men, ....... 284 
 
 such as the pleasure of doing good, of excelling, and of receiving 
 
 honour 285 
 
 The fundamental question is, will such rewards as these stimulate great 
 
 men to wealth-production? ........ 285 
 
 Is the enjoyment of exceptional wealth superfluous as a motive to pro- 
 ducing it? 286 
 
 If it is so, it is for the socialists to prove that it is so; . . . . 286
 
 CONTENTS xxvii 
 
 FAGB 
 
 for they themselves admit that it has not been so in the past, and is 
 
 not actually so now 287 
 
 Are there any signs, then, that the desire for exceptional wealth is 
 
 beginning to lose its power?. ....... 288 
 
 We shall find that the socialists themselves maintain just the contrary; . 288 
 
 for they appeal to the desire of each producer to possess all he pro- 
 duces as the most universal and permanent desire in man; . . 289 
 
 and never questioned this so long as they believed that the sole pro- 
 ducer was the labourer ......... 289 
 
 They questioned the doctrine only when they came to see that the 
 great man is a producer also; and they confine their questioning 
 to his case ........... 290 
 
 But if the labourer desires to possess what he produces, much more 
 
 will the great man do so; . . 290 
 
 for even if he gives away what he produces, he desires to possess it first 291 
 
 There is no sign, therefore, that the desire for exceptional wealth is 
 
 losing force as a motive ........ 292 
 
 Are, then, other desires acquiring new force as motives to wealth-pro- 
 duction? 292 
 
 Are the joys of excelling, of benefiting others, or of being honoured by 
 
 others, doing so? 293 
 
 The desire of these joys is a motive to certain kinds of exceptional 
 
 conduct ............ 293 
 
 It is a motive to benevolent action and religious work; .... 293 
 
 But neither of these are the same thing as wealth-production . . 294 
 
 It is a motive to artistic production, certainly, ..... 294 
 
 and also to scientific discovery; ........ 295 
 
 and works of art are wealth, and scientific discovery is the basis of 
 
 industrial progress; 296 
 
 but great art forms but a small part of wealth, ..... 296 
 
 and artistic effort other than the highest is motived by the desire of 
 
 pecuniary reward, 297 
 
 whilst scientific discoveries, though made generally from the desire for 
 truth, are applied to wealth-production because the men who apply 
 them desire wealth 297 
 
 What, however, of the fact that the desire for honour makes the soldier 
 
 work harder than any labourer? ....... 298 
 
 Why, the socialists ask, should not the same desire make the great 
 
 wealth-producer work ? 299
 
 xxviii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison has urged a similar argument .... 299 
 The answer to this is that the work of the soldier is exceptional; . . 300 
 and we cannot argue from it to the work of ordinary life . . . 301 
 The fighting instinct is inherent in the dominant races, .... 302 
 
 in a way in which the industrial instinct is not 303 
 
 And even in war those who make the prolonged intellectual efforts 
 
 required, ask for themselves other rewards besides honour . . 303 
 
 Still more will the great wealth-producers do so 304 
 
 There is therefore nothing to show that these other motives will super- 
 sede the desire of wealth 304 
 
 What they really do, and what socialists fail to see, is to mix with the 
 
 desire for wealth, and add to its efficiency . . . . . 304 
 As the desire of wealth has mixed with other desires in men like Bacon, 
 
 Rubens, etc 305 
 
 For in saying that the desire of wealth is essential as a motive to 
 wealth-production we do not mean the desire of wealth for its 
 
 own sake, . 305 
 
 or for the sake of physical gratification 306 
 
 This forms a small part of its desirability 306 
 
 It is desired mainly as a means to power, and to those very pleasures 
 
 which socialists offer instead of it 307 
 
 The great wealth-producers, susceptible to the motives on which 
 socialists dwell, will desire exceptional wealth all the more be- 
 cause of them 308 
 
 It is argued, however, by semi-socialists that the actual producer may 
 be allowed the income he produces, but that this must end with 
 his life, and not be passed on to his family as interest on bequeathed 
 
 capital 309 
 
 It is claimed that this arrangement would coincide with abstract justice, 310 
 for it is argued that all wealth which is not worked for must be stolen 310 
 This is utterly untrue, as the case of flocks and herds shows us; . • 311 
 but the chief producer of wealth that is not worked for is capital, which 
 
 is past productive ability stored up and externalised . . '311 
 
 The dart of a savage hunter, 312 
 
 the manure heap or cart horse of a peasant, 312 
 
 are forms of capital which actually produce, and the product belongs 
 
 to those who own them . . . . . . . . -313 
 
 The same is the case with such capital as engines and manufacturing 
 
 plant 313
 
 CONTENTS xxix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 These implements are like a race of iron negroes, and are producers as 
 
 truly as live negroes would be 314 
 
 Indirectly, wage capital is also a producer in the same way , . . 314 
 
 And indeed, till they saw that this argument could be turned against 
 
 themselves, it was strongly urged by the socialists . . . -315 
 
 Practically, however, the justification of income from capital . . .316 
 
 rests on the fact that the power of capital to yield income is what 
 
 mainly makes men anxious to produce it; , . . . .316 
 
 since if income-yielding capital could not be acquired and amassed, 
 
 wealthy men could make no provision for their families, , • 317 
 
 nor could wealth give pleasure to those who might at any moment be 
 
 beggars 318 
 
 Moreover, if incomes were not heritable, wealth would produce none of 
 those social results, such as continuous culture, etc., which make it 
 valuable ............ 319 
 
 The wealth that ceased with the men that actually made it would pro- 
 duce a society of beasts 319 
 
 Wealth is desirable because it is the physical basis of an enlarged life; . 320 
 
 and there must thus be continuity in the possession of wealth . . 320 
 
 Hence the great wealth-producer demands the possession not only of 
 what he produces directly, but of what he produces indirectly 
 through his past products ........ 321 
 
 The majority not only may, but do, acquire a share of the increment 
 
 produced by the great man; ........ 322 
 
 but whatever this share may be, it can never be such as to make social 
 
 conditions equal 322 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Equalitv.^ of Educational Opportunity 
 
 The wealthy class, owing to inheritance, is always much more numerous 
 than the great men actually engaged at any given time in produc- 
 tion 324 
 
 But though inheritance gives a certain permanence to the wealthy 
 class, the families belonging to it are constantly, if slowly, 
 changing, 325 
 
 and new men are constantly forcing their way into it . . . 326
 
 XXX ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 FACE 
 
 Indeed the wealth of the country depends on the men potentially great 
 as producers actualising their talents and producing the wealth 
 
 that raises them 329 
 
 It is therefore obvious that the wealth will increase in proportion as 
 these potentially great men have the opportunity of actualising 
 
 their productive powers 327 
 
 It is impossible, however, to make opportunities absolutely equal . . 328 
 The question is how near we can approach to equality .... 328 
 In a country where these opportunities have been made artificially un- 
 equal there will be room for a great deal of equalisation . . . 329 
 But removing artificial impediments is only a negative kind of equalisation 329 
 It is probable, however, that for the development of genius of the high- 
 est order this is all that is needful, 330 
 
 and will secure the development of all the genius of the highest kind 
 
 that exists ........... 331 
 
 But genius of a lesser kind, which would else be lost, may, no doubt, 
 
 be ehcited by positive educational help from the State; . . 332 
 though the amount of such genius is overestimated by reformers, 
 because they confuse talents rare in themselves with accomplish- 
 ments that are only rare accidentally 332 
 
 The latter can be increased indefinitely, the former not .... ^t,^ 
 
 For real productive genius there is always room, ..... 333 
 
 but the economic utility of mere accomplishments is limited by the con- 
 ditions of production at the time ....... 333 
 
 Thus to produce more possible clerks than are wanted merely lowers 
 the wages of those employed, without increasing the utility of 
 those who are not employed ........ 334 
 
 Still, within limits, educational help from the State does much to in- 
 crease the supply of exceptional, though not great, talent . . 335 
 But the main difficulty involved in the equalising of educational oppor- 
 tunity is not the production of good results, but the avoidance of 
 
 bad 335 
 
 The bad results are the stimulating of discontent, not in average men, 
 
 but in men who are really exceptional 336 
 
 but those exceptional gifts are ill-balanced or have some flaw in them . 337 
 For if education sets free and stimulates sound intellectual powers, . 337 
 
 it will similarly stimulate intellects that are not sound, .... 338 
 or wills, with no intellect to match, and will generate a desire for wealth 
 
 in men who are not capable of creating it, 338
 
 CONTENTS xxxi 
 
 PACK 
 
 and thus will merely produce needless misery and mischief . . . 339 
 Education, again, stimulates faculties that can really produce excep- 
 tional results, but not results that are complete .... 339 
 The progressive struggle requires that the intellects of some should be 
 
 stimulated, whose efforts fail 340 
 
 But those failures that promote progress are failures that partially 
 
 succeed 34° 
 
 But there are abortive talents which produce failures that have no 
 
 relation to success. Those talents are purely mischievous; . . 341 
 
 for example, the failure of the would-be artist, 341 
 
 or that of the man who popularises wrong medical treatment . . 342 
 
 But the commonest example of this kind of man is the socialistic 
 
 agitator, 342 
 
 who demands the redistribution of wealth, whilst absolutely powerless 
 
 to produce it, 343 
 
 and who consequently invents false theories about its production, which 
 
 do nothing but demoralise those who are duped by them . . 343 
 (though even these theories can be discussed with profit under certain 
 
 circumstances) 344 
 
 Men like these embody the two chief dangers of the equalisation of 
 
 educational opportunity, 345 
 
 namely, the rousing in the average man wants he cannot satisfy, and the 
 
 stimulating of talents that are constitutionally imperfect . . . 345 
 The latter of these dangers is the source of the former .... 346 
 It cannot be completely avoided, but the present theories of education 
 
 tend to heighten, not to minimise it 346 
 
 The current theory that all talents should be developed is false, . . 347 
 so is the theory that all tastes should be cultivated in all alike. The 
 
 education proper for the rich is not a type but an exception . . 347 
 These false theories rest on the false belief that equal education could 
 
 ever produce equal social conditions 348 
 
 The majority of each class will remain in the class in which they were 
 
 born ............ 348 
 
 Only the efficiently exceptional can rise out of their own class, . . 348 
 and it is the ambition of the efficiently exceptional only that it is really 
 
 desirable to stimulate ......... 349 
 
 The average man should be taught to aim at embellishing his position, 
 
 not at escaping from it . 349
 
 xxxii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Inequality, Happiness, and Progress 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The radical politician will object to the foregoing conclusions in terms 
 
 with which we are familiar . . . . . . . .351 
 
 The radical theorist will put the same objections more logically. If the 
 desire of exceptional wealth is really the strongest motive, he will 
 say that it follows that most men, since they cannot all be excep- 
 tionally rich, must always remain miserable . . . . , 352 
 
 Now the first answer to this is that the fact that all men will never be 
 equally wealthy does not prevent the conditions of all men from 
 improving absolutely ......... 353 
 
 Another answer is that if inequality in the possession of the most coveted 
 prizes of life implies misery amongst the majority, this evil would be 
 intensified rather than mitigated by socialists, who would substitute 
 unequal honour for unequal wealth ....... 354 
 
 The final answer is that the unequal distribution of wealth has no natural 
 
 tendency to cause unhappiness; ....... 357 
 
 for men's desires vary. There is equality of desire for the necessaries of 
 life only; for this desire rests on men's physical natures, which are 
 similar; ............ 357 
 
 but the desire for superfluities depends on their mental powers, which 
 
 vary 358 
 
 The special appeal of luxury is mainly to the mind and the imagina- 
 tion — 358 
 
 the luxury, for instance, of a large house, ...... 359 
 
 or sleeping accommodation in a train ....... 359 
 
 Consequently the desire for luxury and wealth, like the pleasure they 
 
 give, depends on peculiar mental powers or peculiar mental states . 360 
 
 Amongst most men the desire for wealth is naturally a speculative desire 
 
 only ............ 361 
 
 It implies no pain caused by the want of wealth ..... 361 
 
 The desire ceases to be speculative and becomes a practical craving only 
 when the imagination is exceptionally strong, and a strong belief is ' 
 present that the attainment of wealth is possible .... 362 
 
 The desire for wealth, in fact, is in proportion to each man's belief that 
 
 by him personally it is attainable 364
 
 CONTENTS xxxiii 
 
 PACB 
 
 This belief is naturally confined to men with exceptional imaginations 
 
 and exceptional productive powers ....... 365 
 
 It only becomes general by the popularising of false theories which rep- 
 resent wealth as attainable by all, without exceptional talent or ex- 
 ceptional exertion .......... 366 
 
 It is roused, for instance, in a man who suddenly is told that he has a 
 legal right to an estate which previously he never thought of cov- 
 eting 366 
 
 The socialistic teaching of to-day creates a spurious desire for wealth by 
 
 its doctrines of impossible rights to it • . . . . . 367 
 
 The practical craving for wealth is naturally confined to those who have 
 some talent for creating it, and the pain caused by its absence is 
 naturally confined to such men 368 
 
 The socialistic theories merely cause a barren and artificial discontent, 368 
 
 which interferes with that harmonious progress on which the welfare of 
 
 the many depends 369 
 
 These theories make enemies of classes who would otherwise be allies, 
 
 and the cause of true social reform suffers incalculable injury . . 370 
 
 The object of the present work is to show the fallacy of the theoretic 
 
 basis of existing socialistic discontent and socialistic aspirations; . 371 
 
 and to show that the many are not a self-existent power, . , . 372 
 
 but depend for all the powers they possess on the co-operation of the 373 
 few, 373 
 
 whose rights are as sacred, and whose power is as great, as their own . 375 
 
 The recognition of the fact that the relations and positions of classes 
 
 can never be fundamentally altered ....... 376 
 
 (especially when we consider the facts of history to which Karl Marx 
 
 drew attention) .......... 376 
 
 shows us not only how chimerical are the hopes of the socialists, but 
 what solid grounds there are for the hopes of more rational re- 
 formers 378
 
 BOOK I
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR IN MODERN 
 SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 
 
 The interest with which the world in general, science during 
 
 • 111 • r ^ • the middle of 
 
 throughout the middle portion of this century, this century 
 
 1 J 1 1 ii c l_^ • • l' excited popular 
 
 has watched the progress oi the various positive interest mainiy 
 sciences, would, when we consider how abstruse °" ^"°.""^ °^ 
 
 ' ' Its bearing on 
 
 these sciences are, seem stransfe and almost inex-*he doctrines of 
 
 ,.,,.,. , r <^i • r • Christianity. 
 
 ^ plicable if it were not for one fact. This fact is 
 X) the close and obvious bearing which the conclusions 
 J^ of the sciences in question have on traditional 
 % Christianity, and, indeed, on any belief in immor- 
 ^ tality and the divine government of the world. 
 ti The popular interest in science remains still un- 
 abated, but the most careless observer can hardly 
 fail to perceive that the grounds of it are, to a 
 certain extent, very rapidly changing. They are its popularity 
 
 ...... J 1 . nowisbegin- 
 
 ceasing to be primarily religious, and are becoming ning to depend 
 primarily social. The theories and discoveries of °"t ^n reSgious 
 the savant which are examined with the greatest problems, but 
 
 o on social, 
 
 eagerness are no longer those which affect our 
 
 3
 
 4 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I prospects of a life in heaven, but those which deal 
 ^^^^ with the possibility of improving our social condi- 
 tions on earth, and which appeal to us through our 
 sympathies, not with belief or doubt, but with the 
 principles which are broadly contrasted under the 
 names of conservative and revolutionary. 
 Science itself is Such being the case, it is hardly necessary to 
 
 undergoing a ^. .,iri i i 
 
 corresponding obscrvc that scieucc itsclf has been undergomg a 
 c ange. change likewise. The character of the change, 
 
 however, requires to be briefly specified. From the 
 time when geologists first startled the orthodox 
 by demonstrating that the universe was more than 
 six thousand years old, and that something more 
 than a week had been occupied in the process of 
 its construction, to the time, comparatively recent, 
 during which the genius of Darwin and others was 
 forcing on the world entirely new ideas with regard 
 to the parentage, and presumably the nature of 
 man, there was a certain limit — a certain scientific 
 frontier — at which positive science practically 
 stopped short. Having sedulously examined the 
 Its character- rnatcrials and structure of the universe, until on the 
 
 istic aim during ^ i 1 i • 
 
 the middle of ouc hand it rcachcd atoms and molecules, it exam- 
 to^deai wh'ir^^ ined, on the other, the first emergence of organic life, 
 phySioiigicai and traced its developments till they culminated in 
 evolution. ^^ articulatc-spcaking human being. It brought 
 us, in fact, to man on the threshold of his subse- 
 quent history ; and there, till very recently, positive 
 science left him. But now there are signs all 
 round us of a new intellectual movement, analogous 
 to that which accompanied the rise of Darwinism,
 
 THE RISE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 5 
 
 and science once again is endeavouring to enlarge ^°^ ' 
 its borders. Having offered us an explanation of 
 the origin of the animal ma7i, it proposes to deal 
 with the existing conditions of society very much as 
 it dealt with the structure of the human body, to 
 exhibit them as the necessary result of certain far- 
 reaching laws and causes, and to deduce our 
 civilisation of to-day from the condition of the 
 primitive savage by the same methods and by the 
 aid of the same theories as those which it employed 
 in deducing the primitive savage from the brutes, 
 and the brutes in their turn from primitive germ 
 or protoplasm. In other words, the great triumph 
 of science during what we may call its physical its character- 
 
 11 1 1 1 1 • 1 r 1 1 'Stic aim now 
 
 period has been the establishment or that theory is to deal with 
 
 r ^ ^ i 1 ' 1 • 1 1 r the evolution 
 
 ot development which is commonly spoken of as of society. 
 Evolution, and the application of this to the problems 
 of physics and biology. The object of science in .^ 
 entering on what we may call its social period is the 
 application of this same theory to the problems of 
 civilisation and society. 
 
 It is true that, if we use the word science in a 
 certain sense, the attempt to treat social problems social science 
 
 •r 11 • • • ir -r* T • 1 itself is not 
 
 scientifically is not in itself new. Political economy, wholly new. 
 to say nothing of utilitarian ethics, is a social science, 
 or it is nothing ; and political economy had already 
 made considerable advances when modern physical 
 science had hardly found its footing. But before 
 long physical science passed it, with a step that was 
 not only more rapid, but also immeasurably firmer, 
 and was presently giving such an example of what
 
 6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I accurate science is, that it was thought doubtful 
 
 Chapter i . . ' ^ . 
 
 whether poHtical economy could be called a science 
 at all. The doubt thus raised cannot be said to 
 have justified itself. In spite of all the attacks that 
 have been made against the earlier economists, their 
 principal doctrines survive to the present day, as 
 being, so far as they go, genuine scientific truths. 
 But whenever the thinker, who has been educated 
 in the school of modern physical science, betakes 
 himself now to the study of society and human 
 action, and begins to apply to these the developed 
 theory of evolution, though he does not reject the 
 doctrines of the earlier economists, he sees them in 
 a new light, by which their significance is profoundly 
 changed. The earlier economists took society as 
 they found it, and they reasoned as though what 
 was true of the economic life around them must 
 be absolutely and universally true of economic life 
 always. Here is the point as to which the thinker 
 What is new is of to-day diff crs from them. He does not dispute 
 
 the application iriii* i 11 -i 
 
 to it of the the truth of the deductions drawn by them with 
 ^^QQx^T^^ regard to society as it existed during their own 
 epoch ; but, educated by the methods and dis- 
 coveries of the physical and biological evolutionist, 
 he perceives that society itself is in process of 
 constant change, that many economic doctrines 
 which have been true during the present century 
 had little application to society during the Middle 
 Ages, and that centuries hence they may perhaps 
 have even less. Thus, though he does not repudiate 
 or disregard the economic science of the past, he
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 7 
 merges it in a science the scope of which is far ^^^''^ 
 
 . ^, . . . Chapter I 
 
 Wider and deeper. This is ' a science which 
 primarily sets itself to explain, not how a given set 
 of social conditions affects those who live amons: 
 them, but how social conditions at one epoch are 
 different from those of another, how each set of 
 conditions is the resultant of those preceding it, and 
 how, since the society of the present differs from 
 that of the past, the society of the future is likely to 
 differ from that of the present. 
 
 What political economy has thus lost in precision This excites 
 it has gained in general interest. So long as it gesting great 
 
 1 1-1 r li.* IT social changes 
 
 merely analysed processes 01 production and dis- in the future. 
 tribution which it was assumed would always con- 
 tinue without substantial modification, political 
 economy was mainly a science for specialists, and 
 was little calculated to arouse any keen interest in 
 the public. But now that it has been merged in 
 that general science of evolution, which offers to an 
 unquiet age what seems a scientific licence to regard 
 as practically producible some indeterminate trans- 
 formation in these processes, political economy has 
 come to occupy a new position. Instead of being 
 ignored or ridiculed by the more ardent school of 
 reformers, and even neglected by conservatives as a 
 not very powerful auxiliary, it has now been brought 
 down into the dust of the general struggle, and is 
 invoked by one side as the prophetess of new 
 possibilities, and by the other as an exorcist of 
 mischievous and mad illusions. And what is true 
 in this respect with regard to political economy is
 
 8 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Chapter i 
 
 Book I aisQ ^j-yg ^\)^ regard to evolutionary social science 
 
 as a whole. Social science as a whole, just like 
 this special branch of it, is being brought into vital 
 contact with the lives and hopes of man, and is 
 exciting a popular interest strictly analogous to that 
 which had been excited by physical and biological 
 science previously, 
 which will It is doinff this in two ways, which, though 
 
 give a religious ^ t* rir i 
 
 meaning to the closely connectcd, are distinct In the first place, 
 humanity, it is directing our attention to the human race as 
 a whole, and is showing us how society and the 
 individual have developed in an orderly manner, 
 growing upwards from the lowest and the most 
 miserable beginnings to the heights of civilisation, 
 intellectual, moral, and material, and how they con- 
 tain in themselves the potency of yet further develop- 
 ment. It thus offers to the mind a vast variety of 
 suggestion with regard to the significance of man's 
 presence upon the earth, and is held by many to be 
 supplying us with the materials of a religion calcu- 
 lated to replace that which physical science has 
 discredited. The second way in which it excites 
 or secure for popular interest is the way which has been just 
 
 men now exist- . ^ ,. . , „ 
 
 ing, orfor illustrated by a reference to political economy, ror 
 
 their children, i-i rr* l 1"1 i* i !•• 
 
 practical social bcsidcs oiiermg to our philosophic and religious 
 advantages, faculties the visiou of man's corporate movement from 
 a condition of helpless bestiality towards some "far- 
 off divine event," which glitters on us in the remote 
 future, social science is suggesting to us changes 
 which are of a very much nearer kind, and which 
 appeal not to our speculative desire to discover some
 
 THE PROGRESS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 9 
 
 meaning in the universe, but to the personal interest ^hrferi 
 which we each of us take in our own welfare — such, 
 for instance, as a general redistribution of wealth, 
 the abolition or complete reorganisation of private 
 property, the emancipation of labour, and the 
 realisation of social equality. 
 
 This distinction between the speculative and practi- Men have thus 
 
 , - . - • , • 1 • a double reason 
 
 cal aspects 01 social science has a special importance, for being imer- 
 which will be explained and insisted on presently. But science" and^ 
 itis here mentioned only to show the reader howstron^ sociologists a 
 
 J o double reason 
 
 a combination of motives is impelling the present for studying it; 
 generation — the conservative classes and the revolu- 
 tionary classes equally — to transfer to social science 
 the interest once felt in physical ; and how strong is the 
 stimulus thus applied to sociologists to emulate the 
 diligence and success of the physicists and biologists, 
 ^heir predecessors. Nor have diligence, enthusiasm, 
 or scientific genius been wanting to them. As has 
 already been observed, they have transformed social 
 science altos^ether by applyinoj to it the doctrines of ^^^ '' ^^^ 
 
 '^ ^ . . attracted a 
 
 evolution which physical science taught them, and number of men 
 have thus organically affiliated the former study to have applied 
 the latter. This is in itself a triumph worthy of the J^Jthods 
 enterprise that has achieved it. But they have done 'eamed in the 
 
 ■*■ ^ ^ •' school of phy- 
 
 far more than borrow from physics this mere general sicai science. 
 theory. They have established between physical 
 phenomena and social an enormous number of 
 analogies, so close that the one set assists in the 
 interpretation of the other. They have borrowed 
 from the physicists a number of their subsidiary 
 theories, their methods of grouping facts, and, above
 
 lo ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Chapter i 
 
 Book I 2\\, their methods of studying them. In a word, they 
 
 are endeavouring to follow the masters of physical 
 science along the precise path which has led the 
 latter to such solid and such definite results. 
 Yet despite \\7"e havc now, howcver, to record a singular 
 
 and their diii- and disappointing truth. Though men of science 
 partiescom- havc, in the manner just described, been engaged 
 Ssultfof thdr ^^^ years in the field of sociological study ; though' 
 study are in- thc way was prepared for them by men like Comte, 
 
 conclusive. . 
 
 Mill, and Buckle ; though amongst them have been 
 men like Mr. Spencer, with capacities of the highest 
 order, and though certain results have been reached 
 of the kind desired, complaints are heard from 
 thinkers of all shades of opinion that these results are 
 singularly unsatisfactory and inconclusive when com- 
 pared with the efforts that have been made in reaching- 
 them, and still more when compared with the results 
 of corresponding efforts in the sphere of physics. 
 Professor No ouc complains more loudly of this comparative 
 
 Marshall and r -t -i r.i i'« 'ii i 
 
 Mr. Kidd. for failure than some or the most distmguished students 
 p£n"of the"" of social scicncc themselves. Professor Marshall, 
 fact, but can {qj. instaucc, wlio has done more than any other 
 
 suggest no ex- ^ ... 
 
 pianation of it. English author to breathe into technical economics 
 the spirit of evolutionary science, admits that Comte, 
 who laid the foundation of sociology, and Mr. 
 Spencer, who has invested it with a definitely 
 scientific character, have brought to the study of 
 *' mans actions in society U7tsurpassed knowledge 
 and great genius, and have made epochs in thought 
 by their broad surveys and suggestive hints " ; but 
 neither of them, he proceeds to say, has succeeded
 
 ALLEGED FAILURE OF SOCIAL SCIENCE ii 
 in doing: more than this. Mr. Kidd, ao^ain, whose ^?°°^ ' 
 
 o ^ ^ ' o ' Chapter i 
 
 work on Social Evolution, if not valuable for the 
 conclusions he himself desires to substantiate, is 
 curiously significant as an example of contemporary 
 sociological reasoning, repeats Professor Marshall's 
 complaint, and gives yet more definite point to it. 
 Having observed that " despite the great advaitce 
 which science has made in almost every other direc- 
 tion, there is, it must be confessed, no science of human 
 society, properly so-called^' he justifies this observa- 
 tion by insisting on what is an undoubted fact, that 
 *' j^ little practical light has even Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 succeeded in throwing on the nature of the social 
 problems of our time, that his investigations and 
 conclusions are, according as they are dealt with by 
 one side or the other, held to lead up to the opinions 
 of the two diametrically opposite camps of individ- 
 ualists and collectivists, into which society is rapidly 
 becoming organised^ 
 
 Now what is the reason of this? Here is the what can the 
 
 , , 1 , explanation 
 
 question that confronts us. Inat the methods be? 
 adopted by the scientist in the domain of physics 
 are applicable to social phenomena, just as they are 
 to physical, has been not only established in a 
 broad and general way, but demonstrated by a mass 
 of minute and elaborately co-ordinated facts. Why, 
 then, when we find them in the sphere of physics 
 solving one problem after another with a truly 
 surprising accuracy, do they yield us such vague 
 and often contradictory results when we apply them 
 to the solution of the practical problems of society }
 
 12 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I V Those who complain so j ustly of the failure of social 
 
 science and who yet show themselves altogether at 
 
 liirbTfound ^ ^^^^ ^° account for it, might have seen their way 
 
 in the fact just to answcrino: this question had they concentrated 
 
 referred to— .^ * . . •' ,1,1 
 
 that social their attention on a point that was just now alluded 
 auemptsto to. It was just now obscrvcd that the problems 
 dSirctSiof which social science aims at answering, and is 
 questions; popularly cxpectcd to answer, are of two distinct 
 kinds — the philosophic or religious, and the practi- 
 cal ; the former being concerned with the destinies 
 of humanity as a whole, with movements extending 
 over enormous periods of time, and with the remote 
 past and future far more than with the present ; the 
 other being concerned exclusively with the present 
 or the near future, and with changes that will affect 
 either ourselves or our own children, 
 and one set— Now it wiU be fouud that social science, whilst busy- 
 specuiative— iug itsclf with both thcsc sets of problems, has met 
 wi'Jr^ear'^^'^ with the failures which are alleged against it, only 
 success; jj^ dealing with the latter, and that, so far as regards 
 the former, it has successfully reached conclusions 
 comparable in precision and solidity to those of the 
 physicists and biologists whose methods it has so 
 conscientiously followed. Professor Marshall's own 
 treatise on The Principles of Economics, and that of 
 Mr. Kidd on Social Evolution likewise, abound in 
 admissions that this statement of the case is correct. 
 Professor Marshall's account of the rise and fall of 
 civilisation as caused by climate, by geographical 
 position, and the influence of one race and one 
 civilisation on another, — an account of which he
 
 SUCCESS OF SPECULATIVE SOCIOLOGY 13 
 
 places in the very forefront of his elaborate work ^°^^ 
 — is professedly merely a summary of conclusions 
 already arrived at; and the manner in which he 
 states these conclusions is itself evidence that 
 sociologists, when dealing with certain classes of 
 social phenomena, have given us something more 
 than "' surveys ^^ and ^^ suggestive hints ^ Social 
 science, in fact, cannot be properly called a failure 
 except when it ceases to deal with the larp^er >' i^as failed 
 
 , , only in at- 
 
 phenomena of society, which show themselves only tempting to 
 in the long course of ages, and descending to the caf ques^tSns" 
 problems of a particular age and civilisation, 
 endeavours to deduce, from the general principles 
 it has established, propositions minute enough to 
 be applicable to our immediate conduct and expec- 
 tations. As practical inquirers, therefore, the real 
 question before us is not why social science has 
 failed, where physical science has succeeded, but 
 why social science has succeeded like physical 
 science in one direction, and, unlike physical science, 
 failed so signally in another. If we concentrate our 
 attention on the subject in this way, and thus 
 realise with precision the nature of the failure we 
 desire to explain, we shall find that the explanation 
 of it is not only far simpler than might have been 
 supposed, but also that the remedy for it is far more 
 obvious and more easy. 
 
 It has been said that socioloQ^y has succeeded in No^the 
 
 «-'•' ^ phenomena 
 
 dealing with those social phenomena which extend with which 
 
 .... . . it has dealt 
 
 themselves through vast periods 01 time, and has successfully 
 failed in dealing with those whose interest and mena^ofTodai
 
 14 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 fiooki existence is limited to lives of a few particular 
 
 Chapter I . i i r 
 
 generations. Now between these two sets of 
 aggregates phenomena, as thus far described, the most ob- 
 
 considered as-"^ . iiiiTr -i' 
 
 wholes; vious difference is, no doubt, the difference in their 
 
 magnitude. This difference, however, is altogether 
 accidental, and does nothing to explain those curi- 
 ously contrasted results which the study of one set 
 and the other has yielded to the modern sociologist. 
 The difference, which will explain these, is of quite 
 another kind, and may briefly be stated thus. The 
 larger social phenomena — those which interest the 
 speculative philosopher, and with which sociology 
 has dealt successfully, are phenomena of social 
 aggregates, or masses of men regarded as single 
 bodies; the smaller phenomena — those which in- 
 terest the practical man, and with which sociology 
 has dealt unsuccessfully — are essentially the pheno- 
 mena not of social aggregates, but of various parts 
 of aggregates. 
 
 Let us illustrate the matter provisionally by two 
 rudimentary examples. As an example of the larger 
 phenomena let us take the advance of man from the 
 age of stone to the ages of bronze and iron. Of the 
 smaller, we may take the phenomena referred to by 
 Mr. Kidd — namely, the appearance in the modern 
 world of the socialist or collectivist party, and the 
 antagonism between it and the party of private prop- 
 erty and individualism. Now the first of these two 
 sets of phenomena — the use by men of stone imple- 
 ments, and the subsequent use of metal implements 
 — consist of phenomena which, so far as the sociolo-
 
 FAILURE OF PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGY 15 
 jglst is concerned, are manifested successively by boo^ i 
 
 , . , . . . , - -' Chapter i 
 
 humanity, or some portion or humanity, as a whole. 
 
 They are not referred to individuals or small classes. 
 
 No question is asked as to what particular savage 
 
 may rightly claim priority in the invention of metal 
 
 implements, or whether flint or bronze were the 
 
 subjects of any prehistoric monopoly. Those races 
 
 amongst which the use of the metals became general 
 
 are regarded as a single body, which had made this 
 
 advance collectively. They are, indeed, as we shall 
 
 again have occasion to observe, habitually described 
 
 under the common name of Man. But let us turn t>ut the practi- 
 
 to such phenomena as the antagonism between of to-day. with 
 
 individualists and collectivists, and the case is wholly deaSfunilS 
 
 different. It is true that here also, as in the case ^"'^"i^y* ^"'^ 
 
 out of the con- 
 
 we have just been considering, our attention is fl'ct between 
 
 ,1 , • r 1 1 11 different parts 
 
 called to a portion or the human race, namely, the of aggregates. 
 Western or progressive nations, which we may, for 
 certain purposes, regard as a single aggregate ; but 
 it is fixed, not on the phenomena which this ag- 
 gregate exhibits as a whole, but on those exhibited 
 by unlike and conflicting parts of it — the part which 
 sympathises with individualists on the one hand, 
 and the part which sympathises with collectivists 
 on the other. 
 
 Thus the subject-matter of sociology, regarded 
 as a speculative science, consists of those points 
 in which the members of any given social aggre- 
 gate resemble one another. The subject-matter 
 of sociology, regarded as a practical science, 
 consists of those points in which the members, or
 
 i6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I certain groups of members, of any given social 
 
 aggregate differ from one another. And here we 
 
 come to the reason why sociology, as a practical 
 
 Social success scicncc, has failed. It has failed because hitherto 
 
 has failed as a. ,.,,.,.. . .. . . 
 
 practical guide it has not rcalised this distmction, and has persisted 
 
 notTe'cVgnised in applying to the phenomena, involved in practical 
 
 thisdistinc- social problems, the same terminology, the same 
 
 methods of observation and reasoning, which it has 
 
 applied to the phenomena involved in speculative 
 
 social problems. By so doing, though it has dis- 
 
 sipated many popular errors, it has, in the most 
 
 singular manner, given a new vitality to others. It 
 
 has indeed supplied a pseudo-scientific sanction to the 
 
 most abject fallacies that have vitiated the political 
 
 philosophy of this century; and it has thus been 
 
 and hence instrumental in keeping alive and encouraging 
 
 arise most of , . m i i j. i ^ 
 
 the errors of thc most grotcsqucly impossible hopes as to what 
 
 iJTiiosophy'of nnay be accomplished by legislation, and the most 
 
 tiiis century, grotcsqucly false views as to the sources of social 
 
 and political power. To expose these fallacies, and 
 
 the defective reasoning on which they rest, is the 
 
 object of the present volume. 
 
 The nature of that peculiarity in the procedure 
 of modern sociology which has just been described, 
 and to which all its errors are due, forms a very 
 curious study, and it will be essential to exhibit it 
 with the utmost plainness possible. In the following 
 chapter, therefore, the reader shall be presented with 
 examples of it.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE ATTEMPT TO MERGE THE GREAT MAN IN 
 THE AGGREGATE 
 
 Let us take any book we please, by any modern whatever may 
 
 , . -^ . 1 , . , • 1 be done by 
 
 writer, who is attempting to deal with any social some men. or 
 
 i», •i'r'11 1 1 1 • 11* classes of men, 
 
 subject scientincally, and whenever he is calling sociologists are 
 
 attention to the great intellectual triumphs which ^^.P^yj^'^^^^ 
 
 have caused the progress of civilisation, or to any attribute to 
 
 developments of human nature which have marked 
 
 it, we shall find that these triumphs or developments 
 
 are always attributed indiscriminately to the largest 
 
 mass of people with whom they have any connection 
 
 — sometimes to " the nation," sometimes to " the 
 
 age," sometimes to " the race," and more frequently 
 
 still to " man." 
 
 Reference has been made already to Mr. Kidd's wn Kidd's 
 
 "'. , , Social Evolu- 
 
 work on Social Evolution^ which, on its publication, Hon, for in- 
 
 • • .. !•, ii'i Stance, is based 
 
 attained an extraordinary popularity, and which, entirely on this 
 whatever its value otherwise, is interesting as a p''°"'^"''^- 
 type of contemporary sociological reasoning. It is 
 peculiarly interesting as illustrating the point which 
 we are now discussing. Most of Mr. Kidd's 
 reasoning, especially in the crucial parts of it, is not 
 2 17
 
 i8 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I only conducted, but is actually represented by a 
 
 terminology which refers everything to " the race," 
 
 "the age," or "man." And it would be hard to 
 
 find better examples in the works of any other 
 
 writer of the condition of thought underlying the 
 
 use of these phrases, and of the extraordinary 
 
 consequences to which it leads. 
 
 Hequoteswith Three cxamplcs will be enough. The two first 
 
 oufeTwriters shall be from two other writers, whom Mr. Kidd 
 
 gumy of it!"''" quotes with admiration; the third shall be from 
 
 himself. We will begin with the following passage, 
 
 taken from a contemporary economist, which Mr. 
 
 Kidd singles out for emphatic approval as " a very 
 
 effective statement'' of one of the truths of social 
 
 science. 
 
 " Manl' so the passage runs, " is the 07ily animal 
 whose wants can never be satisfied. The wants of 
 every, other living thiiig are uniform, and fixed. 
 The ox of to-day aspires no more than did the ox 
 when ma7i first yoked him. . . . But not so with 
 man \_himself~\. No sooner are his animal wants 
 satisfied, than new wants arise. . . . [//^] has but set 
 his feet on the first step of a^t infinite progression. 
 ... // is not m,erely his hu7tger^ but taste, that 
 seeks gratification in food. . . . Lucullus will sup 
 with Lucullus; twelve boars roast on spits that 
 Antony s mouthful of meat may be done to a turn ; 
 every kingdom is ransacked to add to Cleopatra s 
 charms; and marble colonnades, and hanging 
 gardens, and pyramids that rival the hills, arise'' 
 This passage is taken from Mr. Henry George.
 
 TYPES OF ERRONEOUS REASONING 19 
 
 Our second example shall be a passage which Mr. ^oo^ i 
 Kidd has borrowed from a far more educated 
 thinker — M. Emile de Lavelaye. Mr. Kidd quotes 
 M. de Lavelaye as saying that the eighteenth 
 century brought the following message to ''man.'* 
 " Thou shall cease to be the slave of the nobles and 
 despots who oppress thee. Thou shall be free and 
 sovereign^ But the realisation of the promise thus 
 given has, in the present century, he goes on to 
 say, confronted us with this strange problem. 
 " How is it that the Sovereign often starves? How 
 is it that those who are held to be the source of 
 power often cannot^ even by hard work^ provide 
 themselves with the necessaries of life 1 " 
 
 Now all these passasres, if we consider them care- '^^° ^°*^ 
 
 •11 1 • r attribute to 
 
 fully, will be seen to consist of statements, every one man what is 
 of which is false to fact. To say that man's wants a°few Jen" ^ 
 are less stationary than those of the ox is not even 
 rhetorically true, unless we mean by " man " certain 
 special races of men; whilst the statements that 
 follow are not true, rhetorically or otherwise, of any 
 race at all, but only of scattered individuals. A 
 really fine and discriminating taste in food is, as 
 every epicure knows, rare even amongst the luxu- 
 rious classes. Antony and Lucullus are types of 
 what is not the rule, but the exception. So too 
 are the individuals who either desire hanging gar- 
 dens, or could design them ; and more exceptional 
 still are the individuals whose personal pride and 
 power either desire or can secure the erection of 
 pyramids for their tombs.
 
 20 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I jn M. de Lavelaye's utterances there is an 
 
 Chapter 2 . . , 
 
 analogous misstatement and misconception of every 
 s^'ll'Jfcw^o ^^^^ '^^^^ which he deals. The promises of politi- 
 their reasoning cal dcmocracv, as he dcscribcs them, were never 
 
 are ludicrous. i » c ^ ^ t'i 
 
 addressed to " ma7i, nor ever professed to be. 1 he 
 whole point of them was that they were addressed 
 to certain classes of men only ; and that, as addressed 
 to other classes, they were not promises, but 
 threats. But a still graver confusion arises when 
 the " Sovereign " is spoken of as starving. If by 
 the " Sovereign " M. de Lavelaye really means 
 " Man " as a whole, it is perfectly obvious that the 
 " Sovereign " never starves. The statement is 
 equally untrue if the Sovereign is taken to mean 
 not man as a whole, but the immense majority of 
 men; and to ask why the Sovereign often does 
 something which it never does, is not to formulate 
 an actual problem loosely, but to convert an actual 
 problem into one that is quite imaginary. The 
 actual problem is not why the whole or the immense 
 majority of mankind often starves, but why there 
 are nearly always small sections of men who do so, 
 the majority all the while obtaining its normal 
 nutriment ; and the absurd result of confusing these 
 two very different things is seen in the second form 
 which M. de Lavelaye gives his question. " How 
 is it" he asks, " that those who are held to be the 
 source of power often ca7i7iot, even by hard work, 
 provide themselves with the necessaries of life ? " 
 The answer is that the particular groups of workers 
 who, at any given time, happen to be unemployed.
 
 THE ERRORS OF MR. KIDD 21 
 
 were never held to be the source of power by any- Book i 
 body. M. de Lavelaye might as well take one 
 half of the passengers on a Dover packet, and 
 treating them as identical with the British nation 
 at large, ask how it is that those who are held to 
 rule the waves can hardly set foot on a deck with- 
 out clamouring for the steward's basin. 
 
 And now let us turn to Mr. Kidd himself. The "^^^ ^^'^^'^ 
 
 . • T reasoning itself 
 
 object of his book is to vindicate supernatural is not less 
 religion by exhibiting it as advantageous to its fiist^harfofhis 
 possessors in the social struggle for existence. He Jlft^Son 
 endeavours to make good his position by two distinct p^mpts the 
 
 , few to sur- 
 
 lines of argument. The first of these is that the render advan- 
 social struggle for existence, though it produces many, which, 
 progressive communities, and communities fitted to lo*do^so!'t'hey 
 endure, is injurious to the majority of those who at ^^'^^'^ ^"p- 
 any given time are engaged in it, and benefits only 
 a minority, described by him as " the power- holding 
 classes^ This minority, according to his account, 
 could always, if it pleased, as it has pleased in all 
 former ages, defend its position and keep the 
 majority in subjection ; but it is now beginning, 
 under the pressure of a religious impulse, to 
 surrender to its inferiors voluntarily advantages 
 which they could never have extorted from it; and 
 in this great fact our hope for the future lies. 
 
 Such is one of the two main portions of Mr. The second 
 
 '■ half is that the 
 
 Kidd's message to the world; and here follows the many at any 
 other, which will be found to be fundamentally hTve taken 
 inconsistent with it. ''Man,' if he had chosen to J^^^J ^f;^";j^^ 
 do so, Mr. Kidd maintains — and this assertion
 
 22 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 2 
 
 few, and that 
 religion alone 
 prevented 
 them from 
 doing so. 
 
 This contra- 
 diction is 
 entirely due to 
 the fact that, 
 having first 
 divided the 
 social aggre- 
 gate into two 
 classes, he then 
 obliterates his 
 division, and 
 thinks of them 
 both as 
 " man." 
 
 is repeated by him with the utmost precision 
 and emphasis — could at any period in his history 
 have " suspended the struggle for existe^ice " and 
 " organised society on a socialistic basis " ; and 
 seeing that the struggle for existence, although 
 essential to progress in the long-run, is injurious 
 to the majority of each generation that takes part 
 in it, man, if his chief guide had been reason or 
 self-interest, would have been suspending this 
 struggle constantly for the sake of his own present 
 advantage, and leaving the future to take care of it- 
 self. Now, seeing that he does not, as a fact, pursue 
 this obviously reasonable course, it follows that some 
 power opposed to reason must have withheld him ; 
 and this power, argues Mr. Kidd, can be nothing 
 else than religion. Here, he says, are the two 
 functions of religion in evolution. It induces man 
 to submit to the hardships of the evolutionary 
 struggle, at the same time it redeems him from 
 them by softening the hearts of the minority. 
 
 Now with Mr. Kidd's views about religion we 
 have nothing to do here. We are concerned only 
 with the extraordinary self-contradiction involved 
 in these his principal lines of argument, and also 
 with the cause which has led to it, and made it 
 possible. At one moment he says that the majority 
 in all progressive communities have been forced to 
 submit to conditions of life that are prejudicial to 
 them, by a powerful minority to whom these con- 
 ditions are beneficial, and who, if they chose to 
 do so, would still be able to maintain them. At
 
 THE ERRORS OF MR. KIDD 23 
 
 another moment he says that this surprisingly patient ^°°^ ^ 
 majority could have easily " suspended these condi- 
 tions " at any period of its history, and only failed 
 to do so because religion prompted it to forbear. 
 How a contradiction of this kind could have found 
 its way into the reasoning of a really painstaking 
 thinker, and been actually allowed to form the back- 
 bone of it, may at first sight seem inexplicable ; but 
 it is simply a typical result of the practice we are 
 now considering — that practice, common to all our 
 modern sociologists, of grouping the men they deal 
 with into the largest aggregate possible, and treating 
 mixed classes of men as one single class — ''majir 
 
 It is easy to see precisely how Mr. Kidd's mind 
 has worked. In the first part of his argument he 
 divides progressive communities into two sections, 
 which he calls respectively " the power-holding 
 classes " or the " success/uls" and the " excluded 
 classes " or the " unsuccessftils " ; and he declares 
 that the latter would naturally desire to suspend 
 the conditions of progress, whilst the former would 
 naturally desire, and are also able to maintain them. 
 But when he pushes his argument farther, and 
 advances to the proposition that if reason had been 
 ** mans " sole guide, the conditions of progress would 
 have been suspended over and over again, he is 
 enabled to take this extraordinary step only because 
 his thought and his terminology undergo an un- 
 conscious metamorphosis. He forgets his original 
 analysis altogether. He merges the two classes, so 
 sharply contrasted by him, into one. He argues and
 
 24 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 2 
 
 Mr. Kidd's 
 confusion is 
 the result of 
 no accidental 
 error. It is 
 the inevitable 
 result of a 
 radically 
 fallacious 
 method, 
 
 and of this 
 method the 
 chief exponent 
 is Mr. Herbert 
 Spencer, 
 
 thinks about them both, under the single category 
 of " man " ; he builds up his conclusions by joining 
 together the very things which, in arranging his 
 premises, he had so carefully put asunder ; and the 
 result of his speculation reduced to its simplest 
 terms is this — that " man " could have done, at any 
 period of his history, and, if reason had been his 
 sole guide, actually would have done, something that 
 was against the interests of the stronger part of 
 him, and beyond the power of the weaker. 
 
 The reader will not find much difficulty in under- 
 standing that if sociologists persist in reasoning 
 thus, they are hardly likely to arrive at any con- 
 clusion sufficiently definite to guide us in the 
 practical difficulties of life. It may be urged, 
 however, that such language as we have been 
 considering, though used by scientific writers, is 
 intended itself to be rhetorical rather than scientific, 
 or that it betrays the inaccuracy of this or that 
 individual thinker, instead of arising from a funda- 
 mental error in method. If any one thinks this, 
 he shall soon be disabused of his opinion. The 
 reader shall now be presented with a brief summary 
 of the method deliberately followed, and of some of 
 the conclusions arrived at by that distinguished 
 thinker who has done more than any one else to 
 impart to sociology the character which it at present 
 possesses ; and the error which lies at the bottom of 
 the reasoning we have been just considering shall 
 there be exhibited, systematically exemplified, and 
 explicitly and elaborately defended. It is perhaps
 
 MR. SPENCER'S FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 25 
 hardly necessary to say that the thinker thus referred ^°°'^ ' 
 
 •' 10 Chapter 2 
 
 to is Mr. Herbert Spencer. 
 
 We will then follow Mr. Spencer's reasoning as a short 
 
 ,.. ri'i' 1 1 summary of 
 
 from the beginning, as set forth in his works; and his sociological 
 before consulting his monumental Principles ^show?^"'^ '"" 
 Sociology^ we will turn to his Study of Sociology^ 
 a smaller and preparatory treatise, in which the 
 methods adopted by him in his main inquiry are 
 explained. He opens this treatise with declaring 
 that until recent years any scientific treatment of 
 social phenomena was impossible ; and it was im- 
 possible, he says, for two definite reasons. These 
 were the prevalence of two utterly false theories, 
 both of which precluded the idea that anything like 
 law or order of a calculable kind were prevalent in 
 the social sphere. One of these theories was " the 
 theocratic theory^' the other what he calls " the 
 great-man theory^ 
 
 The theocratic theory is that which explains all M"". spencer 
 
 starts with 
 
 social change by reference to the direct and arbitrary saying that the 
 interference of a Deity; and if this be adopted, Mr. mentto?ociai 
 Spencer has no difficulty in showing: that anything ^'='^"<;^ '^ '^« 
 
 A J c> J Q prevalence of 
 
 like a social science must be necessarily looked on *he great-man 
 as impossible : for the only thread by which social 
 phenomena are connected will in that case be hid- 
 den in the will of an inscrutable Being, which may 
 indeed be made known to us by revelation, but 
 which is not susceptible of being either observed 
 or calculated. This theory, however, in its cruder 
 form, at all events, is, says Mr. Spencer, being fast 
 discarded by everybody — even by the theologically
 
 26 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I orthodox ; and the really important foe which social 
 
 Chapter 2 . , r i • • i 
 
 science has to fight against is the great-man theory, 
 not the theocratic. Accordingly, it is by a criticism 
 of the great-man theory that he introduces us to the 
 theory of society, which is in his estimation true, 
 and which alone presents social phenomena to us 
 as amenable to scientific treatment. 
 
 The great-man theory is summed up by him in 
 the following quotation from Carlyle: ''As I take 
 it, universal history, the history of what Tnan has 
 accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history 
 of the great 7nen who have worked here'.' " This,'* 
 observes Mr. Spencer, " not perhaps distinctly for- 
 mulated, but everywhere implied, is the belief in 
 which nearly all are brought up " ; and it is, he 
 declares, as incompatible as the theocratic theory 
 itself with any belief in the possibility of a social 
 science, or any comprehension of what such a 
 science is; for either the great man is regarded 
 as the miraculous instrument of the Deity, a kind 
 foriftheap- of '' dcputv-God," in which case we have '' theo- 
 
 pearance of ■' -^ 
 
 the great man cracy oncc removed" ; or else his greatness, though 
 
 is incalculable, . . < i i • 11 
 
 progress, if it regarded as a natural phenomenon, is regarded as 
 
 hfm^mus°be ^nc whosc occurrcncc is so far fortuitous, that a 
 
 mcaicuiabie great man of any given kind of greatness might 
 
 appear in one age or nation just as well as in 
 
 another ; and in this case, if social changes depend 
 
 on the great man's actions, these changes will be as 
 
 fortuitous as the great man's own appearance, and 
 
 will as little admit of any scientific calculation. 
 
 If, however, the great man is regarded as a
 
 MR. SPENCER ON GREAT MEN 27 
 
 natural phenomenon at all, if he is not to be looked ^?°°^ ^ 
 
 ^ _ _ • . . Chapter 2 
 
 upon as a species of incalculable angel, this idea of 
 
 his fortuitous appearance is, says Mr. Spencer, tut if the great 
 
 T'l 1 vi\2in is not a 
 
 plainly quite untenable. The great man, unless he miraculous 
 differs miraculously from other men, is produced as owerh/s^grert- 
 they are, in accordance with natural laws, and, like outsid°e him" 
 them, owes his greatness to his near and remote ^eif; 
 progenitors, just as a negro owes to his, his facial 
 angle, his blackness, and his woolly hair. " Who 
 would expect,'' Mr. Spencer asks, " that a Newton 
 might be born of a Hottentot family, or that a 
 Milton might spring up amo7ig the Andamanese? " 
 The theory, then, which explains social changes by 
 referring them to the great men whose names are 
 connected with their initiation, will, unless it is 
 regarded as a theory of perpetual miracle, be 
 recognised as inadequate, even by those who have 
 hitherto held it, when once they have realised the 
 absurd supposition which it implies. The great 
 man, whatever his seeming influence, is merely the 
 agent of other influences which are behind him. 
 He merely transmits a shock, like a man pushed 
 by a crowd. Even supposing what Mr. Spencer 
 entirely denies to be the case, that he could really ^"^ ^* ^^^'^"^ 
 
 J •' causes winch 
 
 " remake his society I' his society none the less must reaiiy produce 
 have previously made him, and supplied him with which he is the 
 those conditions which rendered his career possible; fnitiator.*^ 
 and therefore, of any changes which he may popu- 
 larly be said to have caused, he is merely ''the 
 proximate initiator','' not the true cause at all ; and 
 " if I' says Mr. Spencer, " there is to be anything
 
 28 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 BooJt I like a real explmtation of such changes^ it must be 
 sought {not in the great man himself\ but in the 
 aggregate of social conditio7is^ out of which he and 
 they have arisen.''' Except, perhaps, in the military 
 struggles of primitive savage tribes, " new institu- 
 tions^ new activities, new ideas^ all,'' he says, 
 These effects, «' unobtrusivclv make their appearance, without the 
 
 therefore, are . . . . . i • j i • r • 7 
 
 to be explained aid of any king or legislator ; and if you wish to 
 notToThegreat Understand the phenomena of social evolution, you 
 tlircauses^hat ^^^'^ '^^^ ^^ ^^' ^^ould you read yourself blind over 
 are behind the /^^ biozrapMcs of all the z^cat rulers on record. 
 
 great man. . 
 
 down to Frederick the Greedy, and Napoleon the 
 Treacherous'.' And he points his moral by observ- 
 ing, with a certain philosophic tartness, that there is 
 no surer index of a man's '* mental sanity " than the 
 degree of contempt which, as a scientific thinker, 
 he feels for the class of facts which the biography 
 of individuals offers him. 
 
 Such, then, being Mr. Spencer's theory of the 
 way in which social phenomena must be re- 
 garded, if we mean to make them the subject 
 of anything like scientific study, let us turn to his 
 m,agnum opus. The Principles of Sociology, and see 
 how, and with what results, he puts his theory of 
 study into practice. This immense work, full of 
 encyclopaedic detail as it is, contains certain general 
 and comparatively simple conclusions, which can 
 with sufficient clearness be expressed in a short 
 summary, and which are typical of the character 
 and the contents of Mr. Spencer's sociology as a 
 whole. These general conclusions constitute in
 
 NATURE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 29 
 
 outline the entire history of human progress from ^0°'^ ^ 
 the dawn of man's existence to the industrial civili- 
 sation of to-day. 
 
 The determining factors in all social phenomena Thetmecauses 
 
 . 1 • 1 1 of all social 
 
 are, says Mr. bpencer, primarily or two kinds — the phenomena 
 " external'''' and the " internair The former consist sp^encer^, 
 of some of the various physical circumstances in J'^^^g^tand* 
 which each community or collection of men is "^^^'s natural 
 
 •' , character. 
 
 placed; the latter consist of the characters and 
 constitutions of the men themselves. In the his- 
 tory of each community the chief of the external 
 factors are these : the climate of the region which 
 the community occupies; the cultivability of this 
 region ; its geological and geographical character ; 
 the way in which the fauna and flora natural to it 
 are distributed; and the character of the other 
 communities by which the community in question 
 is surrounded. One of the first generalisations, 
 says Mr. Spencer, to which social science leads isT^^^i'st 
 
 , . , , . . . physical cause 
 
 this — that progress can begin only in climates and of progress was 
 
 , , , 1 , . r ,^ • /• an exceptional 
 
 regions where the production or the necessaries of fertility of soil 
 life is sufficiently easy to leave men leisure and en- . 
 ergy available for other work ; and all progress did 
 as a fact begin in those parts of the earth where the 
 maintenance of life was easy. 
 
 He goes on to show, however, that the initiation andanexcep- 
 
 . tionally brac- 
 
 of progress does not require only that the men con- ing climate, 
 cerned in it should inhabit a region in which the 
 production of necessaries is easy and leaves them 
 abundant leisure. It is equally essential that the 
 men themselves should possess an energetic tem-
 
 30 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 2 
 
 All the con- 
 quering races 
 came from 
 fertile and 
 bracing 
 regions. 
 
 There were 
 other regions 
 yet more 
 fertile, but 
 these were 
 enervating ; 
 and here the 
 inhabitants of 
 the former 
 enslaved the 
 weaker inhabi 
 tants of the 
 latter. 
 
 perament, which will not suffer them to devote their 
 leisure to idleness, but will make it the starting- 
 point for some further activity. Now this energetic 
 temperament is the special gift of climate. So, to 
 a great extent, is the ease with which necessaries 
 are obtained from the soil ; but whilst the fertility 
 of the soil is dependent on the climate being hot, 
 the requisite energetic temperament is dependent 
 on the climate being dry. " The evidence^' says 
 Mr. Spencer, "-justifies this inference. . . . On 
 glanci7ig over a ge7ieral rain-map of the worlds there 
 will be seen an almost continuous area^ marked 
 "■ rainless district^ extendi^tg across North Africa^ 
 Arabia, Persia, and all through Thibet and Mon- 
 golia ; and from within, or from the borders of this 
 district, have come all the conquering races of the 
 Old World: 
 
 But the full operation of climate on human prog- 
 ress is not intelligible till a further climatic fact is 
 considered. Though in hot and dry climates the 
 production of necessaries is easy, in climates that 
 are hot and moist their production is still easier. 
 It is these last that are really the gardens of the 
 world, and that offered to primeval man the easiest 
 and most attractive homes. The original inhabi- 
 tants, however, of these favoured localities not only 
 profited by their conditions, but also ultimately 
 suffered from them. Whilst the fertility of their 
 habitat pampered them, its moisture destroyed their 
 energy; and in process of time they were subju- 
 gated by other races, who, cradled in dryer climates,
 
 ORIGIN OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILISATION 31 
 retained their enero^y unimpaired. In this natural Booki 
 
 T ' T / Chapter 2 
 
 descent of the stronger races on " the richer and 
 more varied habitats " of the weaker, and the conse- 
 quent super-position of one race over another, we 
 see the origin of slavery, and of all the ancient 
 civilisations that reposed upon it. 
 
 We have here the three essential elements to the 
 union of which primarily all human progress has 
 been due: Firstly, a race remarkable for its active 
 energy ; secondly, the appropriation by this race of 
 some richer habitat than its own; and thirdly, 
 the possession by it of an inferior race, as subjects, 
 who are ready to work for its benefit, and are 
 capable, when coerced and directed by it, of pro- 
 ducing wealth indefinitely greater and more varied 
 than they would or could have produced had they 
 been left to their own devices. 
 
 And here we are brought to the threshold of a Again, division 
 new order of facts. Industrial production, which is which indus- 
 the basis of all civilisation, is not, says Mr. Spencer, d"peSd°^was 
 started on its progressive career by the sudden ""^^'^ ^y ^l'^ 
 
 i^ O J differences in 
 
 orders of any one remarkable man, but by the <he producu 
 
 •' . . . . J of different 
 
 spontaneous action of certam natural causes. It locaiiues, 
 must first be observed that its general character 
 and its progress are always found to depend on 
 the same thing. They depend on the division of 
 labour. This, as Mr. Spencer says, developed 
 in varying degrees, is the salient characteristic of 
 every civilisation in the world. To what, then, is 
 the division of labour, in the first instance, itself 
 due ? This is the opening question asked by Adam
 
 32 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I Smith in his Wealth of Nations ; and he seems to 
 
 Chapters , , ^ , 
 
 regard it as one which is more or less mysterious 
 and recondite. The answer which he himself 
 suggests is, that there exists in man " a natural pro- 
 pensity to truck, barter, and exchanger The answer 
 given by Mr. Herbert Spencer is a curious illustra- 
 tion of how far, since the days of Adam Smith, 
 social science has progressed. 
 
 Mr. Spencer shows us that the origin of the 
 division of labour was no special propensity 
 mysteriously innate in man. Its origin was the 
 natural diversity of the various districts inhabited by 
 the groups of men who originally took part in it. 
 
 Thus '■'■some of the Fiji Islands,'' he writes, '"'' are 
 famous for wooden implements, others for mats and 
 baskets, others for pots and pigments — unlikenesses 
 between the natural products of the islands being 
 the causes. . . . So also . . . the shoes of the ancient 
 Peruvians were made in the provinces where aloes 
 are most abu7idant, for they were made of the leaves 
 of an aloe called '■maguey' The arms were supplied 
 which led to by the provinces where the materials for m-aking 
 
 the localisation ,, ,. 7r)>■r^••• fii 
 
 of industries, them wcre most abundant. Division ot labour, in 
 short, was primarily a localisation of industries, 
 caused by the fact that a number of man's different 
 needs were each supplied most easily by industry 
 in some different locality. 
 
 By means of this explanation of the origin of the 
 division of labour, Mr. Spencer proceeds to explain, 
 in a way which would have astonished Adam Smith 
 still more, other social phenomena of a kind which
 
 HUMAN NATURE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 33 
 seem wholly different. He proceeds to show us that ^°°'' ^ 
 
 , . , , . • . Chapter z 
 
 though increased production of commodities was the 
 
 chief direct result of the localisation of industries, The locaiisa- 
 
 . tion of indus- 
 
 certain by-products resulted from it also, whose tnes in its turn 
 effects were not less important. These by-products maki^ng"^ 
 were roads. In the localisation of industries, he 
 says, we have the true origin of road-making. The 
 fact of industries being widely separated in place, 
 required a constant interchange of the various sorts 
 of goods ; and the carriage of these goods to and fro 
 between the same points first produced tracks, such 
 as those made by animals, then paths, and at last 
 regular roads. But to facilitate the movement and 
 interchange of goods is not the only, or the highest, 
 though it may be the first, function of roads. Roads 
 facilitate two things of a yet more interesting and roads 
 character — the movement of ideas and the central- the central- 
 isation of authority. They form, in fact, the great authority and 
 physical basis of civilised human government, and jj*^''*^^^"^^ °^ 
 of the development of the human intellect. 
 
 These examples of Mr. Spencer's conclusions Next, as to 
 will be sufficient to show how he studies the pheno- ^h^xlc^x"!^^^ 
 mena of social progress in so far as they are the other^cau^e^of 
 result of what he calls ''the external factors'' — progress, 
 climate, locality, and the character of the other races 
 with which each race that is studied happens to have 
 been brought in contact. Let us now turn to what 
 he calls the " internal factors''' and consider the phe- 
 nomena of progress which he explains by reference to 
 these. He helps us here by providing us with a 
 summary of his own, in which he calls the attention 
 
 3
 
 34 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I of his readers to the most important of his own con- 
 
 Chapter 2 , . , ^ 
 
 elusions arrived at m precedmg chapters as to this 
 section of his subject. Having reminded us of how 
 he started with the '' external factors^' and how he 
 had shown the ways — namely those we have just 
 glanced at — in which they co-operated to produce 
 civilisation, " our attentio7i" he proceeds, " was the7i 
 directed to the internal factors " ; and what he had 
 to tell us, he says, about the internal factors was as 
 their primitive foUows .' " An account was first p^iven of ' Primitive 
 
 character did _ . 
 
 not fit them to Man — physical^ showing that by stature^ structurCy 
 strength , . . he was ill fitted for overcomhig the 
 diffictilties in the way of advance. Then examina- 
 tion of 'The Primitive Man — emotiojiaT led us to 
 see that his imprudence and his explosiveness, re- 
 strained but little by sociality a7id the altruistic 
 sentiments, rendered him unfit for co-operation. 
 And then, in the chapter on ''Primitive Ma7i — i^i- 
 tellectualy we saw that while adapted by its active and 
 acute perceptions to the needs of a wild life, his type 
 of mind was deficient in the faculties required for 
 progress i7i knowledge^ Then, having referred to 
 the long explanation given by him of the rise of 
 man's religious belief, Mr. Spencer goes on to say 
 that these primitive human characteristics constitute 
 the internal factors, with which sociology starts, and 
 
 till it was that the business of this science is to explain the 
 
 gradually im- . r 1 1 1 1 
 
 proved by the cvolution 01 all thosc subscqucut '"'phenomena 
 
 marwageand rcsultiug from their combi^ied actio^is^ Of these 
 
 Is^e^ku^^ phenomena the chief, he says, are the following — 
 
 monogamy, monogamy as evolved from polygamy, polyandry,
 
 EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE 35 
 
 and promiscuity ; the higher family affections as ^'^'^ ^ 
 developed by the monogamous family ; and govern- 
 mental and social organisation as developed in two 
 ways — by the conduct essential to war and the 
 conduct essential to industry. His conclusions, so 
 far as possible, shall be given in his own words. 
 
 To besfin with marriage : in the earlier stages of Monogamy 
 
 " ^ ... represents the 
 
 society nothing resembling it existed. The nearest survival of the 
 approach to a family was the mother and such social union. 
 children as could be kept alive without the help of 
 the father; and as the children grew up, this 
 rudimentary group dissolved. But "■'from families 
 thus small and incoherent''^ there naturally and 
 inevitably arose, in accordance with the tendency to 
 variation by which the human units are characterised, 
 and which is the basis of all evolutionary selection, 
 ""families of divergent types'''' — families founded on 
 unions of which some were more lasting than 
 others, of which some were unions between one 
 mother and many fathers, some between one father 
 and many mothers, and some between one father and 
 one mother. This last-named type of union, and ^* developed 
 
 •' ^ . tne affections 
 
 the family life resulting from it, had many practical and the prac- 
 advantages, such as the production of closer bonds co-operation. 
 between the several members of the family, and 
 consequently the practice between them of more 
 efficient co-operation. Accordingly, no sooner did 
 monogamous groups appear than they exhibited 
 a tendency to survive in the social struggle for 
 existence ; and monogamy affords, with the affec- 
 tions that have grown up under its shelter, the type
 
 36 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 of marriage and family that p 
 most advanced races of to-day. 
 
 aSy rosffrom formation of groups larger than the family — of 
 
 Book I of marriage and family that prevails amongst the 
 
 Chapter 2 ^ J f O 
 
 The family Ncxt, as to the phenomena of governmental and 
 
 being estab- . . . " • i i 
 
 Hshed, the social Organisations : these arise only with the 
 
 It 
 
 groups which we call communities, or nations, or 
 social aggregates ; and we have to consider how 
 these larger groups rose out of the aggregation of the 
 smaller. The process is explained, says Mr. Spencer, 
 by the same few " internal factors^ The nation 
 sprang from the family by the following inevitable 
 stages. Let us take any family group, sufficiently 
 coherent to live together as a single household, and 
 supporting itself on the produce of the land that 
 surrounds its dwelling. Whilst this group is small, 
 the acreage will be small also, which, as ploughland, 
 hunting-ground, or pasture, is required to supply its 
 wants ; and each member of the group can easily 
 reach his work, starting from the common home, 
 and coming back to it in the evening. But as 
 children grow, and children and great-grandchildren 
 One family multiply, the land required by the household corre- 
 
 increased, and ti • -i 
 
 gave rise to spoudingly grows in extent, and at last becomes so 
 
 wS w^re "' large that the whole of it cannot be utilised by a 
 
 ord?r^?og"et t)ody of mcn living on the same spot. Hence, as 
 
 food, to separ- ^x. Spcnccr cxprcsscs it, " a fission of the group 
 
 ent groups; is necessitated'" ; and this process is repeated till 
 
 there are a multitude of groups instead of one. 
 
 These groups, says Mr. Spencer, constitute the raw 
 
 material of the nation. The nation is formed 
 
 " by the recompouitding of these units once again!'
 
 WAR AND THE E VOL UTION OF GO VERNMENT 3 7 
 
 And how is this process of ''' recompotmdznjr^^ Booki 
 accompHshed ? Mr. Spencer answers it is ac- ^'p^'^^ 
 complished by one means only, and that is the co- and the recom- 
 operation forced on them by war for some common E" groups. 
 interest. Other tribes threaten to attack their S^f^J^r'' 
 territory, or they are desirous of appropriating the aggression. 
 territory of other tribes. Separately they aref^ation. 
 powerless. The only course open to them is to 
 band themselves together and submit themselves 
 to a common leader. In cases where such wars are 
 short, as observation of savage tribes shows us, the 
 rudimentary nation with its rudimentary discipline 
 dissolves and disappears as soon as the wars are 
 over ; but when the state of warfare is prolonged by »" government 
 
 1 .1 fi •• 1 .••. lit- being in its 
 
 the rivalry 01 other societies, the military leadership origin military. 
 develops into a permanent centralised authority; 
 and from this military government, with its ""coercive 
 mstitutions^^ national existence and all forms of 
 government spring. 
 
 And here Mr. Spencer's argument takes a new But as the ans 
 
 1 1 1 • ill • . 1 of life progress, 
 
 departure and carries us on to the point where we industry gradu- 
 shall be compelled to leave it. As governments pjfJ'JJj",?'" 
 and civilisations have advanced, he says, they have ^'^°"' govem- 
 
 ^ -' ^ -'_ ^ mental control, 
 
 taken two forms — that in which the original military and becomes 
 
 , .,, . , 1 1 • its own master. 
 
 element still continues to preponderate, and that in and aiso forms 
 which the military element becomes gradually po*iitica'i^d^e- 
 subordinate to the industrial. " The for'fner^' he "ocracy. 
 says, " in its developed form is organised on the 
 principle of compulsory organisation^ whilst tfie 
 latter in its developed form is organised on the 
 principle of voluntary co-operation " ; and the latter
 
 38 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I amongst civilised nations, always tends to supersede 
 the former, in precise proportion as war tends to 
 become less common. The industrial form, it may 
 be observed, corresponds in a general way to the 
 kinds of government commonly called "democratic "; 
 but its emergence, says Mr. Spencer, has its most 
 important effects in the sphere not of politics, but of 
 economic production. Originally the conditions of 
 industry were regulated by the dictates of the military 
 and aristocratic ruler, as they are to-day in some savage 
 communities, and as they partially were in France 
 till towards the close of the last century. Under 
 such a regime the very ** right to labour " itself is 
 regarded as belonging to the King ; and he sells it 
 to his subjects on such terms as he may choose. 
 But as the military element in the government 
 declines, not only does the character of governmental 
 legislation change, but industry frees itself from 
 governmental influence altogether. No king any 
 longer arranges markets, fixes wages or prices, and 
 settles what kind and quantities of commodities shall 
 be produced. Industry becomes, as Mr. Spencer 
 says, " substantially independent^ He does not 
 mean, however, that it needs no regulation. It needs 
 as much as ever a constant and nice adjustment 
 of the things produced to the current require- 
 ments of the community; but this adjustment is 
 now secured not by the interference of a political 
 ruler, but by a system which has spontaneously 
 developed itself amongst the trading and manu- 
 facturing classes. It is a system, says Mr. Spencer,
 
 THE EMANCIPATION OF INDUSTRY 39 
 
 which we may call " internunciaL throiirk which the '^^^'^ ^ 
 
 ^ ,. - . * - Chapter 2 
 
 various structtires (i.e. manufacturing firms^ etc.) 
 received from one a^iother stimuli or checks^ caused 
 by rises and falls iii the consumptiojt of their respec- 
 tive products. . . . Markets in the chief towns show 
 dealers the varying relations of supply aiid demand; 
 a7id the reports of these transactions^ diffused by the 
 press^ prom,pt each locality to increase or decrease of 
 its special functions. . . . That is to say, there has 
 arisen, in addition to the political regulating system, 
 an industrial regulating system, which carries on its 
 co-ordinating function independently — a separate 
 plexus of connected gajtgliar 
 
 We have now looked at social evolution, as the ^ow, if we 
 
 consider all 
 
 product of both those sets of causes — the '' external these con- 
 factors'^ and the " internal'''' — by which Mr. Spencer Mr. spencer's 
 explains it, and have followed it, under both aspects, 
 from the earliest beginnings of progress to the 
 dawn and development of civilisation, such as history 
 knows it. Our account of Mr. Spencer's theory of 
 the ascent of man and society is necessarily very 
 incomplete ; but the various conclusions mentioned we shaii find 
 
 , . . . them all to be 
 
 m it may be said to be exhaustively typical of conclusions 
 the conclusions of social science as Mr. Spencer gaJ'es'a?^'^^' 
 conceives of it. wholes, not 
 
 about parts 
 
 And now let us consider what the nature of those of aggregates, 
 conclusions is. We shall find that they are, one and 
 all of them, conclusions with regard to aggregates. 
 All the phenomena with which they deal are 
 phenomena not of individuals, not of different classes, 
 but of masses of men, communities, races, nations.
 
 40 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book 1 the units of which are resrarded as beino: virtually so 
 
 Chapters , . . o . . ^ ^ 
 
 similar, that what is true of one is virtually true of 
 all. This similarity certainly is not imputed to all 
 mankind. Men are recognised as having been 
 different in one epoch from what they become in 
 another, and one race and the inhabitants of one 
 climate as being different from other men differently 
 born and circumstanced. The primitive millions 
 who could hardly walk upright, and whose sexual 
 The only rclatious rcscmbled those of the animals, are 
 
 differences ,...,,. , , , 
 
 recognised by distmguishcd from their erect successors who 
 men are^ married and lived in families ; and the strong and 
 be^eenTne cncrgetic raccs are distinguished from their weaker 
 homogeneous contemporarics. But each of these aorgjreeates is 
 
 aggregate and '■ ... oa a 
 
 another. regarded as a unit in itself. The conquering race 
 which has grown vigorous in dry regions, and the 
 inferior race enslaved by it, which has lost its 
 strength in moist regions, are contrasted sharply 
 with each other ; but neither is made the subject of 
 any internal division, nor treated as though the 
 units composing it were not virtually similar. Mr. 
 Spencer of course admits (for this is one of the 
 fundamental parts of his philosophy) that these 
 wholes, these aggregates, progress through a 
 constant differentiation of their parts, different 
 functions being performed by an increasing number 
 of groups ; but the units who compose these groups, 
 and whom he calls the " internal factors',' are 
 regarded by him as being congenitally each a 
 counterpart of the others ; and their different 
 functions and their different acquired aptitudes are
 
 MR. SPENCER AND THE SOCIAL AGGREGATE 41 
 resrarded as the result of different external circum- ^0°^ ' 
 
 , . . Chapter 2 
 
 stances which press into different moulds one and 
 the same material. Thus when the single group 
 from which the nation originally springs undergoes, 
 as it becomes more numerous, what Mr. Spencer 
 calls the process of " fission," and spreads itself in 
 search of food over an ever-extending area, new 
 groups separate not because they have different 
 appetites, but because, having the same appetites, 
 they must satisfy them in different places by the 
 exercise of the same faculties. Division of labour, 
 as we have seen, he explains in the same way ; and 
 not its origin only, but its latest and most elaborate 
 developments. Of the manufacturinfy businesses of ^"'^ ^'^'^''^^^^^ 
 
 •*• . ... between simi- 
 
 to-day, for instance, with their promoters, managers, lar men who 
 capitalists, and multitudes of various workmen, not occupred° 
 only is each business treated by him as a single ^'^'^^^""y- 
 unit, but each of these units, or ganglia, is a unit 
 which differs from the rest for accidental reasons 
 only, as a gardener who happens to be digging 
 may differ from a gardener who happens to be 
 raking a walk ; and he describes the whole as " as . 
 plexus of ganglia C07inected by an internuncial 
 system." 
 
 The use of this last phrase, and the physiological 
 analogy suggested by it, illustrate yet more clearly 
 the fact here insisted on — namely, that for Mr. 
 Spencer the sociologist's true unit of interest is the 
 social aggregate, as a whole, to the exclusion of the 
 individual or of the class. The latter are merely 
 the ganglia, or veins, or nerves, which are nothing
 
 42 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 2 
 
 But, as has 
 been said 
 already, the 
 social prob- 
 lems of to- 
 day arise out 
 of a conflict 
 between 
 different parts 
 of the same 
 aggregate ; 
 therefore the 
 phenomena of 
 the aggregates 
 as a whole do 
 not help us. 
 
 except as connected with the organism to which 
 they belong. Each social aggregate, in fact, is a 
 single animal ; and whatever is achieved or suffered 
 by any class or individual within it, is really achieved 
 or suffered, in the eye of the Spencerian sociologist, 
 not by the class or the individual, but by that cor- 
 porate animal, the community. 
 
 Now a study of these phenomena of aggregates 
 is, as has been said already, valuable for speculative 
 purposes. It has led those who have pursued it 
 to a variety of important conclusions which have 
 largely revolutionised our conception of human 
 history, and of the conditions that engender civil- 
 isations or else preclude their possibility. It has 
 shown us human life as a great unfolding drama, 
 but it has hardly given us any help at all in dealing 
 with the practical problems that belong to our own 
 day ; and the reason of this, which has already been 
 stated generally, must be apparent the moment we 
 consider what these practical problems are. Their 
 general character is sufficiently indicated by such 
 familiar antitheses as aristocracy and democracy, the 
 few and the many, rich and poor, capital and labour, 
 or, as Mr. Kidd puts it, collectivists and the 
 opponents of collectivism. In other words, the 
 social problems of to-day — like the social problems 
 of most other periods — are problems which arise 
 out of the differences between class and class. 
 That is to say, they depend on, and derive their 
 sole meaning from phenomena which are not refer- 
 able to the social aggregate as a whole, but which
 
 AGGREGATE AND ITS CONFLICTING PARTS 43 
 
 are manifested severally by distinct and independent ^°°'* ^ 
 
 -' -' ^ Chapters 
 
 parts. The social aggregate, when regarded from 
 this standpoint, is no longer a single animal, whose 
 pains or pleasures reveal themselves in a single 
 consciousness. It is a litter of animals, each of 
 which has a consciousness of its own, and, together 
 with its consciousness, interests of its own also, 
 which are opposed to those of the others, instead 
 of coinciding with them. 
 
 And now let us consider more closely out of what The conflict- 
 
 ■^ between the 
 
 this opposition arises. Mr. Spencer, as we have parts of the 
 seen, in our rapid survey of his arguments, lays great arises from in- 
 stress on the fact that as men rise into aggregates, posulon? °* 
 they do so only on condition of submitting them- 
 selves to governors, military in the first place, and 
 at a later stage civil. The truth, however, which 
 he thus elaborates, whatever may be its speculative 
 importance, fails to have any bearing on any practical 
 problem, because it is not a truth about which there 
 has ever been any practical disagreement. Aristo- 
 crat, democrat, and socialist all agree that there 
 must be orderly government of some sort, and official 
 governors to administer to it. The point at issue 
 between them is not whether some must govern 
 and others submit to be governed, but how the 
 individuals who perform the work of government 
 shall be chosen, and what, apart from their official 
 superiority and authority, shall be their position with 
 regard to the rest of the community. Why should 
 they enjoy any special social advantage ? Or if 
 they are to enjoy it, why should they be usually
 
 44 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book 1 drawn from a small privileged class, and not from the 
 
 Chapters ^ . . , . , , 
 
 masses of the community, smkmg to the general 
 level again when their tenure of office terminates ? 
 Such are the questions proposed by one party; 
 whilst the other party replies by contending that the 
 of which Mr. limited class in question can alone supply governors 
 sociology takes of the required talents and character. Of this clash 
 no account. ^^ opinions and interests, which is as old as civil- 
 isation itself, though in each age it assumes some 
 different form, Mr. Spencer's social science neces- 
 sarily takes no cognisance, because the parts of each 
 social aggregate have for him no separate existence. 
 The same criticism applies to his treatment of 
 economic production. He explains, as we have 
 seen, the origin of the division of labour, showing 
 how ** uiilikeness between the products of different 
 districts " inevitably led to " the localisation of 
 industries,'' turning one set of savages — to use his 
 own example — into potters, another into makers of 
 baskets. But here again we have a truth which, 
 whatever its speculative interest, has no bearing on 
 any practical problem; for no one denies that 
 division of labour is necessary, nor do any of the 
 difficulties of to-day turn upon its remote origin. 
 Socialists and individualists are alike ready to admit 
 that different men must follow different industries. 
 The point at issue is why, within the limits of the 
 same industry, different men pursue it on different 
 levels, some being masters and capitalists, some 
 being labourers and subordinates. Here, just as 
 in the sphere of political and military government,
 
 THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 45 
 we have one class defendinsf its existins: position ^^^^ ' 
 
 • -1 ^ if 1 . Chapters 
 
 and privileges, and another class attacking or ques- 
 tioning them ; and it is out of circumstances such 
 as these, thus briefly indicated, that the practical 
 social problems of the present day arise. 
 
 Now the question at the bottom of these can be sodai prob- 
 
 • 1 Tr 11 lems arise out 
 
 reduced to very simple terms. It all members of of the desire of 
 the community were content with existing social po°s?rionra?e 
 arranorements, it is needless to say there would be l"^"'""^ *° .^^^^ 
 
 o ' -' their positions 
 
 no social problems at all. Such problems are due changed; 
 entirely to the existence of persons who are not 
 contented, and who desire that certain of these 
 arrangements should be changed. It will be seen, 
 accordingly, that the great and fundamental question 
 which, as a practical guide, the sociologist is asked 
 to answer, is whether or how far the changes desired and the practu 
 by the discontented are practicable ; and the first is the change ' 
 step towards ascertaining how far the arrangements po^s^ibL^?^ 
 in question can be turned into something which 
 they are not, is to ascertain precisely how they 
 have come to be what they are. 
 
 But this way of putting the case is still not 
 sufHciently definite. Mr. Spencer himself has put 
 it in somewhat similar language; and yet in doing 
 so he has missed the heart of the problem. Mr. 
 Spencer's speculative gaze, travelling over the 
 past and present, sees one generation melting like 
 a cloud into another, and takes no note of the indi- 
 viduals that compose each. The practical sociologist 
 must adopt a very different method of observation. 
 He must remember that practical problems arise
 
 46 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 2 
 
 To answer this 
 question we 
 must examine 
 into the causes 
 why such and 
 such indi- 
 viduals are in 
 inferior, and 
 others in 
 superior posi- 
 tions. 
 
 and become practical, not in virtue of their relation 
 to mankind generally, but in virtue of their relation 
 to each particular generation that is confronted by 
 them ; and a particular generation in any given 
 community, and the different classes into which the 
 community is divided, are made up respectively of 
 particular men and women. In asking, therefore, 
 how the social arrangements we have been consider- 
 ing have come to be what they are, we must not ask 
 in vague and general terms why a portion of the 
 social aggregate occupies a position which contents 
 it, and another portion a position which exasper- 
 ates it; but we must consider the individuals of 
 which each portion, at any given time, is composed, 
 and begin the inquiry at the point at which they 
 begin it themselves. " Why am I — Tom or Dick 
 or Harry — included in that portion of the aggregate 
 which occupies an inferior position? And why are 
 these men — William or James or George — more 
 fortunate than I, and included in the portion of 
 the aggregate which occupies a superior position?" 
 To this question there are but three possible 
 answers. The inferior position of Tom or Dick 
 or Harry is due to his differing from William or 
 James or George in external circumstances, which 
 theoretically, at all events, might all be equalised 
 — such, for example, as his education; or it is due 
 to his differing from them in certain congenital 
 faculties, with respect to which men can never 
 be made equal — as, for example, in his brain power 
 or his physical energy ; or it is due to his differing
 
 ORIGIN OF SOCIAL INEQUALITIES 47 
 
 from them in external circumstances which have ^°°'' ' 
 arisen naturally from differences in the congenital 
 faculties of others, and which, if they could be 
 equalised at all, could never be equalised with 
 anything like completeness — such, for example, as 
 the possession by William and James and George 
 of leisured and intellectual homes secured for them 
 by gifted fathers, and the want of such homes and 
 fathers on the part of Tom and Dick and Harry. 
 
 The first question, accordingly, which we have to Are mequaii- 
 ask is as follows. Taking Tom or Dick or Harry due to alterable 
 as a type of those classes who happen to occupy an ^"*^ ^'^^'' 
 
 dental circum- 
 stances ? 
 
 inferior position in the aggregate, and comparing 
 him with others who happen to occupy superior 
 positions, we have to ask how far he is condemned 
 to the inferior position which he resents by such 
 external circumstances as conceivably could be 
 equalised by legislation, and how far by some 
 congenital inferiority of his own, or circumstances 
 naturally arising out of the congenital inferiority 
 of others. Or we may put the question conversely, 
 and ask how William and George and James have 
 come to occupy the positions which Tom, Dick, 
 and Harry envy. Do they owe their positions 
 solely to unjust and arbitrary legislation, which a 
 genuinely democratic parliament could and would or are they 
 
 , ^ \-^ .. --. - due to con- 
 
 undo ? Or to exceptional abilities of their own, ot genital in- 
 
 which no parliament could deprive them.-* Or toSichli^om 
 
 advantages secured for them by the exceptional ^" *''^"if° 
 
 abilities of their fathers, which no parliament could 
 
 interfere with, or, at all events, could abolish, without
 
 48 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I entering: on a conflict with the instincts of human 
 
 Chapter 2 *-' . . . 
 
 nature, and interfering with the springs of all human 
 action ? 
 Social ine- Now that cxtemal circumstances of a kind, easily 
 
 qualities are , ■' 
 
 partly due to alterable by legislation, have been, and often are, 
 
 oircumstances ; •^ ^ r -i* i*.* • t 1 
 
 responsible for many social inequalities, is a tact 
 which we may here assume without particularly dis- 
 cussing it. The inquiry, therefore, narrows itself 
 still further, and resolves itself into this : Do the 
 congenital superiorities or inferiorities of the per- 
 sons, or of parents of the persons, who at any given 
 time are occupying in the social aggregate superior 
 and inferior positions, play any part in the produc- 
 tion of these social inequalities at all ? 
 
 This question must plainly be the practical 
 sociologist's starting-point ; for if social inequalities 
 are due wholly to alterable and artificial circum- 
 stances, social conditions are capable, theoretically, 
 at all events, of being equalised ; but if, on the 
 other hand, inferior and superior positions are partly, 
 at all events, the result of the congenital inequalities 
 of individuals, over which no legislation can exercise 
 the least control, then a natural limit is set to the 
 possibilities of the levelling process ; and it is the 
 business of the sociologist, if he aspires to be a 
 but most practical guide, to beQ:in with ascertaining what 
 
 people will ^ ,. . A 1 1 • 1 • 
 
 admit that con- these limits arc. Are, then, the congenital in- 
 equalities in equalities of men a factor in the production of social 
 muTh' toTo inequalities, or are they not ? ^ 
 
 with them. Now to many people it will seem that even to 
 
 ask this question is superfluous. They will regard
 
 INEQUALITIES IN CAPACITY 49 
 
 it as a matter patent to common sense that men's ^°°'* ^ 
 
 . . Chapter 2 
 
 congenital mequalities are to a large extent the 
 cause, in every society, of such social inequalities why then 
 
 ... insist on this 
 
 as exist in it; and they will possibly say that it is fact? 
 a mere waste of time to discuss a truth which is so Because this 
 self-evident. It happens, however, that the more ciseiy what our 
 obvious it seems to be to common sense, the more sodoiogStr^ 
 necessary it is for us to begin our present inquiry '^"ore. 
 with insisting on it ; and the reason is that, in spite 
 of its being so obvious, the whole school of contem- 
 porary sociologists, with Mr. Spencer as their head, 
 base their whole method of sociological study on a 
 denial of it. By their method of dealing with social 
 aggregates only, they deny not only the influence, 
 but even the existence of congenital inequalities, 
 and endeavour to explain them away as an illusion 
 of the unscientific mind. They admit, indeed, as 
 our quotation from Mr. Spencer showed, that the 
 primitive man was congenitally different from man in 
 later ages. They admit that the individuals reared 
 in a dry climate, who formed the conquering aggre- 
 gates, were congenitally different from the individuals ' 
 reared in a moist climate, who formed the enslaved 
 aggregates ; but they absolutely refuse to take any 
 account whatever of the congenital inequalities by 
 which individuals within the same aggregate are 
 differentiated. 
 
 In order to show the reader that such is literally 
 
 the case, we need not rely merely on such inferences 
 
 as have just been drawn from the manner in which 
 
 Mr. Spencer applies his method, and from the 
 
 4
 
 50 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I oreneral character of his conclusions. We have the 
 
 Chapter 2 *-•, ^ 
 
 direct evidence of his own categorical statements. 
 
 Let us turn again to the criticism with which, 
 
 as Mr. Spencer as wc havc alrcadv seen, he prefaces his whole 
 
 shows us by ^ ^ ^ •' ■•■ 
 
 his distinct scrics of sociological writings, and which may be 
 assertions, as taken as his fundamental profession of faith — his 
 chtl^ter^of ^ cHticism, namely, of what he calls " the great-man 
 his conciu- t/ieory" his rejection of it as being a theory which 
 would render all social science impossible, and his 
 enunciation of the theory which he contends must 
 take its place. It may seem to some readers that 
 his rejection of the great man as a vera causa which 
 will explain social phenomena amounts to no more 
 than a rejection of that exaggerated view of history 
 which expresses itself in the works of writers such 
 as Froude and Carlyle, and which vaguely attributes 
 all the progressive changes of humanity to the per- 
 sonality of rulers, of political and military autocrats 
 — such as Henry VIII., Cromwell, and Frederick 
 the Great of Prussia. And indeed, to judge by Mr. 
 Spencer's language, it is this exaggerated view 
 which has been most frequently present in his 
 mind, as we may see by referring to the passage 
 already quoted, which concludes his demonstration 
 that the ''great-man theory"" is false. With the 
 sole exception, he says, of the military struggles of 
 primitive tribes, " new activities, 7iew institutions, 
 new ideas, unobtrusively make their appearance, 
 without the aid of any king or legislator ; and if 
 yoti wish to understand the phenomena of social 
 evolution, yoti will not do it should you read yourself
 
 MR. SPENCER'S FALSE ASSUMPTION 51 
 
 blind over the biographies of all the great rulers Book i 
 on record, down to Frederick the Greedy and 
 Napoleon the Treacherous T 
 
 But Mr. Spencer, in rejecting the great '' ruler^^^llf^^^'" 
 and legislator " as a factor in social evolution un- great-man 
 
 . , , . , . . theory is a 
 
 worthy of the attention of the sociologist, is really removal of aii 
 rejecting a great deal else besides. He is really eqSies from 
 rejecting every inequality in capacity by which a ^j'^^y^.''^ °^ 
 certain number of men are differentiated from, and 
 raised above others. In order to show that such is 
 the case, we will avail ourselves of his own words.. 
 We will, then, start with one casual remark out of 
 many, in which Mr. Spencer, forgetting his own 
 theories, slips into a method of observation truer than 
 the one he advocates. " Men,'' he writes in his Study 
 of Sociology, " who have aptitudes for accumulating 
 observations are rarely men given to generalising ; 
 whilst men given to generalising are co^nmonly 
 men who, mostly usijtg the observation of others, 
 observe for themselves less from love of particular 
 facts than from the desire to ptit such facts to use''' 
 Nothing can be clearer than the distinction here 
 drawn. It is one of great importance in the 
 elucidation of many social problems ; and it deals not 
 with the likeness, but with a congenital difference, 
 which exists between men belonging to the same 
 social aggregate. But now let us compare this 
 with another passage, in which Mr. Spencer, re- 
 turning again to his theory, explains how members 
 of the same aggregate are to be treated by any 
 sociologist who would claim to be a man of science.
 
 5* ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I '^ Amonzst societies of all orders and sizes,'' he 
 
 Chapter 2 . «=> -^ . r j ^ -^ ,t 
 
 writes, " sociology has to ascertain what traits there 
 are i^i common, determined by the common traits of 
 human beings ; what less general traits, distinguish- 
 ing certain groups of societies, result from traits 
 distinguishing certain races of men; and what 
 peculiarities in each society are traceable to the 
 peculiarities of its members^ This is clumsily ex- 
 pressed ; but its meaning, which is quite obvious, 
 may be seen by taking, as a typical society, that of 
 England. The sociologist, in explaining English 
 society, will have to consider, according to Mr. 
 Spencer, first, what traits Englishmen have in 
 virtue of being human creatures ; secondly, he will 
 have to consider what traits they have in virtue of 
 being Europeans, not Orientals ; and, thirdly, he will 
 have to consider what traits they have in virtue of 
 being Englishmen, not Frenchmen or Germans. 
 
 The reader will at once perceive the contrast 
 
 between the spirit of these two passages. In the 
 
 former Mr. Spencer notes, with great penetration 
 
 and accuracy, a most important point of difference 
 
 and he actually between two scts of mcu belonging to the same 
 
 defines an , tii iii'i •• 
 
 aggregate as socicty. In thc latter he deals with societies as 
 pos"edo°f™' single bodies, the members of which possess no 
 approximately pgrsonal traits whatever, except such as they all 
 
 equal units. t^ ' ^ J 
 
 possess alike ; and all the traits in which they differ 
 from one another, such as the one just alluded to, 
 of necessity disappear from the field of vision 
 altogether. Should any doubt as to the matter still 
 remain in the reader's mind, it will be dispelled by
 
 THE HYPOTHESIS OF EQUAL UNITS 53 
 
 the quotation of one further passage. " A true ^°°'' ' 
 social aggregate^' he says ["^i- distinct front a viere 
 large fainily\ is a Mnio7i of like individuals^ in- 
 depe7ident of 07ie another in parentage, and approxi- 
 mately equal in capacities^ 
 
 Here is the case stated with the most absolute 
 clearness. All congenital inequalities, as was said 
 just now, between the various individuals who 
 make up the aggregate are ignored ; and it is 
 upon this hypothesis of approximately equal units, 
 acted on by different external circumstances, that he 
 attempts to build up his whole system of sociology. 
 He is, indeed, little as he himself may suspect it, 
 reproducing in another form the error of Karl 
 Marx and the earlier of the so-called "scientific 
 socialists," who maintained that all wealth was the 
 product of common or average labour, measured 
 by time, and that hour for hour any one labourer 
 necessarily produced as much wealth as another. 
 The socialists of to-day are already beginning to see 
 that this monstrous, though inareniously advocated, His failure. 
 
 1 • . ,1 1 f 1 • c .and that of 
 
 doctrme is untenable as the foundation 01 economics ; others, as 
 and yet, strange to say, a doctrine strictly equivalent Todoiogists 
 to it forms the accepted foundation of con- JJJr buuding 
 temporary social science. That science starts with °" '^'^ ^aise 
 
 , . . , , . hypothesis. 
 
 the hypothesis of approximately equal units, and 
 ignores the congenital differences between the 
 individuals who compose the aggregate. We shall 
 find it to be ultimately from differences of this kind 
 that all the practical problems which beset civilisa- 
 tion spring, and that the inability of the modern
 
 54 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I sociologists, complained of by Mr. Kidd and 
 
 Chapter 2 o ' ir j 
 
 Professor Marshall, to throw on these problems any 
 definite light is simply the natural and inevitable 
 result of excluding the differences in question 
 altogether from their scientific purview. 
 
 We will, in the next chapter, consider the whole 
 range of arguments used by Mr. Spencer and others 
 in justification of this error.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 GREAT MEN, AS THE TRUE CAUSE OF PROGRESS 
 
 It is evident that an error of the kind now in The ignominy 
 
 , 1 1 r 1 of natural 
 
 question does not represent the carelessness of the inequalities is 
 untrained thinker. It is nothing if not dehberate ; procedure!* 
 and indeed Mr. Spencer admits that it is altogether J-^^^^j^^^j^^^®* 
 in opposition to the opinions which men naturally 
 hold. Accordingly, the arguments by which he and 
 his followers justify it, and have actually imposed it 
 on all the sociological thinkers of their generation, 
 require, before we reject them, to be examined with Let us examine 
 
 . Mr. Spencer's 
 
 the utmost care. defence of it. 
 
 Let us then turn our attention once again to the 
 grounds on which Mr. Spencer refuses to admit 
 the great or exceptional man as a true factor in the 
 production of social change. If the reader will 
 reflect upon the account that has been already given 
 of Mr, Spencer's arguments in connection with this He defends it 
 point, he will find that Mr. Spencer rejects the °'^^y^' 
 great man for two reasons, which are not only (i) by saying 
 
 ,. . , , . Ill that the great 
 
 distmct, but are, when interpreted closely, not man does not 
 entirely consistent with each other. One of these he\Jems to ** 
 reasons is that the great or exceptional man does^°' 
 
 55
 
 56 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I not really produce those ffreat chancres of which he 
 
 Chapters . •; , . P . . . „ , , 
 
 IS nevertheless "• the proximate t^ntiator ; the other 
 (2) by saying fg that, outsidc the sphcrc of primitive warfare, he 
 
 that what he ..... 
 
 seems to do docs not cvcn proximately initiate any great changes 
 muS"^ ^ at all. The first of these two contentions is ex- 
 pressed with sufficient clearness in his statement 
 " if there is to be a7iy thing like a real explanation " 
 of those changes of which the great man is the 
 '"'proximate initiator' — changes, to quote an example 
 which he himself gives, such as those produced by 
 the conquests of Julius Caesar — this explanation 
 must be sought not in the great man himself, but 
 " in the aggregate of social conditions out of which 
 he and they (i.e. the chaitges commonly supposed to 
 have bee7i produced by him) have arisen!'' Mr. 
 Spencer's second contention is expressed in the 
 following passage, the concluding words of which 
 have been quoted already, but on which it will be 
 presently necessary for us to insist again. "'Rec- 
 ognising''' he says, " what truth there is in the 
 great-man theory^ we may say that^ if lim^ited to the 
 history of primitive societies., the histories of which 
 are histories of little else than endeavours to destroy 
 one another., it approximately expresses fact in rep- 
 rese7iting the great leader as all-important. But 
 its imineyise error lies in the assumption that what 
 was once true was true for ever., and that a relation 
 of ruler and ruled which was good at one time is 
 good for all time, fust as fast as the predatory 
 activity of early tribes diminishes., just as fast as 
 large aggregates are formed., so fast do societies
 
 MR. SPENCER ON THE MILITARY LEADER 57 
 
 begin to give origi7t to 7iew activities^ new ideas, all ^°^^ ^ 
 of which unobtrusively make their appearance with- 
 out the aid of any ki7tg or legislator^ 
 
 It will be necessary to deal with these two He admits that 
 
 - . . • 1 1 the great man 
 
 contentions separately ; and we will begin with the does do some- 
 second, as set forth in the words just quoted. We lioHfiln'^^^ 
 shall find it valuable as an example of that singular *^'^' 
 confusion of thought by which all the reasoning 
 of our sociologists with regard to this question 
 is vitiated. Mr. Spencer speaks of an "-immense 
 error"" which he is pointing out and correcting. 
 The ''''immense error'' in reality is to be found in 
 his own conception. It is hard to imagine anything 
 more arbitrary and more gratuitously false than the 
 contrast which he here draws between the actions but denies that 
 of men in primitive war, for the success of which thing excep- 
 he admits a great leader to have been essential, and sphere of ^^ 
 their various actions and activities as manifested p^^^^^^"' pi'oe- 
 
 ress. 
 
 in peaceful progress, which, he contends, neither 
 require leadership nor exhibit traces of its influence. 
 We are at this moment altogether waiving the 
 question of how far the great leader, when he is 
 the proximate cause of the military successes of his 
 tribe, is their cause in any deeper sense. It is 
 enough for us now to take Mr. Spencer's admission 
 that the leader is really the cause, in some sense or 
 other, of the social changes connected with early 
 warfare ; and, keeping to this sense, let us consider 
 in what possible way less causality can be attributed 
 to the actions of great men and leaders in the 
 sphere of peaceful progress.
 
 58 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I «« ^ primitive society','' if it is to become powerful 
 
 in war — this Mr. Spencer admits — must have a 
 
 But how does great leader to direct it. But what precisely is it 
 
 the great man , ,-. ^1^c-11^ 
 
 fulfil his that such a leader is and does : buch a leader 
 wrr?°By° leads, because he is one mind or personality impress- 
 othere"° ^^S ^^^ ^^^ moment its superior qualities on many 
 minds or personalities. He supplies the fighting 
 men of his society with an intelligence not their own 
 — often with a courage, a presence of mind, and a 
 resolution. He dictates to them the directions in 
 which their feet are to carry them ; the manner in 
 which they are to group themselves ; the movements 
 of their hands and arms. He gives the word, and 
 a thousand men dig trenches. He gives the word 
 again, and a thousand men wield swords ; now he 
 makes them advance ; now he makes them halt ; 
 and the measure of his greatness as a leader is to be 
 found in those results which, by directing the action 
 of all these men, he elicits from it. 
 
 And now from the triumphs of war let us turn 
 to those of peace. " These','' says Mr. Spencer, 
 " unlike the former, m^ake their appearance unobtru- 
 sively, without the aid of any king or legislator'' 
 It may, no doubt, be true that they do appear 
 unobtrusively in the sense that they are not accom- 
 panied by trumpets and drums and tom-toms. A 
 factory for the production of toffee, or of trimmings 
 for ladies' petticoats, does not require an Ivan the 
 Terrible to direct it, nor are Mr. Spencer's sentences 
 as he writes them punctuated by discharges of 
 artillery. But if the essence of kingship and leader-
 
 MR. SPENCER AS AN INDUSTRIAL DICTATOR 59 
 
 ship is to command the actions of others, the larger ^°o'' ^ 
 
 f , . . . . , , , Chapters 
 
 part of the progressive activities of peace, and the 
 
 arts and products of civilisation, result from and im- The great man. 
 
 1 1 • n r 1 • 111 • • 11 '" peace, does 
 
 ply the influence or kings and leaders, in essentially precisely the 
 the same sense as do the successes of primitive war, ^^^^ ^ '"^' 
 the only difference being that the kings are here 
 more numerous, and though they do not wear any 
 arms or uniforms, are incomparably more autocratic 
 than the kings and Czars who do. 
 
 As a particularly clear illustration of this im- 
 portant truth, let us take Mr. Spencer himself, and 
 place him before his own eyes as an autocratic king 
 or ruler. In certain respects he is so; and it is 
 only because he is so that he has been able to give, 
 through his books, his thoughts and theories to the 
 world. For let us examine any one of his volumes Mr. spencer. 
 
 . ., , ... - .,.-- - for example, 
 
 and consider what it is, in so far as it dmers from orders the 
 any other volume — let us say from a treatise on the ^h™ p°ut his 
 
 cutting: of trousers, or an attack on the Spencerian ^°°^^ '"^° 
 . . . ... ^yp^' 
 
 philosophy — which is printed in similar type on 
 
 pages of the same size. It differs solely in the 
 
 order in which the letters have been arranged by 
 
 the hands of the compositors; and its value as a 
 
 work of philosophy consequently depends altogether 
 
 on a certain complicated series of movements which 
 
 the hands of the compositors have made. And how 
 
 has this prolonged series of minute movements been 
 
 secured ? It has been secured by the fact that Mr. 
 
 Herbert Spencer, through his manuscript, has given 
 
 the compositors a prolonged series of orders, which 
 
 their hands, day after day, have been obliged to obey
 
 6o ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I passively. He has been as absolute a master of all 
 
 Chapter 3 . "^ , 
 
 their professional actions as ever was the most 
 arbitrary general of the professional actions of his 
 soldiery; and there is absolutely no difference in 
 point of command and obedience between the com- 
 positors who, at Mr. Spencer's bidding, put into 
 type the words " homogeneity " and " the Unknow- 
 able,'' and the Guards who charged the French at 
 the bidding of the Duke of Wellington. 
 The inventor Precisclv the samc thing is true of all scientific 
 
 orders the men _ , "' . '-' , . 
 
 by whom his invcutious — not iudccd of inventions as mere ideas 
 
 inventions are ii- • i,f' i* it 
 
 manufactured, and discovcrics, but ot mvcutious and discoveries 
 applied practically to the service of civilisation. 
 The mere discovery of certain properties belong- 
 ing to material substances, or the thinking out 
 of some new machine or process, may be the 
 work of one man, who has command over nobody 
 except himself. But the moment he proceeds to 
 make his machine or process useful — to apply it 
 to the purpose of actual business or manufacture — 
 he is obliged to secure for himself an entire army 
 of mercenaries, who act under his orders in precisely 
 the same way as soldiers act under the orders of the 
 military leader, or as the compositors act under the 
 orders of Mr. Spencer. When the electric telegraph 
 was supplemented by the invention of the telephone, 
 telephones were produced, and could have been pro- 
 duced, only by a multitude of men performing a 
 series of manual actions which were different in 
 detail from anything they had performed before, and 
 which, if it had not been for the inventor, would never
 
 THE AUTOCRACY OF THE INVENTOR 6i 
 have been performed at all. They filed or thev '^°°'* ' 
 
 , , . , -11 Chapter 3 
 
 cast pieces of metal mto new shapes ; with these 
 pieces of metal they connected in new order pieces 
 of other materials, such as wood and vulcanite, the 
 shape of these last being new and special also ; and 
 every piece of material shaped or connected with 
 another piece was the exact resultant of so many 
 manual movements made in passive obedience to the 
 inventor's autocratic orders. It was only because his 
 orders were obeyed with such humble fidelity and 
 completeness that these movements resulted in 
 telephones, enriching the world with a new con- 
 venience, and not in the old-fashioned telegraphic 
 machines, or in penholders, or vulcanite inkstands, 
 or even in useless heaps of shavings and brass 
 filings. And the same is the case with every inven- 
 tion or contrivance which has helped to build up the 
 fabric of modern material civilisation. 
 
 Civilisation, however, even in its most material 
 sense, does not consist of contrivances and inventions 
 only. " The one operation^^ says Mill, '^ of putting 
 things into fit places . , . is all that man does, or 
 can do, with matter. He has no other means of 
 acting on it than by moving it^ But valuable as this 
 formula is, it is not sufficiently comprehensive ; for 
 there is another economic process which, to the The great man 
 ordinary mind at all events, is hardly suggested by ordeTs wf 
 such a phrase as " to move matter r employees. 
 
 The process referred to consists in the moving of 
 men. What is meant by the distinction here drawn 
 is this — that the industrial efficiency of a community
 
 62 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I (jQgg not depend solely on the muscles of the manual 
 
 Chapter 3 ..... 
 
 workers being given a right direction, so that they 
 shall shape material objects in such and such a 
 way, but it depends also on the movements which 
 are prescribed to the men being prescribed to the 
 men best fitted to perform them, and being pre- 
 scribed to them in such order that when each move- 
 ment has to be made, the men told off to make it 
 shall be ready to make it at the moment. Here 
 we see part of the secret of the success of the great 
 contractor. 
 The hotel- The importance of these considerations becomes 
 
 keeper orders 
 
 his staff. all the clearer to us when we reflect on the fact 
 that the mere production of commodities, and the 
 production of the means of production, form but a 
 part of the processes which advance, maintain, and 
 indeed constitute civilisation. A part almost equally 
 large consists in the rendering of various personal 
 services, which often, no doubt, involve the utilisa- 
 tion of improved appliances, but which almost as 
 often are neither more nor less than the performance 
 of actions of a simple and ordinary kind, the merit 
 and demerit, the wastefulness or the economy, of 
 which depend on their being performed with absolute 
 punctuality and despatch. A good example of this 
 is the case of a large hotel. Whether a large hotel 
 is carried on at a profit or at a loss depends almost 
 entirely on this question of personal management. 
 The success of a successful manager does not depend 
 on his capacity for inventing new methods of waiting, 
 of cooking, or of making beds. It depends on his
 
 THE ''PROXIMATE INITIATOR'' 63 
 
 capacity for organising his staff of cooks, waiters, ^^^^^ ' 
 and chamber-maids. This is well expressed by that 
 most significant American saying, " He's a smart 
 man, but he couldn't keep a hotel " ; the meaning 
 being that one of the most important, and at the 
 same time one of the rarest, faculties required for 
 maintaining a complicated civilisation like our own 
 is the faculty by which, given a number of tasks, one 
 man governs a number of men in the act of co- 
 operatively performing them. 
 
 Examples of this kind might be indefinitely mul- ah these men 
 tiplied, but those just adduced are quite sufficient great military 
 to prove the sole point insisted on at the present and if ?he Ster 
 moment — namely, that whatever be the part (and If ^^"T^L^ 
 Mr. Spencer admits it to be " all-important " ) which ^^^ f°'''"e''- 
 the great man plays as a leader in primitive warfare, 
 a part precisely similar in kind is played by other 
 great men in the peaceful processes, and, above all, 
 in the progress of civilisation. 
 
 And now, having dealt with this point, let us turn Next, as to the 
 to Mr. Spencer's other contention — his contention Ihrgr"!? man 
 namely that, whatever the part may be, and however ^^^^^l^^ 
 seemingly important, which the great man plays in ^^'y- ^"^ "°^ 
 producing social changes, he is, in any case, nothing cause- 
 but their ''''proximate initiator " ; — that " they have 
 their chief cause hi the generations he descended 
 from^' ; — and that if there is to be anything like 
 a real and scientific explanation of them, it must 
 be sought in the aggregate of conditions out of 
 which both he and they have arisen, and not in 
 the great man's personality as revealed to us by any
 
 64 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I records of his life, or by any analysis of his peculiar 
 faculties. 
 
 We have already seen in a general way how this 
 feat of merging the great man in " ike aggregate of 
 this, as Mr. cofiditions out of wJiick he has arisen " is performed 
 three popular by Mr. Spcnccr himself. Let us now turn for a 
 dayYhowLt. momcut to three other writers who, though differ- 
 ing from him as to certain of his conclusions, have 
 with regard to this particular point done little else 
 than popularise and apply his teaching. 
 
 "// needs only a little reflection',' writes Mr. 
 Kidd, " to enable us to perceive that the marvellous 
 accomplishments of modern civilisation are primarily 
 the measure of the social stability a7id social efficiency^ 
 and not of the iittellectual pre-emi7tence of the peoples 
 who have produced them. . . . J^or it must be re- 
 membered that even the ablest men amo7igst us, whose 
 names go down to history connected with great dis- 
 coveries and inventions, have each in reality advanced 
 the sum of knowledge by only a small addition. In 
 the fulness of time, and when the ground has been 
 slowly and laboriously prepared for it, the great idea 
 fructifies and the discovery is made. It is, in fact, 
 the work not of one but of a great num,ber of persons. 
 How true it is that all the great ideas have beefi the 
 products of the time rather than of iftdividuals may 
 be the more readily realised when it is remem,bered 
 ihaty as regards a large number of them, there have 
 been rival claims put forward for the ho7iour of 
 authorship by persons who, working quite independ- 
 ently, have arrived at like results ab7iost simultaite-
 
 THE CASE AGAINST THE GREA7 MAN 6$ 
 ously. Thus rival and iridepejident claims have been '^°'^^ ^ 
 
 . . . Chapter 3 
 
 made for Ihe discovery of the differential calculus^ . . . 
 the invention of the steam engine^ . . . the methods 
 of spectrum analysis, the telegraph, the telephone, 
 as well as fnany other discoveries.^^ And then 
 Mr. Kidd proceeds to quote with approval the 
 following sentence from an essay which was written 
 by an American socialist, Mr. Bellamy; and the 
 sentence has been repeated with solemn and 
 triumphant unction in half the socialistic books 
 which have been given to the world since. 
 " Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of the 
 thousand of every mans produce are the result of 
 his social inheritance and environment^ " This 
 is so,^' remarks Mr. Kidd, " and it is, if possible, 
 even vtore true of the work of our brain than of the 
 work of our handsT To these passages we must 
 add one from Mr. Sidney Webb, who is, intellectu- 
 ally, a favourable example of a modern English 
 socialist. Referring to the socialistic proposal that 
 all kinds of workers, no matter what their work, 
 should be paid an equal wage, " this equality','' he 
 says, " has an abstract j'ustif cation, as the special 
 ability or energy with which some persons are born 
 is an unearned increment due to the effect of the 
 struggle for existence upon their ancestors, and 
 consequently, having been produced by society, is as 
 much due to society as the unearned increment of 
 rentr 
 
 Here we have then, in the words of these four resolves itself 
 writers, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Kidd, Mr. Bellamy, and arguments :
 
 66 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I ;\Ij-. Sidney Webb, the case asrainst the s^reat man 
 
 Chapters •' ° y 
 
 set fully before us ; and we may accordmgly proceed 
 to analyse it. We shall find that it divides itself 
 into four separate arguments, which are constantly 
 recurring in some form or other in all the works of 
 our modern sociological writers, and especially in the 
 works of those who are democratic or socialistic in 
 
 (1) That every their Sympathies. Firstly, there is the argument 
 
 first discovcrv 
 
 involves all that in any advanced civilisation not one of the 
 bSoreTt^ ^°"^ improvements made during any given epoch would 
 have been possible if a variety of other improve- 
 ments and the accumulation of various knowledge 
 had not gone before it ; and that thus the man who 
 is called the inventor or author of the improvement 
 is merely the vehicle or delegate of forces outside 
 
 (2) that the himself. Secondly, there is the argument that the 
 
 discoverer's . , ,, r ji • 1 t 
 
 ability itself is mvcutor or author oi the improvement, even it we 
 
 p^alt^cTrcuS-"^ attribute to him some special ability of his own, is 
 
 stances; j^ rcspcct of his own congcnital energies merely 
 
 the product and expression of preceding generations 
 
 and circumstances. Of the four arguments in 
 
 question, these are the most important; but they 
 
 (3) that often are constautly reinforced by two others. One is 
 
 the same dis- 1 r 1 1*11 
 
 covery is made drawn irom thc fact that several independent 
 
 by several men 1 c, • • 1, 1 j. j.i 
 
 at once; workcrs oitcn arrive simultaneously at the same 
 
 (4) that the discovery. The other is drawn from the fact — 
 difference what is alleo^cd to be the fact — that the interval 
 
 between the o 
 
 great and the which dlvidcs cvcn thc grcatcst man from his 
 
 ordinary man ,., . r i 1 • 
 
 is slight. fellows, alike in respect of what he is and of 
 what he accomplishes, is really extremely slight, 
 and not worth considering.
 
 SIMULTANEOVS DISCOVERY 67 
 
 For convenience' sake, we will deal with these b°°''^ 
 
 1 r 1 1 r 1 Chapter 3 
 
 two latter arguments nrst, and put them out of the 
 way before we approach the others. We will begin simultaneous 
 with the argument drawn from the fact that the same showrti7at°"'^ 
 discovery is often made simultaneously by in- f^J"^^ '^f''";^ 
 dependent workers. This would perhaps hardlv be ^^^ greater 
 
 ,,. . .f . 1 *^^" others. 
 
 worth discussmg if it were not used so constantly 
 by such a variety of serious writers. The fact is 
 true enough, but what is the utmost that it proves t 
 If two or three men make the same discovery at 
 once, this does not prove, as it is supposed to do, 
 that all men are approximately equal, but that two 
 or three men, instead of one man, are greater than 
 the rest of their fellow- workers. If three horses at 
 a race out-distance all competitors, and pass the 
 winning-post within the same three seconds, this 
 does not prove that a cart-horse is as swift as the 
 Derby favourite. As a matter of fact, that more 
 men than one should reach at the same time the 
 same discovery independently is precisely what we 
 should be led to expect, when we consider what 
 discovery is. The facts of nature which form the 
 subject-matter of the discoverer are in themselves 
 as independent of the men who discover them as 
 an Alpine peak is of the men who attempt to scale 
 it. They are indeed precisely analogous to a peak 
 which all discoverers are attempting to scale at 
 once ; and the fact that three men make the same 
 discovery simultaneously does no more to show 
 that any of their neighbours could have made it, 
 and that it is made in reality, not by them, but by
 
 68 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I their generation, than the fact that the three most 
 
 Chapters ... 
 
 intrepid cragsmen in Europe meet at last on the 
 same virgin summit, which other adventurers had 
 sought to scale in vain, would prove the feat to have 
 been really accomplished by the mass of tourists at 
 Interlaken, who had never climbed anywhere except 
 by the Rigi railway, and whose stomachs would be 
 turned by a precipice of twenty feet. 
 The extent of Lg^ ^g ^^^ tuvvi to thc argument that the in- 
 
 the great man s o 
 
 superiority cqualitics bctwccn men's abilities are small, that the 
 how it is work accomplished by even the ablest is small also, 
 measure . ^^^ ^|^^^ ^^^ exceptional man as a separate subject 
 
 of study may, in the words of a writer who will 
 be quoted presently, be in consequence ''safely 
 7ieglectedy The answer to this is that whether an 
 inequality be great or small depends altogether on 
 the point from which the total altitude is measured. 
 If a child who is three feet high, and a giant who is 
 nine feet high, are both of them standing on the 
 summit of Mont Blanc, the difference between the 
 elevation of their respective heads above the sea- 
 level will be infinitesimal ; but no one who was 
 discussing the question of human stature would say 
 that little children and giants were of approximately 
 the same height. Similarly, if our object is to 
 compare men in general with all other living 
 creatures, no doubt the difference between the 
 ordinary man and a microbe is incomparably greater 
 than the difference between an ordinary man and 
 Newton ; but if our object is to compare men with 
 men, in relation to this or that mental capacity — let
 
 THE EXTENT OF NATURAL INEQUALITIES 69 
 
 US say the capacity for scientific and mathematical ^°'^'^ ' 
 discovery — the difference which separates one 
 ordinary man from another is insignificant when 
 compared with the difference by which Newton is 
 separated from both of them. And it is this latter 
 sort of difference which alone concerns the soci- 
 ologist. The difference which separates men from 
 microbes is nothing to him. And what is true of 
 what men are, is equally true of what they do. The 
 addition made by any one great man to knowledge 
 may be small when compared with the knowledge, 
 res^arded in its totality, which has been gathered i* "^'^y ^^ 
 
 1 1 11 1 1. 1 . 1 slight to the 
 
 together by all other great men preceding him ; but speculative 
 it may at the same time be incalculably great when tut t'o^the*^'^' 
 compared with the additions made by the ordinary ftTaJf' ""*" 
 men, his contemporaries. important. 
 
 Let us make this matter yet clearer by reference 
 to one more authority, who, though endeavouring 
 to confirm the very argument which is here being 
 exposed, is, little as he perceives it, assassinated by 
 his own illustrations. In Macaulay's essay on 
 Dryden there occurs the following passage, a part 
 of which anticipates the exact phraseology of 
 Mr. Spencer. "// is the age that makes the man, 
 not the man that makes the age. . . . The ittequali- 
 ties of the intellect, like the inequalities of the 
 surface of the globe, bear so small a proportio7i to 
 the mass, that in calculating its great revolutions 
 they may safely be neglected^ The passage is 
 quoted for the sake of this last simile. For those 
 who study the human destiny as a whole — who
 
 70 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I survey it as speculative and remote observers — the 
 inequalities of intellect may, it is quite true, be 
 neglected as safely as the inequalities of the surface 
 of a planet are neglected by the astronomer who is 
 engaged in calculating its revolutions. But because 
 these latter inequalities are nothing to the astrono- 
 mer, it does not follow that they are nothing to the 
 engineer and the geographer. To the astronomer 
 the Alps may be an infinitesimal and negligible 
 excrescence, but they were not this to Hannibal or 
 the makers of the Mont Cenis tunnel. What to 
 the astronomer are all the dykes in Holland } But 
 they are all the difference to the Dutch between a 
 dead nation and a living one. 
 
 And the same difference, even in its most minute 
 details, holds good between speculative, or as we 
 may call it star-gazing, sociology and sociology as 
 a practical science ; for is it not one of Mr. Spen- 
 cer's most important and interesting contentions 
 that these very irregularities of the earth's surface 
 
 — these lands, seas, plains, valleys, and mountains 
 
 — which, when compared with the mass of the 
 earth, are so absolutely inappreciable, constitute 
 some of the most important of the '' external fac- 
 tors " of human history and civilisation 1 And the 
 same holds good of the inequalities of the human 
 intellect. They may be nothing to the social star- 
 gazer, but to the social politician they are everything. 
 
 So much, then, for two of the most shallow 
 sophisms that ever imposed themselves on pre- 
 sumably serious reasoners. We will now turn to
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S DEBT TO THE PAST 71 
 those two other arguments in which the case booIci' 
 
 . . Chapter 3 
 
 against the great man finds its main support, and 
 which, however misleading they may be, must be 
 examined at greater length. In both of these the as for the two 
 
 1 . . . '11 r 1 • o'lier argu- 
 
 distmctly exceptional character of the great man is ments, which 
 assumed, or at all events is not denied, but it is ^an'sgreft-^^* 
 represented as being, if it exists, not properly the "hi^'it^j" ^fs^"^ 
 great man's own. The first argument refers it to own, 
 aggregates of external conditions — the knowledge 
 accumulated for the great man's use, the character 
 of his fellow-citizens, who are ready to carry out his 
 orders — and generally to what Mr. Bellamy calls his 
 " social inheritance and e^ivironmentr The second 
 argument refers it to the great man's line of an- 
 cestors, insisting that he inherits from them his own 
 exceptional capacities, which capacities his ancestors 
 acquired by being members of society, and of which 
 it is accordingly contended that society is ultimately 
 the source. 
 
 Now on both these arguments, before we con- t^ey are both 
 
 . , 1 -I'll • 1 1 • • • ^"""^ specula- 
 
 sider them in detail, there is one broad criticism to tiveiy, but are 
 be made, which applies to both equally. There is umrue.^jr 
 a certain sense — a remote and speculative sense — irrelevant; 
 in which they are both of them quite true, and 
 indeed are almost truisms ; but for practical pur- 
 poses they are either not true at all, or if true are 
 altogether irrelevant; and it is necessary to show 
 the reader, by a few simple examples, that in the 
 doctrine that statements can be at once true and 
 not true there is no philosophical hair-splitting, and 
 no Hegelian paradox, but merely the assertion of a
 
 72 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I fact which, when once attention has been called to it, 
 common sense will perceive to be as obvious as 
 it is important. 
 
 It was just now observed that the same thing 
 
 can be great and not great, according to the things 
 
 with which we compare it. In the same way the 
 
 same statement may be true or not true, according 
 
 to the nature of the discussion on which it is brought 
 
 just as state- to bear. Let us take as an example those familiar 
 
 Averages statements of fact which are given in terms of aver- 
 
 donstf'gooS ages. If the vast majority of any given population 
 
 may be true ^^^ \^ height bctwecn the limits of five feet six 
 
 and relevant •' "^ 
 
 for one pur- and six fcct, the statement that a man's average 
 and irrelevant height is from fivc fcct scvcu to fivc fcet eight 
 for another. y^Q^\^ ^g a truth most important to the producers 
 of ready-made overcoats. But if half the population 
 were two feet high, and half rather more than nine 
 feet, to give the average stature as something like 
 five feet seven would be for the coatmakers the 
 most absurd misstatement imaginable, and would 
 lead them to make, if they acted on it, garments 
 that would fit nobody. 
 
 Let us turn from the question of the truth of a 
 statement to the question of its mere relevance, 
 and we can illustrate what has been said by an 
 example equally homely. In the transference of 
 goods by rail, these have to be sorted according to 
 bulk, weight, shape, fragility, perishability, and so 
 forth. In deciding which are to be sent by fast 
 trains, and which by slow, the primary question will 
 be that of perishability. When the perishable and
 
 IRRELEVANT TRUISMS 73 
 
 the non-perishable shall have been separated, and ^ooki 
 they are being placed on the trains allotted to them, 
 the primary questions will be those of shape, weight, 
 and fragility. But so long as the preparatory 
 separation is in progress, to assert that the goods 
 possess any of these latter characteristics will be 
 wholly irrelevant, no matter how true. Boxes of 
 fish will not be put with book parcels because 
 neither of them are fragile, or because they are 
 both oblong; and each characteristic, and every 
 classification based on it, will be either relevant or 
 irrelevant, full of meaning or meaningless, according 
 to what question, out of a considerable series, has 
 to be answered at the moment by the ofRcials who 
 superintend the business. 
 
 And now let us go back to the two arguments 
 that are before us ; and we shall be prepared to see 
 how, though true for the speculative philosopher, 
 they have no meaning, or only a false meaning, for 
 any practical man. 
 
 We will first take that which is expressed with thus the argu- 
 
 *■ ment that the 
 
 sufficient plainness in the passage quoted from Mr. great man 
 Sidney Webb, and which insists on the great man's fa'^uities to his 
 debt to society generally, not for his external circum- fhrough'his"'^ 
 stances, but for his personal character and capacities. JJ^^^J^"/" 
 The idea involved in it is very easy to grasp. The which helped 
 
 . , ...... to develop his 
 
 great man s congenital superiority is an inheritance ancestors. 
 from his superior ancestors ; but his ancestors would speculative 
 not have had it to hand on to him if they had not ^^''^^' 
 been forced to develop such superiorities as they 
 possessed by exerting them in a competitive struggle
 
 74 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I -with the srreat mass of their contemporaries. Thus 
 
 Chapters , ° ^ , . • r i . 
 
 the mass of their contemporaries formed a strop or 
 hone on which the superior faculties of these men 
 were sharpened ; and the great man of to-day, to 
 whom the superior faculties have descended, owes 
 them accordingly, not to his own ancestors only, but 
 to the mass of inferior men who struggled with 
 them, and were worsted in the struggle. In other 
 words, the greatness of the exceptional man has 
 really been produced by the whole body of society in 
 the past ; and the results of it ought to be divided 
 amongst the whole body of society in the present. 
 Now that the above line of argument has a 
 leads to certain kind of truth in it, it is hardly necessary to 
 
 nothing but ,-,.,. ... , 
 
 absurdities if obscrvc ; and for biologists, psychologists, and spec- 
 prlct^cafufe." ulativc philosophcrs generally, such truth as it 
 possesses may no doubt be of value ; but that this 
 truth has no relation whatever to practical life, and 
 no applicability to any one of its problems, can be 
 seen by considering the kind of results we shall 
 arrive at, if, adopting the reasoning of Mr. Webb 
 and his friends, we merely carry it out to the more 
 immediate of its logical consequences. 
 
 Let us begin with their reasoning, so far as 
 it concerns the past. If the inferior competitors 
 who were beaten by the great man's ancestors are 
 to be credited with having helped to produce the 
 talents by which they were themselves defeated, 
 and must therefore be held to have had a claim on 
 the wealth which these talents produced, which 
 claim has descended to the inferior majority of
 
 TRUISMS AND ABSURDITIES 75 
 
 to-day, the same claim might be advanced by any ^°°k ^ 
 weaker nation which, after a series of battles, 
 succumbs finally to the stronger. In the Franco- 
 German war the French might have said to the 
 Germans, "You acquired by fighting with us the 
 faculties which have enabled you to conquer us. 
 Your strength, therefore, in reality belongs to us, 
 not you; and hence justice requires that you should 
 give us back Alsace." In the same way it might 
 be urged that all the idle apprentices of the past 
 have, by the warning they afforded, stimulated the 
 industry of the industrious, and therefore in abstract 
 justice had a claim on their earnings. 
 
 Let us now take Mr. Webb's reasoning so far as For if the great 
 
 workers owe 
 
 it concerns the present, and we shall find that it their greatness 
 results in similar fantastic puerilities. If the great p°ast sode°y! ° 
 man of to-day owes his greatness to society as a*^^!"^"'^^^ 
 
 Jo J shirk work owe 
 
 whole, it is to society as a whole that the idle man their idleness to 
 
 1 • • 11 1 -1 1 • 'I- 1 '*■' and if the 
 
 owes his idleness, the stupid man his stupidity, the former deserve 
 dishonest man his dishonesty ; and if the great man TauerXse'rve^ 
 who produces an exceptional amount of wealth can, JJj°en""'^^' 
 with justice, claim no more than the average man 
 who produces little, the man who is so idle that he 
 shirks producing anything may with equal justice 
 claim as much wealth as either. His constitutional 
 fault, and his constitutional disinclination to mend 
 it, are both due to society, and society, not he, must 
 suffer. And the same thing holds good of every 
 form of economic incompetence. 
 
 The absurdity of Mr. Webb's position will be 
 seen yet more clearly when we see how it looks
 
 76 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 3 
 
 The same 
 argument 
 applies to 
 morals ; and if 
 accepted, we 
 should have to 
 admit that 
 nobody really 
 did, or was 
 really re- 
 sponsible for, 
 anything. 
 
 when stated in the language of Mr. Bellamy. 
 ''^ Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of the 
 thousand of every majts produce are the result of 
 his inheritance and his environment.^'' Now if this 
 proposition has any practical application, it must 
 mean that the whole living population — great men 
 and ordinary men, labourers and directors of labour 
 — who are commonly held to be the producers of 
 the income of Great Britain to-day, really produce 
 of it only one farthing in the pound ; and hence, if 
 we still persist in considering the proposition a 
 practical one, we shall be forced to conclude that the 
 whole of the living population might at any given 
 moment stop work altogether, or fall into a trance 
 like the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and the pro- 
 duction would continue with hardly an appreciable 
 diminution. 
 
 Again, if the proposition has any practical bearing 
 on economics, it must necessarily have a bearing 
 precisely similar on morals. If a man of to-day 
 produces only a thousandth part of what he seems 
 to produce, it is equally evident that he does only a 
 thousandth part of what he seems to do. Let us 
 see, if we accept this theory, to what sort of con- 
 clusions it will lead us. One conclusion to which it 
 will lead us at once is the following — that each 
 of us is responsible only for a thousandth part of 
 his actions ; and from this will follow others more re- 
 markable still. Since the holiest man has elements 
 of evil in him, and the worst man elements of good, 
 the good deeds for which we honour the saint may
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S SOCIAL INHERITANCE 11 
 
 really be the result of his antecedents, and his few ^^^"^ ^ 
 faulty deeds may be all that we are to attribute to 
 himself ; whilst, conversely, the criminal's antecedents 
 may have been the cause of all his crimes and vices, 
 and he may himself have done nothing but some 
 acts of unnoticed kindness. It will be thus im- 
 possible to form any true judgment of anybody ; for 
 the real St. Peter may have been merely a false and 
 truculent ruffian, and the real Judas Iscariot may 
 have been fit for Abraham's bosom. And yet even 
 these conclusions deducible from the premises of 
 Mr. Bellamy are sane when compared with those 
 deducible from the premises of Mr. Sidney Webb; 
 for Mr. Bellamy would allow a man to be responsible 
 for a thousandth part of his actions at all events, 
 whilst Mr. Sidney Webb would not allow that any- 
 body either did or was responsible for anything. 
 
 And now, finally, let us turn to that other Finally, let us 
 
 1 . 1 1 1 • • 1 T r ^'^^ *^* argu- 
 
 argument which seeks to ehmmate the causality of mem ti.at most 
 the great man, not by proving that he owes his grdt man does 
 superior brain-power to society, but by proving that past^^fscover- 
 superior brain-power has little to do with his iesandachieve- 
 
 . .... , . ments, to which 
 
 achievements, their principal cause being the ap- he does but 
 pliances, the opportunities, and the accumulated * 
 knowledge at his command ; and that these, at all 
 events, are due not to himself, but others — to the 
 efforts of past generations, and the legacy they have 
 left to the present. This is the argument which is 
 mainly relied upon by Mr. Spencer. He insists 
 on the fact that none of the great inventors or 
 discoverers could have made their discoveries or
 
 78 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 3 
 
 If this argu- 
 ment means 
 anything 
 practical, it 
 must mean 
 that greatness 
 is commoner 
 than it is 
 vulgarly 
 thought. 
 
 inventions if centuries of past progress had not 
 prepared the way for them. ''A Laplace, for 
 iiistance,'' he says, '"'could not have got very far 
 •with the Mecanique Celeste unless he had bee7t 
 aided by the slowly developed system of mathematics, 
 which we trace back to its beginnings amongst the 
 ancient Egyptians'' ; and his many other illustra- 
 tions are all of the same kind. 
 
 If we consider the meaning of this argument 
 carefully we shall see that its logical outcome is not 
 to deny to the great man all superiority whatsoever, 
 but to exhibit his superiority as being less than it is 
 usually supposed to be. Laplace, Mr. Spencer would 
 say, may have been personally a little above the level 
 of his contemporaries, but he owed most of his eleva- 
 tion to sitting on the shoulders of his predecessors. 
 Now if this reduction of the great man's reputed 
 greatness to such very small proportions has any 
 practical meaning, it must mean that greatness is 
 not only less than it is supposed to be, but is also 
 a great deal commoner, and more easily procurable. 
 Whatever any particular great man has done, could 
 have been done, if he had not done it, by an in- 
 definite number of others. Let us then take as 
 an illustration some definite task, and see how far 
 such reasoning has any practical application. Our 
 illustration shall be taken from the domain of art; 
 for the great artist, according to Mr. Spencer's special 
 statement, owes his greatness to the achievements 
 of past generations, just as the great mathema- 
 tician does, or the great thinker, or the great
 
 THE FACT OF INHERITANCE IRRELEVANT 
 
 79 
 
 inventor. Let us suppose, then, that it is desired to ^ook i 
 decorate some pubHc hall with pictures worthy of 
 Titian or Michael Angelo, or to open some national But is tins the 
 theatre with a new play worthy of Shakespeare, s^a^espeie^ 
 The great question will be where to find the artist fnl'e'cSeits 
 or poet whose works shall even approximate to ^^"^^ siiake- 
 
 . ■*•■'• speares more 
 
 these ideals of excellence; and any one who numerous? 
 knows anything about either pictures or poetry 
 will know that to find him is a well-nigh hopeless 
 task. Now what conceivable help, what con- 
 ceivable meaning, would there be in Mr. Spencer's 
 coming forward and telling the public that the 
 greatest poet or artist is the product of the same 
 conditions that have produced any one of them- 
 selves ? Mr. Spencer has actually made this precise 
 statement. Let us therefore refer to the terms in 
 which he has done so. " Given a Shakespeare'' 
 he says, " and what dramas could he have written^ 
 without the multitudi^tous conditions of civilised life 
 — without the various traditions which, descending to 
 him from the past, gave wealth to his thought, and 
 without the language which a hundred generations 
 had developed and enriched by use ? " 
 
 Mr. Spencer could not have put his own case 
 more clearly; and the more clearly it is put, the 
 more easy it is to answer it, and to show that for 
 practical men it has no meaning whatsoever. The 
 answer to the question he asks is not only obvious, 
 but contains at the same time the solution of the 
 whole problem we are discussing. It will inevitably 
 take the form of another question. Given the
 
 8o ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I conditions of civilised life, and the traditions of 
 
 Chapter 3 1 i /^ 
 
 England and its language, as they were under Queen 
 Elizabeth, how could these have produced dramas 
 like King Lear and Hamlet, unless England had 
 happened to possess that unique phenomenon — a 
 Shakespeare ? Could a Bottom have written these 
 dramas, or a Dogberry, or a Sir Toby Belch ? Or 
 could Sir Thomas Lucy, or any of the " poetasters " 
 satirised by Ben Jonson ? Or could the actors, 
 Kemp, Jones, and Bryan, who assisted in the repre- 
 sentation of these dramas upon the stage ? The 
 answer is, of course, No. And yet these men 
 Shakespeare's inherited the same language that Shakespeare did : 
 
 contempora- 00 j. ^ ^ 
 
 rieshadthe the thrcc last had the advantage of knowing his 
 
 same national - , 1 1 j t>i .i 1 11 
 
 antecedents iinest passagcs by heart. 1 he weaver, the bellows- 
 
 bliTthey^coiiid rnender, the constable, the Justice of Peace, had behind 
 
 notdowhat he thgj^ the Same traditions that Shakespeare had, and 
 
 were surrounded by the same " multitudinous co7idi- 
 
 tions " of civilisation. But out of these conditions one 
 
 man alone was capable of eliciting the results elicited 
 
 by Shakespeare. The real explanation of the whole 
 
 difficulty — the difficulty involved in the fact that 
 
 whilst the argument of Mr. Spencer and Mr. 
 
 Bellamy is, in a speculative sense, not merely true 
 
 but a truism, it is utterly untrue in any practical 
 
 sense — is as follows : Every human being living at 
 
 any given time is, as Mr. Spencer says, an inheritor 
 
 Men inherit of the past ; but mcu inherit the past in very 
 
 in^so'faras^ different degrees. They inherit the knowledge of 
 
 SsfrnXte it. the past only according to the degree to which they 
 
 acquire it ; the language of the past only according
 
 MEN INHERIT UNEQUALLY 8i 
 
 to their skill in manipulatins: it ; the inventions of ^^°°^ ^ 
 
 . , . . . Chapters 
 
 the past only according to their skill in reproducing 
 and using them. 
 
 The extraordinary confusion of thought in- socialists say 
 
 ,.,,_ , .. ., ,. ,. that inventions 
 
 volved in Mr. Spencer s position is locahsed in an once made 
 argument constantly employed by socialists — that nfon propeni^. 
 '* inveittions once made become commo7t property r 
 Except the earliest and simplest of them, they no 
 more become common property than the count- 
 less facts and figures buried in Parliamentary Blue- 
 Books become the property of every new member 
 of Parliament, or than encyclopaedic knowledge 
 becomes the property of every one who happens to 
 inherit an edition of the Encyclopcsdia Britannica; 
 or than the power of deciphering the hieroglyphics 
 which are preserved in the British Museum be- 
 comes the property of every cabman who drives 
 his vehicle along Great Russell Street. It is per- 
 fectly true that the discovery of each new por- 
 tion of knowledge enables men to acquire it who 
 never might have discovered it for themselves ; but This is abso- 
 
 , , , ' lutely untru6< 
 
 as the acquisition of the details of knowledge 
 becomes facilitated, the number of details to be 
 acquired increases at the same time; and the in- 
 creased ease of acquiring each is accompanied by 
 an increased difficulty in acquiring all, or even in 
 assimilating those which are practically connected 
 with one another. A mechanic, for instance, could 
 with ten minutes' attention comprehend the principle 
 involved in a cantilever bridge, but to design and 
 construct a bridge such as that which now spans the 
 
 6
 
 82 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I Forth, with its spans of six hundred yards and its 
 
 altitudes of aerial steel, implies an assimilation of 
 
 our multitudinous existing knowledge, such as is 
 
 The discover- hardlv to be found in a score of enorineers in Europe. 
 
 ies and inven- •' a l 
 
 tions of the Or to tum oncc more to Mr. Spencer's example of 
 property of Shakcspcarc, whilst all Shakespeare's contemporaries 
 'can'ab°sorband ^ad the samc antecedents that he had, the same line 
 use them. gf thiukcrs behind them, and the same developed 
 vocabulary, Shakespeare's mind was capable of ab- 
 sorbing much of the national inheritance, whilst 
 the great mass of his contemporaries could compara- 
 tively absorb very little. 
 Thus the intro- Wc are thus brought back to the point from 
 
 duction of the i-i iiTrr • 
 
 past into the which wc sct out — uamcly, the differences m capa- 
 kaverthe city by which men are distinguished from one 
 differences be- another I and we see that all the reasonings of our 
 
 tween the great ' o 
 
 man and modcm sociolosfists havc, for practical purposes, 
 
 others un- ... ... . 
 
 diminished, left thcsc differences undimmished. The difference 
 between the great man and the ordinary man is not 
 made less by the fact that they both of them owe 
 much to a common past, any more than the differ- 
 ence between a hogshead of water and a wine-glass 
 is made less by the fact that both have been filled 
 from the same stream. 
 
 The conclusion, therefore, of the whole matter is 
 as follows. In the first place, whatever may be the 
 speculative significance of Mr. Spencer's contention, 
 which Mr. Bellamy expresses with the arithmetical 
 precision of an accountant, that each living genera- 
 tion does only a minute fraction of what it seems to 
 do, or of arguments like Mr. Sidney Webb's, that
 
 GREAT MAN A TRUE CAUSE OF PROGRESS 83 
 
 each living generation does nothing at all of what ^°°'' ^ 
 
 it seems to do, the mass of living men at all events 
 
 do something, in the very real sense that if they 
 
 did not do it they would die; and the doing of this i^ «he ordinary 
 
 •' , '-' man does any- 
 
 something is for them the whole of life, and all thing, the great 
 practical problems depend on the manner in which great deal 
 they do it. Such being the case, it follows, in the ^°^^'" 
 second place, that however much the ordinary man 
 does, the great man does a great deal more. There- 
 fore, if the ordinary man does any of the things that 
 he seems to do, and causes any of the events that 
 he seems to cause — if he ploughs the farm that he 
 seems to plough, and lays the bricks that he seems 
 to lay — indeed we may add, if he eats the dinners 
 that he seems to eat — the great man in a precisely 
 similar sense is the cause of those changes and of 
 that progress which he seems to cause. Hence of 
 these changes he is, for the practical sociologist, not 
 merely the proximate initiator, whose action and ^"'^ '" p^^.^''* 
 
 •' ^ cal reasoning 
 
 peculiarities may be neglected, but a true and he is a true 
 
 , . - , . . , . cause for the 
 
 primary cause, on which the attention of the soci- sociologist. 
 ologist must be concentrated; and just as in action 
 it is impossible to do without him, so in practical 
 reasoning it is impossible to go behind him. 
 
 The reader has now been shown the absolute 
 futility of that train of reasoning by which even so 
 keen a thinker as Mr. Spencer has persuaded him- 
 self that he can get rid of the causality of the great 
 man, and in which every socialistic reformer who 
 has risen above the level of a demagogue has 
 attempted to find a scientific foundation for his im-
 
 84 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I possible castle in the air. But the demolition and 
 
 Chapters '■ 
 
 exposure of these mischievous and miserable fallacies 
 shall not be entrusted only to the arguments that 
 have been brought to bear on them. The validity 
 of these arguments shall now be finally substantiated 
 by direct appeal to a sociologist whose identity may 
 surprise the reader. This is none other than Mr. 
 Spencer himself, who, when he forgets to be the 
 conscious expositor of his theory, and turns aside 
 to illustrate some particular point by examples 
 drawn from the experience of common life, is con- 
 stantly contradicting, in a most remarkable but 
 entirely unconscious way, the fundamental principle 
 which he has deliberately set himself to establish. 
 ^nlfuTMr^'^ In the seventh chapter of his Study of Sociology, 
 Spencer un- being incidentally concerned to insist on the iniquity 
 
 consciously ad- , , • i • r i t -i i 
 
 mitsthis. and the mischievousness of war, he describes how 
 Europe, during the earlier years of this century, 
 was visited by certain disasters, far-reaching and hor- 
 rible, from the consequence of which the world has 
 hardly yet recovered. These disasters consisted of 
 slaughter, plunder, pestilence, agony, rape, and ruin ; 
 and to say nothing of their results on those whom 
 they left alive, they resulted in some two million 
 
 He declares yiolcut and unneccssary deaths. And how does Mr. 
 
 that the Napo- I'l 
 
 leonicwars Spcnccr cxplam these appallmg phenomena? He 
 durtolhr^ who declares that we should learn nothing about 
 greatness of social causation "-should we read ourselves blind over 
 Napoleon. /^^ biographies " of all the great rulers of the world, 
 explains them by tracing them to one sole and 
 single cause ; and this, he says, was the genius
 
 MR. SPENCER AND NAPOLEON 85 
 
 and personality of Napoleon. " Out of the sa^iguin- ^°°^ ^ 
 ary chaos of the Revolution^^^ he writes, " rose a 
 soldier whose immense ability^ joined with his 
 absolute unscrupulous7tess, made him now general, 
 now consul, now autocrat. The instincts of the 
 savage were scarcely at all qualified in him by 
 what we call moral sentiments. . . . And all this 
 slaughter, all this suffering, all this devastation, 
 was gone through — " Let us pause and ask why 
 it was gone through, according to Mr. Spencer. 
 Does he say it was gone through because of 
 *' aggregates of past conditio7ts " and the influence 
 of antecedent generations ? Far from it. He says, 
 " All this was gone through because one man had a 
 restless desire to be despot over all me^t." 
 
 But perhaps Mr. Spencer may have a defence 
 ready. He may tell us that the influence of 
 Napoleon was merely that of a military leader, 
 which influence he has excepted from his theory 
 of general causes. To this it must be answered 
 in the first place that Napoleon was at all events 
 not a leader in " early " or ''primitive " warfare, to 
 which Mr. Spencer's exception is specifically and 
 emphatically limited. Mr. Spencer consequently 
 shows us, by his own practical reasoning, that this 
 theoretical limitation of which he made so much 
 cannot be maintained for a moment, and that what- 
 ever is true of great leaders in a primitive war, he 
 himself recognises — all his theories notwithstanding 
 — as equally true of them in the most advanced 
 stages of civilisation. But a far more important
 
 86 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 3 
 
 He defends 
 patents be- 
 cause they 
 represent the 
 very substance 
 of the inven- 
 tor's own 
 mind; 
 
 answer, and one taken from himself, is still in 
 reserve — an answer which clenches the whole 
 matter, and shows us that Mr. Spencer, in his 
 dealings with practical life, really recognises great 
 men as exercising in the arts of peace precisely the 
 same kind of causality which Napoleon exercised 
 in war. 
 
 Let us turn to Mr. Spencer's treatise on Social 
 Statics, and to the section of it in which he treats 
 of patents — or as he himself describes them ''the 
 rights of property in ideas'.' He begins by com- 
 plaining that the right of patenting " inventions, 
 patterns, or designs'" is not recognised as being 
 based on any moral right at all, but is generally 
 regarded as a kind of "■privilege'''' or '■'■ rewardr 
 " The prevalence of such a belief^' says Mr. Spencer, 
 " is by no means creditable to the national co7tscience, 
 ... To think^' he exclaims, " that a sinecurist 
 should be held to have a ' vested interest ' in his office, 
 and a just title to compensation if it is abolished ; and 
 yet that an invention over which 710 end of mental toil 
 has been spent, a7id 07t which the poor mecha^iic has 
 laid out perhaps his last sixpence — a^i invention 
 which he has completed entirely by his own labour 
 and with his own 7naterials — has wrought, as it 
 were, out of the very substance of his own mind — 
 should not be acknowledged as his property I " 
 
 Social Statics is one of Mr. Spencer's earlier 
 works. Let us now consult his latest, the third and 
 final volume of his Principles of Sociology; and 
 here we shall find this same admission that the
 
 MR, SPENCER ON SIR H. BESSEMER 87 
 great man's achievements are wrousfht not out of ^ooki 
 
 o . . ° Chapters 
 
 aggregates of conditions, but " out of the very 
 substance of his ow7i mind^' emphasised by him as 
 a practical truth, with all the vigour of a practical 
 man. In his chapter on the ''''Interdependence and 
 Integration of Industrial l7istitutio7is'' he dwells with ^'^^ ^,^ ^^^'*^- 
 
 *=> •' ^ utes the 
 
 much eloquence on the almost incalculable benefits modem im- 
 that have resulted, and extended themselves through steei manu- 
 the whole industrial world, from certain improve- H^Bessenfer. 
 ments introduced into the manufacture of steel. 
 And to what were these improvements due ? Mr. 
 Spencer answers this question not merely by ad- 
 mitting, but by insisting with the fervour of a 
 hero-worshipper, that they were due to the genius 
 of one single man, namely Bessemer; and so obvi- 
 ous does this truth appear to him, that he devotes 
 an indignant footnote to denouncing the governing 
 classes for not being sufHciently alive to it, and for 
 conferring on a man who, ''out of the very substance 
 of his own mind,''' had wrought such gigantic and 
 universally beneficial changes, no higher reward 
 than the title of Sir Henry Bessemer — ''an honour'* 
 he says, " like that accorded to a third-rate public 
 official on his retirement, or to a provincial mayor 
 on the occasion of the Queens fubilee^ 
 
 After this, what more need be said ? Here we 
 have Mr. Spencer himself, the moment he touches 
 the practical side of life, contemptuously brushing 
 aside the whole of his speculative theory and admit- 
 ting, or rather insisting, with the most unhesitating 
 and uncompromising vigour, that " the phenomena of
 
 88 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I social evolution',' even if they do not result entirely, 
 as Carlyle would have it, from the actions of great 
 men, yet cannot, at all events, be possibly explained 
 without them; and that great men, their natures, 
 and the details of their active lives are primary 
 factors to be studied by every practical sociologist, 
 and are not to be merged in "■society','' in "■ ante- 
 cede7its," and in ''aggregates of conditions. " 
 So much, then, ^]^q practicallv independent character of the 
 
 being estab- * ... 
 
 lished, we must great mau's causality will be yet more apparent 
 difficuitLs ° at another stage of our argument, and we shall 
 suggested by it. ggg that the whole structure of all civilised 
 societies depends on it. But we may, for the 
 present, regard it as being sufficiently established, 
 and the absurd and unreal character of the attempts 
 to get rid of it demonstrated. So much, then, 
 being assumed, we will, in the following chapter, 
 consider two objections of a character very different 
 to any of those of which we have now disposed. 
 They are objections which will very possibly have 
 suggested themselves to the reader's mind, but 
 which, instead of conflicting with the truth which 
 has been just elucidated, will be found, when ex- 
 amined carefully, to emphasise and to enlarge its 
 significance.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE GREAT MAN AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE 
 PHYSIOLOGICALLY FITTEST SURVIVOR 
 
 The two objections to which reference has just been it may be 
 
 I 1-1 1 • • 1 r objected that 
 
 made are connected with two doctrines, neither of modem sodoi- 
 which has thus far been submitted to any detailed afher?as"° ' 
 examination, and one of which has indeed been f"^^'^- "^^^^*^* 
 
 ' the great man, 
 
 hardly so much as alluded to, but which are both ^°^ '* ^^opts 
 
 , . . . . the doctrine of 
 
 intimately associated, in the estimation of the world the survival of 
 at large, with contemporary science, and more 
 especially with contemporary sociology. One of 
 these doctrines is that of the survival of the fittest. 
 The other is that which, more or less distinctly, is 
 suggested at the present time by the much-abused 
 word " evolution." When the reader thinks of the 
 doctrine of the survival of the fittest, when he 
 reflects on the fact that Mr. Spencer is an avowed 
 disciple of Darwin, and that Mr. Spencer's own 
 disciples are constantly making allusion to "//^<? 
 rivalry of existence " and the " successfuls and the 
 unsuccessfuls'' he may be tempted to ask himself 
 if it can be really true that Mr. Spencer has elim- 
 inated the great man from his system after all. On 
 the other hand, when the reader thinks of evolution, 
 
 89
 
 go 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 Chapter 4 
 
 It may be 
 asked, on the 
 other hand, 
 what place the 
 great man has 
 in an exclu- 
 sively evolu- 
 tionary theory 
 of progress. 
 
 The fittest sur- 
 vivor is not the 
 same as the 
 great man. 
 
 He plays a 
 part in prog- 
 ress, but not 
 the same part. 
 
 which, whatever it may mean, at all events means 
 a progress essentially different from the achieve- 
 ments of particular individuals, he may wonder in 
 v/hat way the doctrine of evolution can be reconciled 
 with any doctrine which has the achievements of 
 individuals for its basis. 
 
 We will take these two points in order. With 
 regard to the survival of the fittest in the competi- 
 tive struggle for existence, the great fact which it is 
 necessary to make clear is as follows ; and it is one 
 which our contemporary sociologists have altogether 
 failed to perceive. In the evolution of societies, 
 just as in the evolution of species — in the evolution 
 of man as a social being, as in the evolution of man 
 as an animal — the struggle for existence has played 
 an important part ; but in social evolution the part 
 played by it is very far from being that which is 
 popularly supposed, nor does the survival of the 
 fittest in any way correspond with the position and 
 influence claimed for the great man. Certain of the 
 phenomena of progress are no doubt produced by 
 it, but they are as different from those which the 
 great or exceptional man produces, as is the move- 
 ment of the earth round the sun from its movement 
 round its own axis. In order to understand this, 
 let us first consider carefully how progress, as the 
 result of the struggle for existence, is explained by 
 our contemporary sociologists. The matter is put 
 succinctly and very clearly in the following passage 
 from Mr. Kidd's Social Evohction. 
 
 ^^ Progress everywhere" he says, ""from the begin-
 
 REPRODUCTION OF THE FITTEST 91 
 
 ning of life^ has been effected in the same way, and is ^ook i 
 possible ift no other way. It is the result of selection 
 and rejection. In the human species, as in every 
 other species which has ever existed, no two indi- The fittest 
 viduals of a generatio7t are alike in all respects ; there vivin'g. raise 
 is infinite variatio7i within certain narrow limits, jevef o'fThe 
 Some are slizhtly above the averap^e in a 'barticular '"^^^' ^"^ p'^°' 
 
 o y d r mote progress 
 
 direction y as others are slightly below it; and it 2>$- only in this 
 only whe7i the conditions prevail that are favourable 
 to the prep 07iderati7ig reproductio7i of the for7ner, that 
 adva7ice in a7iy directio7t becomes possible. To 
 formulate this as the immutable law of prog7^ess si7ice 
 the begi7i7iing of life has been one of the p7'i7icipal 
 results of the biological scie7ice of the 7ii7zetee7ith 
 century. ... To ptit it i7i words used by Professor 
 Flower i7i speaki7ig of huma7i society, ' Prog7^ess has 
 been due to the opportunity of those i7tdividuals who 
 are a little superior i7i some respects to their fellows 
 of asserting their superiority, a7id of C07iti7tui7ig to 
 live a7id of promulgating as a7i inherita7ice that 
 superiority^ " 
 
 The entire Spencerian position as regards the 
 social struggle for existence is here given us in a 
 nutshell. The competitive struggle is a process 
 which produces progress by means of the manner 
 in which it affects men in general. In any com- 
 munity the means of subsistence are being constantly 
 appropriated by the members who are a little 
 stronger than the rest, whilst those who are weaker 
 have an insufficient portion left them. The latter 
 therefore die early themselves ; or breed no children ;
 
 92 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I or breed children who die early ; whilst the former 
 
 Chapter 4 . . ...... 
 
 live long, and breed children who live likewise ; and 
 of these children there is always a certain percentage 
 in whom are reproduced the superior qualities of 
 their parents. Thus the weaker members of the 
 community are always dying out, whilst stronger 
 members not only become more numerous, but 
 more efficient as individuals also. In other words, 
 the Darwinian struggle for existence produces 
 progress by raising the general average of efficiency. 
 It has nothing to do with a few men towering over 
 the rest. It works by producing a simultaneous 
 rise of all. The superior " assert their authority " 
 not by commanding their inferiors, but merely by 
 " continuing to live " and having children as superior 
 as themselves. In this way, to quote an illustration 
 from Mr. Spencer, the progressive races of Europe 
 have reached a stage of development which makes 
 possible amongst them the appearance of men like 
 Laplace or Newton, an event which could not occur 
 amongst the Hottentots or the Andaman islanders. 
 It will thus at once be clear that the theory of the 
 survival of the fittest explains progress by reference 
 The great man to an ordcr of facts totally distinct from those 
 ress by being iuvolvcd iu thc influcucc claimcd for the great man. 
 Whilst the theory of survival is illustrated by the 
 superiority of Europeans to Hottentots, the great- 
 man theory is illustrated by, and depends on, the 
 superiority of men like Newton to the great mass 
 of Europeans. 
 
 What relation, then, do these two explanations 
 
 superior to his 
 contempora- 
 ries.
 
 PROGRESS A DOUBLE MOVEMENT 93 
 
 bear to each other? In a direct way they are not soo'*^ 
 
 . . Chapter 4 
 
 related at all. They neither conflict with each other 
 nor overlap each other. They are both of them The movement 
 true ; but true as explaining different sets of phe- doubhf^'^"^ *^ 
 nomena. One of the great errors of which our mod- 
 ern sociologists are guilty consists in their failure to 
 perceive that social progress is not a single move- 
 ment but the joint result of two, which differ from 
 each other — to repeat what was said just now — 
 quite as much as do the two movements of the earth. 
 The difference between them will become instantly 
 clear to us if we will turn our attention merely to one movement 
 the single obvious fact that the two take place at siowf^the'^^other 
 different rates of speed, the one set of changes being '^p''^- 
 slow, like the succession of years ; the other set of 
 changes being rapid, like the succession of days. 
 The general rise in capacity which distinguishes 
 the modern civilised nations from primitive man, or 
 from the lowest savages of to-day, and which has 
 been due to what Mr. Kidd calls " the preponder- The survival of 
 atmg reproduction of individuals slightly above the causes the 
 average^' has been the work of an incalculable ment.'"°^^ 
 number of centuries. It has been so slow that, in 
 many respects at all events, it has been indistin- 
 guishable during the course of several thousand 
 years. The great thinkers amongst the ancient 
 Egyptians were not congenitally inferior to the 
 great thinkers of to-day. The brain of Aristotle 
 was equal to the brain of Newton; whilst the masons 
 whose hands constructed the Coliseum and the Par- 
 thenon knew as much of their craft as those who
 
 94 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I constructed the Imperial Institute. But with this 
 
 Chapter 4 ... 
 
 slowness in the rise of the general level of capacity, 
 let us compare the progressive results achieved 
 within some short period. We cannot do better 
 than take the past hundred years, and consider the 
 progress made in the material arts of life. How 
 the whole spectacle changes ! Within that short 
 period, at all events, no one will venture to main- 
 tain that the average congenital capacities of our 
 own countrymen have been enlarged. We are 
 not wittier than Horace Walpole, more polite than 
 Lord Chesterfield, more shrewd and sensible than 
 Dr. Johnson ; whilst it is easy to see by reference 
 to those trades, such as the building trade, which 
 science and invention have done comparatively 
 little to alter, that the natural efficiency of the 
 average workman is no greater now than in the 
 days of our great-great-grandfathers. And yet dur- 
 ing that short period what an astounding progress 
 has taken place ! To sum it up in a bald eco- 
 nomic formula, whilst the capacities of the average 
 Englishman have remained altogether stationary, 
 the economic productivity per head of the popula- 
 tion of this country has during the past century 
 trebled, and more than trebled itself. 
 
 This remarkable comparison between the rapidity 
 of actual progress and the extreme slowness of the 
 biological development resulting from the survival 
 of the fittest in the Darwinian struggle for existence, 
 will be enough to show anybody that progress is not 
 one movement but two ; and whilst the survival of
 
 EVOLUTION AND INTENTIONAL PROGRESS 95 
 the fittest explains the slow and almost impercepti- ^^^'^ ^ 
 
 1 -11 Ml Chapter 4 
 
 ble movement, the rapid and perceptible movement 
 is explained by the leadership of the greatest. It is 
 with the rapid movement alone that the practical The rapid 
 
 . ,.■. . .. ri- movement is 
 
 sociologist IS concerned ; and hence for him the caused by tiie 
 great man, not the fittest, is the important factor. ^^^^ '°^" 
 
 Let us now consider what is meant by the process 
 called social evolution, regarded as something dis- 
 tinct from those intentional advances made and ^^"^^ ^^ *° 
 
 evolution — 
 
 maintained by the genius of great men. To under- what does the 
 stand this, we must consider what is meant by 
 evolution generally. Mr. Spencer defines it in 
 terms of " the homogenous " and " the heterogefious "; 
 and from his own point of view we may accept his 
 definition as correct. But facts have many aspects ; 
 and according to the purpose with which we deal 
 with them they will require different definitions, 
 which, though none of them are incompatible with 
 the others, will have between themselves no appar- 
 ent resemblance. Thus the biologist's definition of 
 a man will be quite distinct from the theologian s ; 
 and the dangerous illness of a great party leader 
 will be one phenomenon for his followers, and quite 
 another for his doctor. In the same way Mr. 
 Spencer's definition of evolution, however admira- 
 ble it may be from a certain point of view, is not 
 exhaustive. It entirely leaves out of sight those 
 characteristics of the process which it is necessary 
 before all things that the practical sociologist should 
 understand. 
 
 To reach a definition that will include these
 
 96 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I let US begin by fixing our attention on that 
 order of facts which formed the special study of 
 Its great prac- Darwin, and in connection with which the theory 
 istic. asput of evolution became first known to the world; 
 Da^in.^J that and Ict US ask what was the greatest and the 
 the doct°ineof ^nost notorious effect produced by Darwinism on 
 design, or human thousrht generally. Its greatest and most 
 
 divine inten- . ° ° ■;. ° , . 
 
 tion; notorious eiiect was to disprove, or rather render 
 
 superfluous, the old theory which explained the 
 varieties of organic life, by referring them to the 
 design of some quasi-human intelligence. Accord- 
 ing to the old theory, every species of living thing, 
 from the lowest to the highest, was produced by the 
 power and purpose of one supreme Mind, who 
 adapted the frame and faculties of each to a pre- 
 arranged set of circumstances and the fulfilment of 
 certain needs. According to the theory of evolution, 
 associated with the name of Darwin, these results 
 were accomplished by purpose and intelligent power 
 likewise, only not by the power and purpose of one 
 supreme external Mind, but by the power and 
 
 and yet. ac- purposc of the Hvinsf thinsfs themselves. Each 
 
 cordingtoDar- f. .^,. , . ^ ^ . ,.i., 
 
 win. species liviug thing chose its matcs, reproduced its kind, 
 the"intent^onof huutcd for food, fought with Hvals, and either con- 
 Hv?andpropl°- ^ucrcd or was conquered by them, in obedience to 
 gate. the promptings of its own instinctive purposes. 
 
 These were the motive power of the whole evolu- 
 tionary process. The variety and development of 
 organic life, as we know it, did not result indeed 
 from one great intention, but it did result from an 
 infinity of little intentions.
 
 UNINTENDED PROGRESS 97 
 
 Now SO far the theory of design and the theory of ^^^^ ^ 
 evolution very closely resemble each other ; but here 
 we come to the point of essential difference between spedes, there- 
 them. According to the theory of design, the varieties toThe^evoL-"^ 
 and gradations of organic life were not only the result re°uT/onnten. 
 of intention in the supreme Mind, but were also them- *|o"' ^^^ "o< 
 
 ^ ^ , the result 
 
 selves the exact result intended. According to the intended, 
 evolutionary theory, although they were the result 
 of an infinity of intentions, not one of the living 
 things, from whose intention they resulted, intended 
 them. They were the by-product of actions under- 
 taken for entirely different ends — that is to say, for 
 the benefit of the individual creatures who under- 
 took them. This is the essential and this is the 
 peculiar character with which the theory of evolu- 
 tion invested them. It presented to the mind the 
 extraordinary phenomenon of a single series of 
 actions producing a double series of results — the 
 intended and the unintended, the latter of which, 
 though entirely different from the former, was Evolution, in 
 
 fact is the 
 
 equally orderly, equally reasonable and coherent, reasonable 
 Evolution, in fact, as revealed to us in the physio- uXtTnded. 
 logical world, is, for the philosopher, neither more 
 nor less than this — the reasonable sequence of the 
 unintended. 
 
 But this definition of evolution does not apply ibis is as true 
 only to development in that world of facts studied uon as it is of 
 by Darwinian science. It is equally applicable to *''°^°^''*'* 
 the process of social evolution also. Indeed social 
 evolution is even more strikingly, though not more 
 truly, than physiological evolution, the reasonable 
 7
 
 98 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Booki sequence of the unintended. How this is can be 
 
 Chapter 4 ^. . , . , . 
 
 easily made plain ; and when once the idea is 
 grasped, which the definition embodies, it will be 
 seen that social evolution, although it is no doubt 
 different from all or from any of those changes 
 deliberately produced by the agency of the great 
 man, instead of excluding these changes, or elim- 
 inating the great man as the cause of them, is a 
 process which depends altogether upon him and 
 them, and that, instead of obscuring the great 
 man's importance, it only exhibits it in a stronger 
 and clearer light. 
 Many of the Let US take then our definition of evolution as 
 ditions of any thc rcasonablc sequence of the unintended, and 
 E^S^past. ^PP^y ^^^ i^^^ embodied in it to that aggregate of 
 t^en'ckd'^b ^"" conditions, either in our own or any similar period. 
 nobody in the amongst which the great man works. All these 
 conditions, such as the knowledge which he finds 
 accumulated, the inventions which he finds in use, 
 the political and the economic conditions of his 
 country, are, taken as a whole, the result of no one 
 man's genius. It is equally obvious that they do 
 not, in their incalculably complex entirety, represent 
 any one man's intention, or even the joint intention 
 of any number of men acting in concert. Printing, 
 for instance, for cxamplc, and railway travelling have produced a 
 social effects of number of social results never dreamed of by the 
 chelp pn^ming. ^^^^ who perfected our locomotives and our steam 
 printing presses. Accordingly, when any great man 
 of to-day initiates some fresh social change, whether 
 as an inventor, a director of industry, a politician, or
 
 INTENDED PROGRESS AND UNINTENDED 99 
 
 a religious teacher, a larc^e part of his achievement ^°°'' ' 
 consists in his manipulation and refashioning of 
 results of past human action, which can be set down Therefore. 
 
 . -11 1 • • r whenever any 
 
 to the credit, or ascribed to the intentions, of no great man 
 
 i.-i 1 1 •> 1 iT'T'j 1 T"! • L produces some 
 
 individual, and no body of individuals. 1 he society change in- 
 of the past intended these no more than the great [fa"s',o"^ork"^ 
 men of the past. They are results, that is to say, ^'t^ unin- 
 which come all under the heading of the unintended, materials. 
 But when we consider the great man's achievement 
 thus, we shall not only witness the grouping of many 
 of the factors essential to it into one heterogeneous 
 but logically coherent class, as the unintended. 
 When such a grouping has taken place, we shall see 
 that there remains behind an equally coherent and 
 equally striking residuum — namely, the social results 
 and conditions that have been obviously and 
 notoriously intended. These may not be found 
 existing apart from the former ; but though in con- 
 junction or combination with them, they will be 
 visible as a distinct and separate element, and their 
 true importance as a factor in social progress will 
 begin to be apparent to the mind the moment their 
 specific peculiarity, as just described, is apprehended. 
 
 Let us take a few examples which, owing to their we can see 
 
 .... ... 'his m the 
 
 magnitude and familiarity, will be at once intelligible, progress of 
 Our first shall be taken from the histories of art and 
 of speculative philosophy. In each of these domains 
 of human activity and achievement we find those 
 phenomena of development to which it is now 
 customary to apply the name of evolution. Thus 
 we hear of the evolution of philosophy from the
 
 100 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I crude guesses of Thales to the elaborate system of 
 Aristotle. We hear of the evolution of the Greek 
 drama from the exhibitions of Thespis with his cart 
 to the tragedies of v^schylus and of Sophocles; 
 and similarly we hear of the evolution of the English 
 drama from such exhibitions as miracle plays or 
 Gammer Gurtons Needle to tragedies such as 
 Hamlet and comedies such as As You Like It. And 
 to all such examples of development the word 
 evolution is applied with perfect accuracy ; for there 
 is in each an obvious and orderly sequence of the 
 also in the Unintended. Aristotle's philosophy was in part 
 
 progress of. , ri- i tt i i 
 
 philosophy, dcrivcd from that or his predecessors. He employed 
 
 existing materials so as to produce a result which 
 
 was not intended, indeed was not even imagined, 
 
 by those who originally got them together and 
 
 fashioned them, and which would never have been 
 
 reached by Aristotle himself, if his predecessors had 
 
 not thus unintentionally assisted him. None the 
 
 less, however, does the Aristotelian philosophy, as 
 
 its author gave it to the world, embody the deliberate 
 
 intention of his profound and unrivalled genius; 
 
 and it is only because it embodies this intended 
 
 element that it constitutes an advance on the 
 
 philosophies that went before it. Similarly, though 
 
 And yet in Sophoclcs and Shakcspcare, in constructing their 
 
 imende? ^ dramas, each profited by the achievements of the 
 
 orTrrgreatef dramatists who had gone before them, and though 
 
 than the ^j^g ^rt of cach would doubtless have been more 
 
 unintended. 
 
 crude and imperfect had he come into the world a 
 generation or two before he did, yet the part played
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE WALTER PRESS loi 
 by evolution in the production of Hamlet and ^^^'^^ 
 
 . . . . Chapter 4 
 
 Antigone is totally distinct from, and is altogether 
 dwarfed by, the part played by the genius and the 
 intentions of their great authors. 
 
 Let us now turn to invention and applied science ; we see the 
 
 same thing in 
 
 and the history of social progress, as connected the history of 
 with and derived from them, will show the same printing press. 
 two elements — the unintended and the intended, 
 similarly related and similarly coexistent. A 
 brilliant illustration of this fact is provided for 
 us, in one of his books, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, 
 though he himself, with a curious blindness and 
 perversity, uses it not to illustrate but to ob- 
 scure the point on which we are now dwelling. 
 The illustration referred to is the history of the 
 press by which The Times is printed, which imple- 
 ment, according to Mr. Spencer, is the result 
 altogether of evolution. " In the first place'' he 
 says, " this automatic printi^ig machine is lineally 
 descended from other automatic printing machiftes 
 . . . each presupposing others that went before. . . . 
 And then^ in tracing the more remote ajitecedents., we 
 find an ancestry of hand printing presses^ He 
 further points out that this press implies not only an 
 ancestry of former presses, but also the existence of 
 the machinery used in making it, and again how this 
 machine-making machinery has a distinct ancestry 
 of its own, which includes the fact of the abundance 
 of iron in England. Geometry, physics, chemistry, 
 also, he says, played their part in the process ; and 
 he winds up by referring to purely social causes.
 
 X02 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I Why, he asks, was the Walter press produced ? In 
 order that " wilk great promptness " it might " meet 
 an enormous demajtdy 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a better illustration than 
 this of the part played by evolution in the domain of 
 mechanical invention. It is perfectly evident that 
 the mass of discoveries and inventions which 
 preceded and paved the way for the final invention 
 in question were due to men who had no idea in 
 their heads of such a machine as a steam-driven 
 It was the printinoj press at all. When printinar was first 
 
 result of many . i i -i r \1T^ 
 
 kinds of un- mvcntcd, stcam-powcr was undreamed of. When 
 progreL, con- thc steam-cnginc was being perfected as a means of 
 combined by driving machinery, the inventors had no specific 
 intention. intention of applying this force to the printing press. 
 The men whose genius and energy in the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries laid the foundation 
 of the English iron trade, and with it, as Mr. 
 Spencer says, the foundation of "■machine-making 
 generally'^ in all probability never even saw a news- 
 paper, and could not have conceived the possibility 
 of collecting enough news daily to fill as much as 
 one page of The Times. The mathematicians and 
 chemists to whose work Mr. Spencer alludes most 
 probably never gave a thought to the practical ap- 
 plication of their discoveries, and knew as little of the 
 process of printing as they did of Chinese grammar. 
 But let us give to these facts all the weight we can. 
 Let us accept the antecedents that made the Walter 
 press possible as not only sequences but also con- 
 currences of the unintended ; and yet the part played
 
 INTENTION AND THE WALTER PRESS 103 
 bv the o:reat man remains as essential, and remains ^^'^'^ ^ 
 
 ^ ^ Chapter 4 
 
 as large as ever. The fact that the Walter press 
 could never have existed unless Caxton's press had 
 existed, and that Caxton never foresaw the future 
 development of his apparatus, does nothing to 
 disprove the fact that in the development of 
 printing generally, genius like Caxton's was an 
 indispensable agent, and one which stamped its 
 character on the whole sequence of inventions which 
 it inaugurated. Nor again does the fact that an 
 invention like the Walter press implies not only 
 a direct sequence of inventions and discoveries, 
 but also a concurrence of many separate sequences, 
 such as the invention and discoveries of chemists, 
 of machine-makers, and producers of iron, do 
 anything to disprove the importance and the ne- 
 cessity of the part played by the men to whose gen- 
 ius the press was directly due. For although the 
 co-existence of the separate sequences referred to 
 — the parallel march of progress in many separate 
 arts and sciences — may have been altogether un- 
 intended by any of those concerned in them, what 
 was emphatically not unintended was their final con- 
 currence — the fact of their being brought together 
 for one definite purpose. This was due to the de- 
 liberate intention of exceptional men with strong 
 synthetic powers, who appropriated and connected 
 the achievements of various other men. Chemistry, 
 geometry, the production of iron, and the develop- 
 ment of machinery for machine-making would never 
 have worked together to produce an automatic
 
 I04 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I 
 
 Chapter 4 
 
 Evolution, m 
 fact, is the 
 unintended 
 result of the 
 intentions of 
 great men. 
 
 printing press had the Immediate inventors of such 
 an implement not coerced them into their service, 
 and forced them to contribute to a deliberately 
 planned result. 
 
 The state of the case is this. Let us take any 
 civilised society at any period we will, and examine 
 it in the act of advancing to the next stage of its 
 development. We shall find that its existing condi- 
 tions consist partly of results intended by particular 
 great men whose past actions have produced them, 
 and partly of results neither foreseen nor intended 
 by anybody. Thus at the present day amongst 
 our social conditions we have the telegraph and the 
 railway system — both of them results intention- 
 ally produced by individuals; and we have also a 
 variety of new wants and habits, new methods of 
 conducting trade and government, which have been 
 produced by these, but which were neither intended 
 nor even thought of by the inventors of the loco- 
 motive, or by Wheatstone and Cooke when their 
 wires at last realised the long-forgotten dream of 
 the Italian Jesuit Strada.^ Thus, though social 
 conditions at any given time are a compound of 
 intended results and unintended, and even though 
 we may admit that at any given time these last are 
 more widely diffused than the former, these last 
 
 1 Strada, an Italian Jesuit, in the seventeenth century invented, or 
 rather imagined, communication by electric telegraph ; and his idea 
 actually comprised the use of two needles moved by two magnets, these 
 magnets being connected in such a way, that by the movement of either 
 of them the needle, actuated by the other, could be made to point to 
 such and such letters on a dial.
 
 EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF INTENTION 105 
 are themselves the children of intention once re- Booki 
 
 Chapter 4 
 
 moved. Great men may not havei meant to pro- 
 duce them, but they have arisen from conditions 
 which great men did mean to produce; and they 
 could not have arisen in any other way. And here 
 we are brought to a fact more obvious and more 
 important still. Before any further advance in social 
 civilisation can be made, other existing conditions, 
 whether intentionally produced or not, require to 
 be intentionally re-combined and acted on by men 
 whose enterprise, whose intellect, and whose con- 
 structive imagination mark them out from their fel- 
 lows as the pioneers of the future. We are thus once 
 more confronted with the fact already insisted on — 
 that the social conditions of a time are the same 
 for all, but that it is only exceptional men who can 
 make exceptional use of them, and turn them into a 
 stepping-stone on which their generation may rise 
 higher. 
 
 Social evolution, therefore, in so far as it 
 is other than biological, may be defined as the 
 unintended result of the intentions of great men; 
 and this definition at once brings us back to the 
 truth which was urged in the first chapter as the 
 starting-point of our argument, and which can now 
 be put before the reader with an added force and 
 clearness. 
 
 It was said in the first chapter that sociologists The unin- 
 have succeeded m deahng with those wider social evolved 
 phenomena which are exhibited by social aggregates pro'^isTs 
 as wholes, and which are interesting and significant
 
 io6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book I to the speculative or religious philosopher. The 
 
 truth of this statement is illustrated by what has 
 
 what concerns just been Said about evolution. If evolved phenom- 
 
 the speculative i • i i m • 
 
 philosopher, eua are phenomena which exhibit a reasonable 
 sequence, and have yet been intended by no animal 
 or human mind, it is open to the thinker to argue 
 that they must have been intended by the mind of 
 some higher power ; and a new gate is opened into 
 the Eden of theological speculation, from which 
 man was driven when he first ate of the tree of 
 scientific knowledge. 
 
 The intended g^^ whilst the busiucss of the speculative philos- 
 
 element, which ^ ^ r r 
 
 originates ophcr is solcly with the phenomena that have been 
 
 great man, is Unintended, the business of the practical sociologist is 
 
 LSeSfor solely with the phenomena that have been intended, 
 
 practical p^ momcut's rcflcction will convince the reader that 
 
 purposes. 
 
 this must be so. The meaning of the words prac- 
 tical science is a science from which we can draw 
 practical advice ; but all advice implies an intended 
 end; and every attempt to solve social problems 
 scientifically must be concerned with results which 
 we may deliberately set ourselves to produce, and 
 not with by-products which, ex hypothesis are beyond 
 our calculation. We may study these by-products 
 of intention as they have shown themselves in the 
 past ; but if we do this, it will be with the object 
 of becoming able to foresee them in the future. So 
 soon as we can foresee them, we shall be able to 
 intend their production ; and when this happens 
 they will cease to belong to the unintended. The 
 great man will then consciously aim at them, and
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE GREAT MAN 107 
 not leave them to the incalculable chances of ^?°°''' 
 
 Chapter 4 
 
 evolution. It may safely be said, no doubt, that, 
 let us study human conduct as we may, unintended, 
 or evolved phenomena, will always continue to form 
 a large part of what we mean by social progress; 
 but, as practical inquirers, we must put them on 
 one side, and confine our attention to those factors 
 in the problem which either embody some definite 
 human intention themselves, or on which we can 
 found, by studying them, some definite intention of 
 our own. And of such factors the chief is the great 
 man, whose importance is enhanced rather than 
 dwarfed by the fact that his intellect and his energy 
 are the causes not only of great results which he 
 intends, but also of those others — wider, if not more 
 important — which, though neither intended nor fore- 
 seen by himself or by anybody else, would, if it were 
 not for him, never take place at all.
 
 BOOK II
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE NATURE AND DEGREES OF THE SUPERIORITIES 
 OF GREAT MEN 
 
 That orreat men are true causes of proQ:ress is The causality 
 
 1-11 T» T o 1 • 1 r 11 , of the great 
 
 admitted by Mr. bpencer himself to be the natural man being 
 
 • • r i"i Tirii.! L 1 j-1 • established, we 
 
 opinion or mankind. What has been done, then, in must consider 
 the preceding book is not much more than this: aT'^f p''^^'^^'^ 
 
 •T o what greatness 
 
 sound popular judgment, which is of the highest ^s- 
 sociological importance, has been rescued from the 
 discredit cast on it by the sophisms of modern 
 theorists. These very theorists themselves, when 
 they reason as practical men, have been shown to 
 the reader blowing all their disproofs of it to the 
 winds, and holding and appealing to it as tenaciously 
 and as passionately as anybody; and it is consequently 
 given back to us, with its old authority unimpaired. 
 Sound popular judgments, however, are not science. 
 They lack what is the essence of science — that is to 
 say, analytical precision. We must now, therefore, 
 take this judgment with regard to the great man, 
 and endeavour to invest it with a meaning exact and 
 full enough to enable us to apply it to the detailed 
 phenomena of society. 
 
 And here Mr. Herbert Spencer shall once more
 
 definition of it. 
 
 112 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II i^gip us . fQj. ^]^js remarkable writer, thousrh he fails 
 
 Chapter i ^ . . . ' o 
 
 to recognise what he is doing, not only appeals on 
 many critical occasions to the great-man theory 
 as an explanation of the most important social 
 phenomena, but he is repeatedly calling attention 
 throughout his sociological writings to those facts of 
 human nature of which the great-man theory is the 
 expression. It will be sufficient to quote a few 
 passages only. 
 Mr. Spencer Lgj; ^g tum, then, to the openinsr pa^es of Mr. 
 
 will help us to ^ . r & r £> 
 
 a general Spcnccr's Study of Sociology and consider what is 
 contained in them. We shall find that they are 
 entirely devoted to describing the abject mental 
 condition of by far the largest portion of all classes 
 of English society, from the labourer, the farmer, 
 and the Nonconformist minister with his Bible, up 
 to " men called educated " and the most illustrious 
 of our historians and philosophers. All of them, 
 says Mr. Spencer, " are slaves to unwarranted 
 opmions " ; '''proximate catises " are all that the 
 majority of them are able to understand. Nor does 
 he represent this as some accidental result, due to 
 prejudices or deficiencies in education peculiar to 
 our own country. He represents it as an inevitable 
 result of the character of the human race. In his 
 " Postscript " to the same volume he takes care to 
 make his meaning plain. " Most people'' he says, 
 *' conclude quickly from small evidence^' and are 
 incapable " of comprehending in their totality 
 assembled propositions ^ Indeed, those whose 
 mental constitution is such that they can take a
 
 MR. SPENCER ON DEGREES OF CAPACITY 113 
 rational view of " /ncman affairs " are, he proceeds ^'^^^ ^^ 
 
 1 7 /- >j T T 1 1 Chapter i 
 
 to say, merely " a scattered few. He elsewhere 
 divides society into " the capable and the incapa- 
 ble,^^ the ^'worthy and the unworthy'''' ; and in the 
 ''Postscript'" just alluded to he mentions as an 
 admitted fact that in every social aggregate " the 
 inferior form the majority^ But a yet more caustic 
 passage remains to be mentioned. In this same 
 work, The Study of Sociology, he is ridiculine: — and "^ ^^'^'^^^ *'^^ 
 
 , , . ". ^ human race 
 
 very justly — the socialistic idea that the State can into the cWer, 
 be endowed with any talent or wisdom beyond what lnd°thJsmpid. 
 happens to be possessed by the individual function- 
 aries who compose the State. These functionaries, 
 he says, are merely "^ cluster of men,'' which, like 
 any other cluster taken at hap-hazard, will comprise 
 " a few clever i^idividuals, many ordinary, some 
 decidedly stupid'" ; and he devotes pages to showing 
 by means of multiplied examples, how incapable the 
 ordinary statesman, to say nothing of the decidedly 
 stupid, has been of promoting progress in even the 
 simplest ways. 
 
 Mankind at large, then, according to Mr. Spen- 
 cer, may, roughly speaking, be divided into three 
 classes — the " clever " who are few, the " ordi- 
 nary''' who are the bulk of the population, and 
 the ''decidedly stupid''' who form a considerable 
 residuum ; and it will appear from what he says of 
 that representative "cluster'' the State, that whilst 
 all real progress is the work of the clever few, the 
 " ordinary men " do nothing to promote it, and " the 
 decidedly stupid men " impede it. 
 
 8
 
 114 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 race were 
 stupid, it is 
 plain there 
 would be no 
 progress ; 
 
 nor would 
 there be any, 
 if all the race 
 were ordinary; 
 
 Book II Now it must be perfectly obvious to the reader 
 
 Chapter i . \ r ^ • ^ 
 
 that in this description of mankind we have the 
 fundamental facts before us which the great-man 
 theory formulates. For let us begin by supposing 
 Now if all the that the entire human race contained no individuals 
 superior to the "■decidedly stupid','' who, whenever 
 they are placed in official positions, do nothing, Mr. 
 Spencer declares, but commit the most pernicious 
 blunders, either by their irrational conservatism, 
 or their still more irrational innovations. It is 
 obvious that in this case the world would never 
 have progressed at all. Let us next suppose that 
 in addition to the ''decidedly stupid"" men, the 
 human race comprises also a large proportion of 
 ''ordinary'' men, but not a single man who deserves 
 to be called more than "ordinary.'" Could social 
 progress, as we know it, have taken place even 
 then .'* Could thought, for example, ever have 
 made any advances, had everybody been as in- 
 capable as Mr. Spencer's " ordinary " man is of tak- 
 ing a rational view of human affairs — had everybody 
 been enslaved, like him, " to unwarranted opinions'^ 
 and been, like him, entirely lacking in the faculty 
 which enables a man to comprehend "assembled 
 propositions in their totality'''? Or to put the 
 whole matter in terms of a single instance, could 
 Mr. Spencer's own system of philosophy have 
 been written if he himself had not been immensely 
 superior not only to " ordinary " men, but even to 
 those rival thinkers whom, in every one of his 
 volumes, he treats with such supreme disdain .?
 
 MR. SPENCER ON THE CLEVER MINORITY 115 
 The answer of course is No. Under such conditions ^°°^ ^' 
 
 Chapter i 
 
 progress would have been quite impossible. Our 
 simple argument will accordingly run thus. It is 
 evident that those triumphs of thought, enterprise, 
 and invention to which social progress is due could 
 never have been made had the whole of each 
 generation been as stupid and void of character as 
 its lowest and weakest members. Therefore prog- 
 ress must be due to men who are superior to the 
 ""decidedly stupid.'' Here we have the great-man 
 theory in embryo. But it is equally evident that we 
 can go a step farther, and say that progress could 
 never have taken place had there been no in- 
 dividuals who in will, oriorinality, and intellect were therefore prog- 
 superior to " ordi7iary men'' Social progress, there- due to the 
 fore, must be due to this third class — the class which are^ls Mr° 
 alone is capable of takino: "^ rational" view of ^P^"ff ^.^y^- 
 
 i^ O a scattered few. 
 
 things ; but this class, as Mr. Spencer tells us, con- 
 sists of a " scattered few" and here we have, in 
 Mr. Spencer's own language, neither more nor less 
 than the great-man theory developed. We have . 
 it developed in the form of a distinct general propo- 
 sition that progress is due not to mankind at large, 
 but to a minority of exceptional individuals, and in 
 this form, which Mr. Spencer has assisted us in This is the 
 
 . . . . . , . ■, 1 • 1 great-man 
 
 givmg it, it IS brought into actual accordance with theory reason- 
 the facts of social life, and, unlike the wild exaggera- ^ ^ ^'^^^ * 
 tions of Carlyle, it will be found to accord the more 
 closely with them the more fully it is analysed. 
 
 The error of writers like Carlyle was that they 
 took a part for the whole. They recognised no
 
 ii6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II great men at all except great men of the greatest 
 
 kind — heroic figures which appeared once or twice 
 
 in a century ; and as for the rest of mankind, they 
 
 For great men treated them in accordance with Mr. Spencer's 
 
 are not , , * , 
 
 necessarily formula, as a mass of units, approximately equal in 
 cariyie Capacity. The truth of the case is, on the contrary, 
 
 thought, ^j^-g . — ^j^^^ whatever is done by great men of the 
 
 heroic type, something similar, if not so striking, is 
 done by a number of lesser great men also; that whilst 
 the action of the heroic great men is intermittent, the 
 action of the lesser great men is constant ; and that 
 the latter, as a body, although not individually, do in- 
 calculably more to promote progress than the former. 
 Let us accordingly make it perfectly clear that 
 when we describe great men as being a minority, or 
 nor divided a '' Scattered few','' we do not mean that out of every 
 
 absolutely "^ •iiii« • 
 
 from all other thousaud mcu thcrc are nme hundred and mnety-mne 
 "*^"- » ordinary " men and one genius ; or that there are 
 
 (let us say) seven hundred who can be described for 
 all purposes as "■ordinary^" and two hundred and 
 ninety-nine who can be for all purposes described as 
 " stupid"" ; and that there is one "■clever'''' or "•great''' 
 man who towers over them like an oak tree over 
 bramble bushes. Nor, again, do we mean that 
 "greatness'" is some single definite quality, which 
 marks its possessor out like a white man amongst 
 negroes. Believers in extreme democracy, who 
 very rightly discern in the great-man theory 
 the destruction of their favourite enthusiasms, will 
 instinctively seek to attribute some meaning such 
 as this to its exponents. But the great-man
 
 MANY DEGREES OF GREATNESS 117 
 
 theory, when properly analysed and explained, will ^°'^^ " 
 be found to comprise no such absurdities as the 
 foresfoing:. When we speak of " greatness " we Greatness is 
 
 ° ° . - i-r . . ° 1 . , , , various both 
 
 mean a great variety 01 einciencies, which, though in kind and 
 grouped together because they are all exceptional ^^^^''' 
 in degree, are nevertheless indefinitely various in 
 kind ; and, moreover, the degrees to which they are 
 exceptional are indefinitely various also, the degree 
 being in many cases so low that it is difficult to say 
 whether it should be classed as exceptional at all. 
 In short, there are as many degrees of greatness as 
 there are of temperature; and it is as difficult to 
 draw a line between ordinary men and men whose 
 greatness is of a very low degree, as it is to draw 
 a line between coldness, coolness, and low degrees 
 of heat. But though it may be questionable 
 whether we should call a day cool when the ther- 
 mometer is at fifty-nine, and whether we should 
 call it hot when the thermometer is at sixty-one, 
 everybody admits that it is hot when the thermom- 
 eter is at eighty-five, and cold when the ther- t>u<. at aii 
 
 , . . events, there is 
 
 mometer registers twenty degrees of frost. In the a certain 
 same way, though there will be a certain number of men°whVre- 
 people who may be classed as great by one judge othlr^fn^bdn 
 and classed as ordinary by another, there is a ^°^^ efficient 
 certain number whose capacities, however unequal majority. 
 amongst themselves, set their possessors apart as 
 indubitably greater than the majority ; and we are 
 speaking with sufficient, though we cannot speak 
 with absolute, precision when we say that progress 
 depends on the action of this minority.
 
 ii8 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II How great the inequality is between the natural 
 
 powers of men is perhaps most clearly evidenced by 
 
 We see this j-j^g ^ase of art, and more especially the art of poetry. 
 
 m poetry, ^ ^ •"• ^ •' * •' 
 
 In certain domains of effort it may be urged that 
 unequal results are caused by unequal circumstances, 
 quite as much as by unequal capacities. But about 
 poetry, at all events, this cannot be said. Some of the 
 greatest poets the world has ever known — it is enough 
 to instance the cases of Burns and Shakespeare — 
 have been men of no wealth and of very imperfect 
 education. Obviously, therefore, in poetry one man 
 has as good a chance as another. It is no doubt 
 often argued — and this argument has already been 
 examined — that great poets, of whom Shakespeare is 
 a favourite example, owe part of their greatness not to 
 themselves, but to their age. But this does nothing to 
 explain the differences between poets who belong to 
 the same age, and who, all of them, in this respect, 
 start with the same advantage. Let us confine our 
 comparisons then to men who were each other's 
 contemporaries, and ask what made Burns a better 
 poet than Pye, Shakespeare a greater poet than the 
 feeblest of his forgotten rivals. Pope than Ambrose 
 Philips, Byron than ''the hoarse Fitzgerald'"? 
 There is only one answer possible. These men 
 in respect of poetry had been made giants by 
 nature; those were condemned by nature to live 
 and to die dwarfs. 
 
 And the same inequality that exhibits itself in 
 
 the domain of poetry will be found in every other 
 
 in singers, domaiu of humau effort. What can be more
 
 VARIOUS KINDS OF INEQUALITY 119 
 
 unequal than the gifts of different singers? In Book 11 
 
 ^ ^ . . ^. Chapter i 
 
 every school and university we see multitudes of 
 young men and boys whose opportunities of learn- in the schoiar- 
 ing are not only similar but identical, but of the^srnie°^^ ^ 
 whom, in respect to assimilating what they are ^^^°°^' 
 taught, not one in ten rises appreciably above a 
 certain level, and not one in a hundred rises above 
 it signally. We have Virgil at one end of the 
 scale, and Bavius and Maevius at the other ; at one 
 end Patti, and the other the vocalist of the street ; at 
 one end a Scaliger and a Newton, and at the other 
 the idler and the dunce, who can hardly conjugate 
 TVTTTOi or stumble across the Asses' Bridge. And in 
 practical life the same phenomenon repeats itself. 
 Let us take any department of social activity or pro- 
 duction, on the results of which the welfare of society 
 at any given time depends. Let us take, for instance, and similarly 
 the work of government, or invention, or commercial liler^^ '^* 
 enterprise. In each of these we shall find a large 
 number of men, each doing what is in him to 
 subserve some particular end ; and we shall find a 
 few producing results which are great both for 
 themselves and others, and the many producing 
 results which are uniform in their individual 
 pettiness. 
 
 It is perfectly true that in these great depart- 
 ments of practical life there may not be so 
 obvious or so widely-extended an equality of 
 opportunity as that which prevails amongst poets, 
 or amongst scholars in the same seminary, but in 
 each department there will be a large number, at all
 
 I20 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter i 
 
 Enough men, 
 as it is, have 
 equal op- 
 portunities, to 
 show how un- 
 equal men are 
 in their powers 
 of using them. 
 
 No doubt a 
 man may be 
 ordinary in 
 one respect, 
 and great in 
 another ; 
 
 events, whose opportunities are as equal as human 
 ingenuity could make them. This is so in the 
 French army, in the English House of Commons, 
 and in the world of business and industry ; and yet 
 of men thus equally placed we see some doing great 
 things, and doubling their opportunities by using 
 them ; others doing little or nothing, and throwing 
 their opportunities away. We have accordingly in 
 every domain of activity a sufficient number of 
 persons with the same external advantages, to show 
 by the extraordinary difference between the results 
 accomplished by them how great the natural 
 inequality between men's capacities is, and how far 
 the efficiency of a few exceeds that of the majority. 
 It is therefore nothing to the purpose to attribute, as 
 many reformers do, men's inequality in efficiency to 
 the fact that equality of opportunity is not at 
 present as general as it theoretically might be. To 
 extend this equality further might produce good 
 results or bad ; but in neither case would it tend to 
 make men's capacities equal. The utmost it would 
 do in this particular respect would be merely to 
 widen the area of their reahsed inequality — to 
 increase the number of the mountains, not to 
 produce a plain. 
 
 It will doubtless be objected by those who would 
 minimise natural inequalities that a man may be con- 
 temptible in one capacity, that of a poet, for instance, 
 and yet be greater as a man than men who in one 
 capacity are superior to him. It may, for example, 
 be said that Frederick of Prussia, in spite of his
 
 GREATNESS TO BE MEASURED BY RESULTS 121 
 
 bad poetry, was a greater man than Voltaire. This '^ook 11 
 
 r \ ^, . . , . Chapter I 
 
 IS perfectly true; but it is necessary to explain 
 clearly that it in no way contradicts what is being 
 here asserted. It is, on the contrary, part of it. 
 It cannot be too emphatically said that greatness, 
 in the only sense in which we are here considering 
 it — that is to say as an agent of social progress — 
 is a quality which we attribute to a man not with 
 reference to his whole nature, but with reference 
 solely to the objective results produced by him, so 
 that in one domain of activity a man may be great, 
 in another ordinary, in another decidedly stupid. 
 What, then, we here mean by a great man is merely 
 a man who is superior to the majority in his power but the 
 of producing some given class of result, whereas the ^o^^Zti^ 
 average man and the stupid are not superior to the ^"^' 
 majority in their powers of producing any. 
 
 The reader must thus entirely disabuse himself The measure 
 
 -,.,, ...of a man's 
 
 of the idea that greatness, as an agent of social greatness as 
 
 1 1 1 . . an agent of 
 
 progress, has any necessary resemblance to great- sodai progress 
 ness as conceived of by the moralist. A man may '^ '^^ °''"' ,, 
 
 J J results actually 
 
 be a great saint or a noble " moral character " who produced by 
 
 ... . him. 
 
 passes his life in obscurity, stretched on a bed of 
 sickness, and incapable even of rendering the 
 humblest help to others. He is great in virtue 
 not of what he does, but of what he is. But great- 
 ness, as an agent of social progress, has nothing 
 whatever to do with what a man is, except in so 
 far as what he is enables him to do what he does. 
 If two doctors were confronted by some terrible 
 epidemic, and the one met it by tending the poor
 
 122 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter I 
 
 A selfish 
 doctor, if 
 successful, is 
 greater than a 
 devoted 
 doctor, if 
 unsuccessful. 
 
 Tlie fact that 
 many men 
 who produce 
 no social 
 results seem 
 better and 
 more brilliant 
 than many 
 men who do 
 produce them, 
 makes some 
 argue that 
 these results 
 require no 
 greatness for 
 their produc- 
 tion. 
 
 for nothing, and died in his unavaiHng efforts to 
 save his patients, whilst the other fled from the 
 infected district, and, solacing himself at a distance 
 with a mistress and an excellent cook, invented a 
 medicine by which the disease could be warded off, 
 and proceeded to make a large fortune by selling it, 
 though the former as a man might be incalculably 
 better than the latter, the latter as an agent of 
 progress would be incalculably greater than the 
 former. Again, if two doctors tried to invent such 
 a medicine, and whilst the first succeeded the second 
 failed, the second, though he might have exerted 
 himself far more than the first, and have failed only 
 owing to some minute flaw in his faculties, would 
 be not only less great as an agent of progress than 
 the first, but he would not be practically an agent 
 of progress at all, any more than a man is an 
 agent in saving another from drowning if he 
 merely stretches a hand which the drowning man 
 cannot reach, and actually himself tumbles into the 
 water in doing so. 
 
 This truth, which sounds brutal when plainly 
 stated, but is really little more than a sociological 
 truism, is constantly overlooked, and even indig- 
 nantly denied, by thinkers whose emotions are more 
 powerful than their minds. The way in which such 
 persons reason is very easily understood. They 
 see that a number of men by whom great social 
 results are produced — men who make successful 
 inventions and who found great businesses — are 
 narrow-minded, uncultivated, and contemptible in
 
 GREATNESS NOT AN ETHICAL QUALITY 123 
 general conversation, and that a number of other Book 11 
 
 1 111 11 Chapter! 
 
 men who produce no such results are scholars, 
 critics, thinkers, keen judges of men and things ; and 
 contrasting the brilliancy of those who have pro- 
 duced no great social results with the narrow ideas 
 and dulness of those who have produced many, 
 they proceed to argue that great social results can- 
 not possibly require great men to produce them ; 
 or, in other words, that they might be produced by 
 almost anybody. 
 
 But the whole of this class of objections will But the most 
 
 •^ . efficient forms 
 
 altogether disappear when we more closely examme of greatness 
 what the qualities are on which the production of nothing 
 given social results depend. Let us take a few™"'^^°"' 
 of these results as examples. Let us take the 
 formulation and the popularising of some particular 
 political demand, by which the whole course of a 
 country's history is affected, and the increasing and 
 cheapening the supply of some articles of popular 
 consumption — sugar, let us say, or workmen's boots 
 and clothing. The persons who urge the objections 
 we are now discussing assume that all greatness, 
 other than physical strength and dexterity, must be 
 necessarily ethical or intellectual, and be calculated 
 to excite our ethical or intellectual admiration. But 
 let them consider the qualities requisite to produce 
 such results as have just been mentioned, and they 
 will see that no assumption could be more wide of 
 the truth. 
 
 A man who should, without underpaying his 
 employees, succeed in manufacturing for the poorer
 
 124 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter i 
 
 A lofty im- 
 agination is 
 often the 
 enemy to 
 practical 
 efficiency ; 
 
 classes boots, jackets, or shirts better in quality 
 and very much less in price than those which 
 they are accustomed to buy now, would probably 
 have to devote a large part of his life to the 
 consideration of a particular kind of seemingly 
 sordid detail. To a man of wide culture and 
 brilliant imagination, the concentration of his 
 faculties on details such as these would be im- 
 possible; and if he wished to produce any of the 
 results in question, he would soon discover that 
 he could not. The men who do produce them are 
 rendered capable of doing so, not by the width of 
 their minds, but by the exceptional narrowness. 
 The intellectual stream flows strongly because it 
 is confined in a narrow channel, and thus what 
 to the superficial observer seems a sign of their 
 inferiority, is really, so far as the results are 
 concerned, one of the chief causes of their 
 greatness. 
 
 The mean man with the little thing to do 
 
 Sees it and does it ; 
 The great man with the great end to pursue 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 
 
 Robert Browning very tersely puts the case thus. 
 We have only to alter his language in one respect. 
 Seeing that the results we have now in view 
 are realised results or nothing, the " mean man,'' 
 as an agent of material progress, will be the 
 " great man," and the " great man " will be the 
 little. 
 
 So, too, with regard to the man who affects
 
 GREATNESS ONLY PARTLY INTELLECTUAL 125 
 
 the history of his country by formulating and ^°°^ ^^ 
 
 popularising some particular political demand — 
 
 the secret of such a man's success, in four cases and great 
 
 cfticicncv is 
 
 out of five, will be found to lie in the greatness, not often in- 
 of his intellect, but of his will — in an exceptionally exce^ptionIi° 
 sanguine temperament, in exceptional courage and '"'^"^<=*- 
 energy, and very likely in an exaggerated belief in 
 his own nostrums, which, instead of being a sign 
 of great intellectual acuteness, is incompatible 
 with it. 
 
 No doubt social progress, as a whole, has re- intellect « 
 quired and does require for its production intellectual progress, ^.^. 
 powers of the highest and rarest kind. The point '"'""'"''°" = 
 here insisted on is that it is not produced by 
 intellectual powers alone, and that intellectual powers 
 alone would be quite unable to produce it. Thus 
 the sorrows and disappointments of the unfortunate 
 inventor are proverbial ; and the reason is that great 
 inventive powers are frequently accompanied by a 
 very feeble will and a fantastic ignorance of the 
 world, the inventor, though strong as a mind, being 
 pitiably weak as a man. He can do everything 
 with his inventions except make them useful to 
 anybody. He might be practically far greater were 
 he to lose some of his intellectual powers, could hebutthem- 
 
 ... . ventor by him- 
 
 thereby develop some of the humbler qualities in self is often 
 which he is wanting. As it is, he resembles a ^p"^* 
 chronometer which is without a main-spring, and 
 which is useless when compared with a ten-and- 
 sixpenny watch. Hence the inventor has so 
 frequently to ally himself with the man of enter-
 
 126 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II prise, and only becomes great, as a social force, by 
 
 Chapter I \ . „'', . °, ^^., ■' 
 
 doing so. buch unions are oiten sumciently strange 
 and has to in appcarancc. We see some man whose intellect is 
 with men the fincst macliinc imaginable, but he is only redeemed 
 Tep'tfonaTgifts from absolutc and grotesque uselessness by his 
 are uninipres- partner, who is little better than an inspired bao:- 
 
 sive, and even Jr ' r o 
 
 vulgar. man. But such a bagman's gifts, however the 
 
 inefficient theorist may despise them, are, though 
 less striking than the inventor's, often quite as rare. 
 No doubt many great inventors have the practical 
 gifts as well as the intellectual, and their greatness, 
 in such cases, is comprehended completely in them- 
 selves. It remains, however, an equally composite 
 thing, no matter whether it takes two men or only 
 one to complete it ; and exceptional intellect is only 
 one of its elements. The other qualities with which 
 it requires to be allied, and which alone give it its 
 practical value, such as determination, shrewdness, 
 and a certain thickness of skin, though often re- 
 markable individually for the exceptional degree 
 to which they are developed, just as often unite 
 to produce practical greatness, not because of the 
 exceptional degree to which they are developed, 
 but of the exceptional proportions in which they are 
 combined. Some of the most essential of them, 
 indeed, need not be exceptional at all, except from 
 the fact of their association with others that are so. 
 Much greatness, for instance, of the most powerful 
 kind consists mainly of very ordinary sense in con- 
 junction with extraordinary energy ; and energy is 
 often, as has already been pointed out, in proportion
 
 GREATNESS IS RELATIVE 127 
 
 to the narrowness rather than to the width of the Book 11 
 
 Chapter i 
 
 imagination. 
 
 Greatness, in short, as an agent of social progress, Greatness is 
 
 . . , , . 1 IV U i r not one quality, 
 
 is in most cases not a single quality, but a peculiar but various 
 combination of many ; its composition varies o? man"y!^'°"^ 
 according to the character of the results in the 
 production of which the great men are severally 
 more efficient than the majority ; and it often 
 depends less on the extent to which any special 
 faculty is developed, in comparison with the same 
 faculty as possessed by ordinary men, than it does 
 on the degree to which each faculty is developed as 
 compared with the others possessed by the great 
 man himself. 
 
 When we speak of greatness, then, in the sense Greatness. 
 
 , ■"■ *-^ then, is merely 
 
 here attributed to the word — when we speak of those qualities 
 
 , r • 1 1 i which, in any 
 
 great men as agents of social progress — we do not domain of 
 mean that the world is divided into ordinary men Kew morf ^ 
 and heroes. The members of that minority whom ^,fficient than 
 
 -' the many. 
 
 we group together as great men, though some of 
 them are, no doubt, of noble and heroic proportions, 
 are for the most part great in relation to special 
 results only ; even in relation to these special results 
 they are great in very various degrees, and many 
 of them in other relations may be ordinary, 
 or even less than ordinary. It must therefore be 
 clearly understood that greatness, as an agent of 
 social progress, is not an absolute thing, and that to 
 say of any one man that he possesses more great- 
 ness than another is a statement which, taken 
 by itself, has no definite meaning. When we
 
 128 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II say that a man is s^reat we mean that he is 
 
 Chapter i -' . - . . 
 
 exceptionally efficient in producing some particular 
 result, which is either implied or specified — that 
 he is great in commanding armies, or in manag- 
 ing hotels, or in conducting public affairs, or 
 in cheapening and improving the manufacture of 
 this or that commodity ; and when we say that such 
 and such a man possesses the quality of greatness to 
 such and such a degree we mean that he produces 
 results of a given kind, which are in such and 
 such a degree better or more copious than results 
 of the same kind which are produced by other 
 people. 
 The great-man The inequality of men, then, in natural capacity 
 
 theory, then, . ... , , , , 
 
 merely asserts bcing an obvious fact, and the nature and the 
 
 that if some -y rj_i'' Tj.' i* •l 
 
 men were not dcgrees ot their inequalities having been now 
 thaJTmS'^"^ generally explained, we may re-state, with a meaning 
 men, no prog- niorc prccisc than was formerly possible, the 
 
 ress would . . .,.,., 
 
 take place at fundamental proposition implied in the great-man 
 theory, when that theory is raised from a rhetorical 
 to a scientific formula. Progress of an appreciable 
 kind, in any department of social activity and 
 achievement, takes place only when, and in pro- 
 portion as, some of the men who are working to 
 produce such and such a result are more efficient in 
 relation to that class of result than the majority ; or 
 conversely, if a community contained no man with 
 capacities superior to those possessed by the greater 
 
 But great men. numbcr, propfrcss in that community would be so 
 
 in spite of i • 1 1 • 
 
 these slow as to bc practically non-existent. 
 
 1 erences. ^^ must now go on to inquire what is the
 
 HOW DOES GREATNESS OPERATE 129 
 
 precise way in which the men who are superior to Book 11 
 
 1 • . 1 . 1 1 1 11 Chapter I 
 
 the majority brmg progress about; and we shall 
 find that however various they may be in other 
 respects, they all promote progress in a way that is aii promote 
 
 r -i ,11 • M progress in the 
 
 fundamentally similar. same way.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PROGRESS THE RESULT OF A STRUGGLE NOT FOR 
 SURVIVAL, BUT FOR DOMINATION 
 
 It has already been explained that the great man, 
 as here understood, does not in any way correspond 
 with 'C^^ fittest man in the Darwinian struggle for 
 existence. The fittest man in the Darwinian sense 
 merely promotes progress by the physiological pro- 
 cess of reproducing his slight superiorities in his 
 children, and thus raising in the slow course of ages 
 the general level of capacity throughout subsequent 
 generations of his race. The great man, on the 
 contrary, promotes progress, not because he raises 
 the capacity of the generations that come after him, 
 but because he rises individually above the general 
 level of his own. This, however, is only one of the 
 differences by which the great man is distinguished 
 from the fittest. There are two others, of which 
 how'thJg^ear the first that we must consider is as follows. 
 progress.Tr ^hc fittcst man, or the survivor in the Dar- 
 must consider winiau strugglc for existence, is, so far as his own 
 
 that whilst ^^ ' ^ 
 
 the fittest sur- contemporarics are concerned, greater than his in- 
 motes it fcriors only in respect of what he accomplishes for
 
 GREA TNESS AND STR UG GLE FOR EXISTENCE 1 3 1 
 
 himself, or for those immediately dependent on him. Book 11 
 He is the man who lives and thrives whilst others 
 die or languish, because whilst they can secure for by living 
 themselves but little of what is requisite for life and die/ 
 health, he, by his superior gifts, is able to secure 
 much. "■Families'^'' says Mr. Spencer, ''whom the 
 increasing difficulty of odtaining a living does not 
 stimulate to improvement in production are on the 
 high road to extinction^ and must ultimately be 
 supplanted by those whom the difficulty does so 
 stimulated That is to say, Mr. Spencer, and all 
 our modern sociologists with him, conceive of the 
 fittest as a man, or a man and his family, who fight 
 for their food in isolation, like a lion and lioness 
 with their cubs, and who affect their contempo- 
 raries only by being better fed than they, or as a 
 race-horse affects its competitors only by being first 
 at the winning post. 
 
 But the great man, as an agent of progress, the great man 
 shows his greatness in a way precisely opposite to J'esTbyh^e^p-^' 
 that in which the fittest man shows his fitness. i"i°'^''''° 
 This it is that our contemporary sociologists all 
 fail to perceive, and endless error is the conse- 
 quence. The great man, unlike the strongest lion, 
 promotes progress by increasing the food-supply 
 not of himself, but of others ; or if he increase 
 his own, as he no doubt generally does, he does so 
 only by showing others how to increase theirs. He 
 is like a lion who should be better fed than the 
 rest of the lions in his region, not because he took 
 a carcase from them for which they all were fighting, 
 
 live.
 
 132 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 2 
 
 He promotes 
 progress not 
 by what he 
 does himself, 
 but by what 
 he helps others 
 to do. 
 
 We can see 
 this by con- 
 sidering the 
 progress of 
 knowledge, 
 which, as J. S. 
 Mill says, is 
 the foundation 
 of all other 
 progress. 
 
 but because he showed them how to find others 
 which they never would have found unaided, and 
 took for himself in payment a small portion of each. 
 The great man, in fact, as an agent of social prog- 
 ress, is great not in virtue of any completed results 
 which he produces directly, by the action of his 
 own hands or brains, or which he exhibits in his 
 own person, but in virtue of the completed results 
 which, by some simultaneous influence which he 
 exercises over the brains or hands of others, he en- 
 ables others to exhibit in themselves, or produce or 
 do in the form of products or social services. 
 
 In order to realise this great truth, let us begin 
 with considering that form of greatness which pro- 
 motes social progress by supplying it with its first 
 materials, and from which all other kinds of great- 
 ness draw some portion of their nourishment. It 
 so happens that one of the most remarkable think- 
 ers of this century, who, though he preceded Mr. 
 Spencer, belongs to the same school, is able to as- 
 sist us here by a very apt and remarkable passage. 
 
 John Stuart Mill, in that section of his System of 
 Logic to which he gives the title of " The Logic of the 
 Moral Sciences,''' writes thus : 'Ln the difficult process 
 of observation and compariso7t which is required 
 {for the purpose of obtaining a better understanding 
 of the laws of empirical sociology, and especially of 
 social progress) it would evidently be a great assist- 
 a7ice if it should happen to be the fact that 07ie 
 element in the complex existence of social man is 
 pre-eminent over all the others, as the prime agent
 
 KNOWLEDGE THE BASIS OF PROGRESS 133 
 of the social movement. For we could then take the Book 11 
 
 •^ , Chapter 2 
 
 progress of that one element as the ce^itral chain, 
 to each successive link of which, the correspondiyig 
 links of all the other progressioiis being appended, 
 the succession of facts would by this alone be 
 presented in a kind of spontaneous order, far more 
 approachiitg to the real order of their filiation than 
 could be obtained by any other fnerely empirical 
 process. Now the evidence of history and that of 
 human nature combine, by a striking instance of 
 consilience, to show that there really is one social 
 element which is predominant and almost para7nount 
 amongst the age^tts of social progression. This is 
 the state of the speculative faculties, including the 
 nature of the beliefs which by any tneans they have 
 arrived at, concerning themselves and the world by 
 which they are surrou7ided. Thus',' Mill continues, " to 
 take the most obvious case, the impelling force to most 
 of the improvements effected in the arts of life is the 
 desire for increased material comfort; but as we can 
 only act on external objects in proportion to our kiiow- 
 ledge of them, the state of knowledge at any given 
 time is the limit of the industrial improvement pos- 
 sible at that time, and therefore the progress of in- 
 dustry must follow and depend upon the progress of 
 that knowledge'' 
 
 Any one who was inclined to be hypercritical 
 might object, and object with justice, that the 
 practical application of knowledge often lags be- 
 hind the speculative attainment, and that material 
 progress therefore, at certain times, depends on
 
 134 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 2 
 
 But all prog- 
 ress in know- 
 ledge is the 
 work of 
 " decidedly 
 exceptional 
 individuals," 
 
 some new state of the practical rather than of the 
 speculative faculties ; but apart from this not very 
 important inaccuracy of expression, Mill's way of 
 putting the case is admirable for its lucidity and for 
 its truth ; and we may, for our present purpose, be 
 content to take it as it stands. All civilisation 
 depends on the accumulation of speculative know- 
 ledge, and all progress in civilisation depends on 
 an increase in speculative knowledge. 
 
 Speculative knowledge, however, does not in- 
 crease of itself. It is not acquired without consider- 
 able effort; and people acquire it only because they 
 strongly desire to do so. Such being the case, let 
 us turn to another passage, taken likewise from the 
 writings of Mill, and occurring in the very same 
 chapter as that which has just been quoted. ''It 
 would be a great error,'' says Mill, " and one very 
 little likely to be committed^ to assert that speculation, 
 intellectual activity, the pursuit of truth, is amongst 
 the vtore powerful prope7tsities of human nature, or 
 holds a predominating place i7t the lives of any save 
 decidedly exceptional individuals. But notwithstand- 
 ing the relative weakness of this principle among 
 other sociological agents, its i^ifluence is the main 
 determining cause of social progress, all the other 
 dispositions of our nature which coittribute to that 
 progress being dependent on it for accomplishing 
 their share of the work^ 
 
 Now what does this passage mean ? About its 
 meaning, and the truth of its meaning, there can be 
 no possible doubt; but it will be well to observe
 
 THE GREAT MAN AND KNOWLEDGE 135 
 the extraordinary confusion in which Mill involves j^ookii 
 
 •' ^ Chapter 2 
 
 what he means by his perverse manner of express- 
 ing it. In the first sentence of this last passage 
 he tells us as clearly as possible that with regard 
 to the pursuit of truth, and the power of discoverino^ as mui admits, 
 
 . . 1 . . . , though in 
 
 and understanding it, mankind are divided broadly cunousiy con- 
 into two classes — the great majority with whom "^^ ^"g"^g«- 
 the ^'■pursuit of truth^^ and ''' intellectual activity'" 
 are " slight propensities^'' and " the decidedly excep- 
 tional iiidividuals''^ with whom these propensities 
 are overmastering. But he has no sooner drawn 
 this clear and all-important distinction between 
 the two classes than he proceeds to undo his own 
 work and mixes them together again in one un- 
 meaning blur. He converts his statement that 
 only " the decidedly exceptional i7tdividuals " desire 
 truth with any great intensity, and have the facul- 
 ties requisite for discovering it, into the statement 
 that if we take " the decidedly exceptional individ- 
 uals " and the majority together, and regard them 
 as one body, which he calls " mankind^' we shall 
 find that the average desire for truth is lukewarm, 
 and the faculties for discovering it insufficient. 
 He might just as well group Shakespeare with a 
 hundred ordinary men ; tell us that Shakespeare 
 could write the greatest poetry the world has ever 
 known, and that the hundred other men could write 
 no poetry at all, and then convert these statements 
 into the following — that the one hundred and one 
 men, Shakespeare included, could only write poetiy 
 of a very moderate quality.
 
 136 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II This confusion of statement, however, on the 
 
 Chapters . , .... 
 
 part of Mill, is merely mentioned here in passing, as 
 one more example of the nature of that inveterate 
 error — namely the ignoring of the differences 
 between one class of men and another — which has 
 made modern sociology so useless for practical 
 purposes. The sole point which really now con- 
 cerns us is this. In spite of the verbal, and indeed 
 the mental confusion into which Mill lapses, the 
 truth which he was struggling to express, and which 
 no one, he says, would be likely to contradict, is 
 not that, as he nonsensically puts it, the speculative 
 faculties are weak in mankind generally, but that 
 amongst the larger part of mankind they have 
 hardly any efficiency at all, whilst " in decidedly 
 exceptional individuals''' they are intense, active, 
 and conquering ; and that consequently it is these 
 " decidedly exceptional individuals " who practically 
 constitute '* the one social element which is pre- 
 dominant, and almost paramount, amongst the 
 agents of social progression'^ 
 Now how do Now such being the case, let us resume our 
 
 the exceptional , . iii 11 -t'ii 
 
 individuals, prcscnt inquiry, and ask how do these individuals 
 
 acqdre kiiow- who alonc strongly desire truth, and have the facul- 
 
 '^?%^sT°^^ ties for discovering it, perform the practical part 
 
 doing so? which Mill so rightly assigns to them? By what 
 
 kind of conduct do they become " agents of social 
 
 progression'' so as to raise communities from the 
 
 level of helpless savagery and gradually endow them 
 
 with all the resources of civilisation ? One thing is 
 
 perfectly clear. They do not so by the mere act
 
 THE GREAT MAN AS TEACHER 137 
 
 of acquiring knowledge, by laying up this treasure ^^^^^]^ 
 in a napkin, or by showing it secretly to one another. 
 They do so only by diffusing it, in such measure as 
 is practicable, amongst a circle of men much wider 
 than themselves. They do so, that is to say, by 
 influencing the minds of others, by guiding their 
 attention to this and to that fact, by providing, as it 
 were, a go-cart for their weaker intellectual faculties, 
 and compelling them to confront and assent to such 
 and such propositions. All that mass of developing 
 knowledge and expanding ideas which forms not 
 only the basis but a part of all progressive civilisa- 
 tion, and is commonly called by the general name 
 of enlightenment, is produced solely by the influence 
 on average minds of the minds that are " decidedly 
 exceptional^ It is not produced by the fact that ^hey promote 
 
 ■^ . . progress by 
 
 the '"'' decidedly exceptionaV minds are stocked with conveying their 
 such ideas and with such knowledge themselves, and imposing 
 but by the fact that they communicate such a j!jy5-o„°3"' 
 measure of these to average minds as average °^^^"- 
 minds are severally able to receive. 
 
 To realise the truth of this we need do no more 
 than consider for a moment the ordinary process 
 of education. The schoolmaster and the college 
 tutor, by the State or some other authority, are 
 compelled to give their pupils instruction in certain 
 subjects. But there is another kind of compulsion 
 involved in the matter also ; and this has to do not 
 with the selection of the subjects that are to be 
 taught, but with what is to be taught about them. 
 The general progress of a community depends 
 
 i on,
 
 138 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II primarily upon this ; and what is to be taught about 
 them is determined not by the State, or by any 
 other legally constituted body, but by the masters 
 of speculative knowledge, by contemporary men 
 of science, scholars, historians, and philosophers. 
 Knowledge advances because these men are not 
 only adding to it, but because they are perpetually 
 assimilating the new discoveries with the old ; and 
 these men, by means of their comments on previous 
 writers, or by new works of their own, often repro- 
 duced in the form of text-books, put the word into 
 the teachers' mouths; and the teachers, like the 
 prophet Balaam, are compelled to speak it. In 
 other words, great speculative thinkers are great 
 as agents of mental civilisation and enlightenment 
 only because, and only in so far as, they settle for 
 others what these others shall believe and think. 
 A similar thing And now Ict US pass from mental progress to 
 
 is true of in- , ^ i • i i i 
 
 vention, which material — that IS to say, from speculative knowledge 
 applied/ ^^ to applied knowledge; and the truth that is being here 
 insisted on will become clearer still. The master of 
 knowledge, as applied to production, is the inventor. 
 Now the most perfect and important machines ever 
 devised by man — let us say the steam-engine and 
 the printing press — had they been planned by their 
 original inventors in all their present completeness, 
 but kept by the inventors to themselves in the 
 form of working models, made by their own hands 
 and shut up in their own rooms, would have left 
 the arts of life totally unaffected ; our fastest 
 means of travelling would still be the stage-coach;
 
 THE INVENTOR AND APPLIED KNOWLEDGE 139 
 
 our few books would be produced by the methods (^^^'''jj/^ 
 of the medioeval scriptorium. These machines are 
 instruments of social progress only because, and in 
 so far as, they are multiplied and brought into use ; 
 and they could not be multiplied — as efficient im- 
 plements, they could not be even made — without 
 the co-operation of an enormous number of workers. 
 It is probable indeed that in constructing the very 
 model itself an inventor will have to employ 
 some labour besides his own. Thus this first and invention pro- 
 
 motes progress 
 
 preliminary step towards rendering his apparatus a only because 
 
 - . . , 1 i 1 1 1 *he inventor 
 
 factor m social progress he can take only by influences the 
 influencing one or two other men, at all events — to^Jmen Ito 
 artisans whose technical action he directs in such "^^ke and use 
 
 his machines. 
 
 a way that it produces something specifically 
 different from anything which it had produced 
 before ; and as the apparatus is reproduced on a 
 larger scale, put on the market, multiplied so as to 
 meet a growing demand, and thus actually produces 
 an effect on the arts of life, this practical result 
 takes place only because, and in so far as, the 
 number of artisans whose action is influenced by 
 the inventor increases. The inventor, in other 
 words, is an agent of " social progression " only 
 because the particularised knowledge of which his 
 invention consists is embodied either in models, or 
 drawings, or written or spoken orders, and thus 
 affects the technical action of whole classes of other 
 men, just as Mr. Spencer affects, by means of his 
 manuscript, the technical actions of the compositors 
 who put his treatises into type.
 
 are supplied. 
 
 140 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II Material progress, however, depends not only 
 
 on the inventor and his machine. It depends 
 also on the uses to which his machine is to be 
 put. Here we shall find a new kind of greatness to 
 be necessary — that which is called business ability; 
 and we shall find that this operates precisely like 
 the greatness of the inventor, through the influence 
 which its possession exercises over other men. 
 The man of js^\\ prosfress or development in commerce and 
 
 business ability ^ x o ... 
 
 promotes prog- in thc arts of production is in proportion to the 
 
 ress also only , . , . c ,a 
 
 by so ordering correspondencc in every place and season or the 
 pl-ecisVwan?s'' g^o^s brought Into the market with the contem- 
 of the public porary wants of the buyers. If it were not for 
 
 are sunnlied. x y j 
 
 this correspondence of the economic supply with the 
 demand, progress in production would not be social 
 progress at all ; for just as a community does not 
 become materially civilised by the mere act of 
 wanting what it cannot get, so it does not become 
 materially civilised by being presented with what 
 it does not want — clothes, for example, which it 
 could not possibly wear, and books in an unknown 
 language, which it could not possibly read, or 
 diminutive houses and furniture fit only for dolls. 
 Now in any progressive community the wants of 
 the buyers are in constant process not only of 
 development but fluctuation, and are rarely quite 
 the same in any two localities simultaneously. In 
 order, therefore, that what is supplied may be in 
 correspondence with what is wanted, it is necessary 
 that in each industry the nature of the commodities 
 produced be continually modified by men with a
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S INFLUENCE ON OTHERS 141 
 special sort of knowledge of the world ; and also, ^°°^ ^^ 
 
 r . ^- „ . , Chapter a 
 
 since want, in the sense of efncient demand, depends 
 on the price at which these commodities can be 
 supplied, it is necessary, just as it is in the case 
 of the manufacture of machinery, that the army of 
 men whose labour is involved in producing them 
 shall be subject to men who, by their powers of 
 industrial generalship, will be able to reduce the 
 cost of reproduction to a minimum. Every business, 
 in fact, and every industrial enterprise, succeeds or 
 fails, not according to the amount of average labour 
 involved in it, but according to the talents and 
 energy by which this labour is directed. Thus 
 in the economic domain, even more than in the 
 intellectual, the great man is seen to be an 
 agent of "■ social progressio^i''' in virtue not of the 
 results which he himself produces by the direct 
 action of his own hands or brain, but of the 
 results which, being what he is, he causes to be 
 produced by others. 
 
 And now having dealt with the great man as an And the same 
 
 r 1 • 1 '1 -RTMi principle is 
 
 agent or speculative progress, which, as Mill says, obviously true 
 is at the bottom of progress of all other kinds, and JJIvar.pScs^ 
 having dealt with him also as an agent of that ^^^ "hgion. 
 manufacturing, commercial, economic, or material 
 progress which Mill cites as the chief example 
 of what practical progress is, and having shown 
 how the essence of his greatness is his power 
 of influencing others, let us illustrate this truth 
 finally by a brief reference to three other kinds 
 of human and social activity which exhibit it
 
 142 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II in a Hgrht so obvious that it requires no explana- 
 
 Chapter2 . ^ . . . , . . 
 
 tion. These three kinds of activity are the military, 
 the political, and the religious. The great soldier, 
 as has been said already, is essentially the great 
 commander — the man who makes others act and 
 group themselves in a specific way. The statesman 
 not only aims at benefiting his countrymen gener- 
 ally, but he achieves his aim by the same means 
 as the soldier, namely, by influencing the actions of 
 others in certain specific respects ; whilst the man 
 who is socially great in the domain of morals and 
 religion is the man whose teaching and example 
 affect the actions, and even the inmost feelings, of 
 multitudes, or gives precision to their faith. 
 
 But here, having reduced to a truism this impor- 
 tant truth that the great man, as an agent . of social 
 progress, is great only because he is able to exercise 
 Greatness, a spccific iiifluencc ovcr others, it is necessary to 
 
 however, is not . , . «- , - - , 
 
 in all cases tum our attention to a dirierent order oi tacts alto- 
 ficiat"^ *^^"^' gether. Greatness, as we have seen already, is of 
 very many kinds. It is a varying compound of 
 various and variously developed qualities ; and 
 its degree is measured by its efiiciency in pro- 
 ducing this or that result by which society is 
 benefited. But greatness, in the sense of excep- 
 tional power of so influencing others that some 
 given result shall be produced by them, has other 
 varieties besides those that have been already men- 
 tioned. Each domain of progress has not only its 
 own leaders, but it has leaders who desire to lead 
 men in very different directions. There are scientists
 
 THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN GREAT MEN 143 
 with conflictino; theories, inventors with rival inven- ^^o^* ^^ 
 
 . 1 . 1 ,. . T r 11 Chapter 2 
 
 tions, statesmen with rival policies. It follows 
 accordinsfly that though all these men may be pos- The influence 
 
 , - , . , p . , , , , of some great 
 
 sessed of talents indennitely above the average, they men is more 
 would not all of them, were their influence over other uia'^S^of"^ 
 men equal, affect society in an equally advantageous °'^^''^- 
 way. Some men, indeed, whose talents are ""decid- 
 edly exceptional would, on account of some flaw or 
 defect in their character, not promote, but, on the 
 contrary, retard true progress, in exact proportion 
 as they made their views prevail. Thus, though all 
 progress is due to great men, all great men would 
 not promote progress ; or they would, at all events, 
 not promote it equally. Progress, therefore, as Progress, then. 
 
 involves & 
 
 resulting from the actions of great men, depends on struggle 
 the degree to which certain of them make their own Jhrfitfesr^eat 
 views prevail, and secure the rejection of others '"^" ^^.^" 
 
 *■ ^ ^ ^ •' secure mflu- 
 
 which are directly or indirectly opposed to them, ence over 
 
 - , , , . . . . others, and 
 
 It depends, that is to say, on a keen competitive destroy the in- 
 struggle which is continually taking place within the less fit! °^ *^^ 
 limits of the exceptional minority. 
 
 And here we come to that further point Qi^^-^o^<^omQ 
 
 '■ , to another 
 
 difference, which still remains to be noticed, point of differ- 
 
 encc between 
 
 between the part played in social progress by the fittest great 
 the great man, and the part in it played by the fiti'st^survi'vor. 
 fittest according to the Darwinian theory. Two 
 points of difference between them have been noted 
 and explained already, one being that the fittest 
 man promotes progress only because he raises, by a 
 physiological process, the average capacities of his 
 successors, whereas the great man promotes prog-
 
 144 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II ress because he is himself more capable than his 
 
 Chapter 2 . 1 1 i • 1 1 r 
 
 contemporaries ; the other being that the fittest 
 
 fulfils his social function by fighting for his own hand, 
 
 without any reference to others, whereas the great 
 
 man fulfils his solely by influencing others. We are 
 
 now coming to a third point, which is, for practical 
 
 purposes, even more important than the preceding. 
 
 The great-man theory, just like the theory of 
 
 Darwin, involves a competitive struggle. This 
 
 struggle is a struggle between great men ; and its 
 
 existence is a fact of too obvious a character to 
 
 have escaped the notice of even the most inaccurate 
 
 of our social evolutionists. But they one and all 
 
 The social of them havc completely misunderstood its nature. 
 
 t^hTDanvlnian They havc hastcucd to identify it with the Dar- 
 
 sSS [rto winian struggle for existence, from which it differs 
 
 be found in \^ ^hc most vital manner conceivable ; and, obscur- 
 
 the struggle of , , . . , , 
 
 labourers to ing it thus by a loose and misleading analogy, they 
 ^n^^empoy- Yi2i\Q. managed to blind themselves to its entire 
 practical significance. The Darwinian struggle for 
 existence no doubt has its counterpart in the con- 
 temporary competition of labourers to find remunera- 
 tive employment, and in the fact that those who are 
 least successful in finding it would, if left to them- 
 selves, be continually dying off. In a progressive 
 country there is, or there always tends to be, a 
 larger number of would-be labourers than there is of 
 tasks which at the moment can be profitably assigned 
 to them. A struggle therefore is involved in obtain- 
 ing work of any kind ; and for the higher kinds of 
 work the struggle is very keen. But this is not the
 
 DEXTERITY NOT PROGRESSIVE 145 
 
 struggle to which modern progress is due. Prog- (P°°''" 
 ress, in the sense of the rapid and appreciable 
 movement which alone concerns us here, is — to 
 confine ourselves for a moment to the domain of 
 industry — not the result of a struggle to execute 
 work in the best way, but is the result of a struggle 
 to give the best orders for its execution. It pre- 
 supposes the existence of a certain amount of skill ; 
 but it does not, except in its very earliest stages, 
 depend on the struggle of so many thousand men, 
 each to become individually a more skilful worker 
 than his fellows. It is, on the contrary, when its 
 earliest stasres have been passed, so independent of ^"* '^'^ '^ "ot 
 
 ° , ..... ths struggle 
 
 any further increase of skill in the individual worker, to which his- 
 
 , . . ., 1 "1 i 1 '11 • torical progress 
 
 that it contmues its course whilst skill remains is due; 
 stationary. 
 
 This is shown by the fact that some of the greatest 
 advances ever made in material civilisation have 
 been made during the active lifetime, and with the 
 aid of the hands and muscles, of a single generation for the most 
 of workers, and has implied no improvement at all has taken place 
 either in their acquired faculties or their inherited. SlJ,'crra"sed"fit- 
 Let us take, for instance, the introduction of the j""oJ"els! 
 electric light, and the way in which it is superseding 
 gas. The mechanics first employed to make the 
 appliances for its production were none of them 
 asked to perform any task which required on their 
 part any new knowledge or dexterity. All they were 
 asked to do, and all they did, was to submit their 
 existing faculties to some new external guidance: 
 and the electric light, in so far as it has superseded
 
 146 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II gas, has superseded it not because it is the product 
 
 of more skilful labour, but because it is the product 
 
 The progres- of manual labour directed by a set of inventors and 
 
 sive struggle i ^ • • i 
 
 in industry is employcrs, who, SO far as regards certain social re- 
 tirdvTo the' quirements, direct it more successfully than another 
 employers; ^^^^ jj^^ strugglc which it rcprcseuts is a struggle 
 between employers only. It does not, except by 
 accident, represent any struggle between the em- 
 ployed. 
 
 And what is true of the struggle which produces 
 and in every industrial progrcss, is true of that which produces 
 progress it progrcss of all othcr kinds. Scientific knowledge 
 
 is confined to . . ,• .t i." i • j* 
 
 the leaders, incrcascs lu proportiou as those exceptional indi- 
 ciusionofthose viduals whosc studics have brought them most near 
 who are led. to tlic truth arc able to fight down the opinions of 
 the exceptional individuals who differ from them, 
 and to impress their own undisputed upon the world. 
 Such knowledge does not increase on account of 
 any struggle amongst the learners, which causes some 
 of them to become more and more apt in learning. 
 It grows on account of a struggle between philos- 
 ophers, each of whom aims at settling what the 
 learners shall learn. And with regard to religion 
 and politics the case is just the same. The pro- 
 gressive struggle is primarily between rival prophets 
 and politicians. The spread of Christianity, for 
 instance, was not brought about by Christian races 
 exterminating those that were not Christians. It 
 was brought about by Christian thinkers and teachers 
 discrediting the doctrines taught by thinkers and 
 teachers who were opposed to them. Free-trade,
 
 LIMITS OF THE PROGRESSIVE STRUGGLE 147 
 aojain, in this country has not triumphed over pro- Book 11 
 
 . . • 1 1 c r n , Chapter 2 
 
 tectionism, because the mass of free-traders have 
 exterminated the mass of protectionists. It has 
 triumphed simply because, in the eyes of the 
 majority, one school of theorists has succeeded in 
 discrediting another. 
 
 Now these facts, which, when once stated, are so i" t^e pro- 
 obvious, not only throw the Darwinian struggle for struggle 
 existence altogether into the background as an me'n.X m?ss 
 asrent in social proo;ress, but they show that it pre- °^ *^^ . 
 
 o ^ X o ' -' 1 community 
 
 sents US with no true analoo-y to that kind of strussrle p'^y no pan 
 
 . . whatever. 
 
 from which progress principally results. They 
 show us, on the contrary, that the struggle which 
 produces social progress, though it resembles the 
 Darwinian struggle in one point, is in all other points 
 contrasted with it. The struggle of one employer 
 against another to direct labour in the most ad- 
 vantageous way, or the struggle of one politician or 
 religious teacher against another to secure for his 
 own views the largest number of adherents, is so 
 far like the Darwinian struggle for existence, that it 
 is a struggle in which individual is pitted against 
 individual, and the gain of the successful is the loss 
 of the unsuccessful. But the limits within which 
 this struggle is confined are very narrow indeed ; 
 and the mass of the community takes no part in it 
 whatsoever. 
 
 In order to show this with the utmost clearness 
 possible, let us turn again to the domain of economic 
 progress, which generally supplies the sociologist 
 with his simplest and most luminous illustrations.
 
 148 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II The success of the strongest and ablest employers — 
 
 that is to say, the heads of the most successful 
 
 Let us take, busincsscs — may involve, and does involve, their 
 
 for instance, , . i i • i 
 
 two rival hotel- sclcction for survival as employers, and does involve 
 eepers. ^^^ extinction, as employers, though not necessarily 
 as men and parents, of their weaker and less able 
 rivals ; but it involves no struggle for existence with 
 the men employed by them — that is to say, with the 
 great masses of the community. Two men, we will 
 say, start rival hotels, and each begins with a staff 
 of a hundred persons. One of the two understands 
 
 One becomes ^jg busiucss far better than the other. His hotel is 
 
 bankrupt, and 
 
 the other takes always full, whilst his rival's is half empty. The 
 and'hi^staff! latter at last becomes bankrupt ; the former buys his 
 business, and together with his premises takes over 
 his staff. He employs two hundred persons, instead 
 of a hundred as at first ; the hotel of the bankrupt, 
 which the bankrupt ran at a loss, now yields the 
 same profit as the other ; and the aggregate takings 
 of the two are thus increased largely. Here we 
 have a community of two hundred and two persons 
 offering a marked example of great material progress ; 
 and this progress has been the result of a genuine 
 struggle for existence. But the struggle for exist- 
 ence has been between two persons only — that is to 
 say, between the two hotel-keepers. As koiel- 
 Thesoie keepcvs existcncc is the very thing they have been 
 between the Struggling for, and the survival of the one has meant 
 th^^empioyedL the disappearance of the other ; but between them 
 and the two hundred persons employed by them 
 there has been no struggle at all. The achievement
 
 THE RIVALRY OF EMPLOYERS 149 
 
 by the successful hotel-keeper of a fortune double ^°°^ " 
 
 ^ ^ , Chapter 2 
 
 that with which he started has not involved any 
 diminution in the wages of his staff. It will, on the The staff of 
 
 . . the unsuccess- 
 
 contrary, if we are to take the case now in question fuihotei-keeper 
 as typical of the survival of the fittest employers ly'bdng em-' 
 generally, have not only not diminished their wages, ju^gsshiV^'^ 
 but very largely increased them. For here there 
 is one further truth which naturally introduces 
 itself to our observation. Whatever allowance it 
 may be necessary to make for the lowest class or 
 residuum of our modern populations, it is the most 
 clearly proved and prominent fact in modern indus- 
 trial history — and one which even socialists are 
 now ceasing to deny — that along with the vast in- 
 crease in wealth which the ablest employers have, 
 by their struggle with rivals, secured for their own 
 enjoyment, there has been not a corresponding 
 diminution, but a corresponding increase in the 
 means of subsistence that have gone to the popu- 
 lation generally. The average income per head in 
 this country of that class — composed mainly of 
 wage-earners — which does not pay income tax has, 
 in terms of money, nearly trebled itself during the 
 present century; its purchasing power has increased 
 in a yet larger ratio, and its increase will be found 
 to have been most rapid and striking at periods 
 when the struggle amongst the employing class has 
 been keenest. 
 
 It will thus be seen that the strusfele which pro- Historical 
 
 progress, then, 
 
 duces economic progress — and progress of every results from a 
 kind is produced in the same way — is not a general ^"""^^^
 
 I50 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II struggle which pervades the community as a whole ; 
 
 neither is it a struggle between the majority and an 
 
 not for sub- exceptionally able minority, in which both classes 
 
 sistence, but ... . . , . 
 
 for domination, are strugglmg lor what only one can wm, and in 
 which the gain of the one involves the loss of the 
 other; but it is a struggle which is confined to 
 the members of the minority alone, and in which 
 the majority play no part as antagonists whatsoever. 
 It is not a struggle amongst the community gener- 
 ally to live, but a struggle amongst a small section 
 of the community to lead, to direct, to employ, the 
 majority in the best way; and this struggle is an 
 agent of progress because it tends to result, not in 
 the survival of the fittest man, but in the domina- 
 tion of the greatest man.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GREAT MAN APPLIES 
 HIS GREATNESS TO WEALTH-PRODUCTION 
 
 The whole secret of social progress, other than 
 the most rudimentary, is summed up in the formula 
 with which the preceding chapter has concluded. 
 Progress is the result of the domination or the 
 triumphant influence of the greatest. That is to aii gain by the 
 say, the civilisation of the entire community de- the fittest. 
 pends alike for its advance and for its mainten- wh'^o flifto^'''^ 
 ance on a strus^Qrle which is confined within the f^"!"^ p^*,^"" 
 
 "-''-'_ ioi themselves. 
 
 limits of an exceptional class ; and the ordinary 
 members of the community are connected with it 
 only by the fact that when the fittest competitor 
 achieves the domination for which he is struggling, 
 they, instead of being defeated by him, share the 
 advantage of his victory. When the scientific doctor 
 discredits the theories of the quack, when the com- 
 petent organiser of industry causes the ruin of the 
 incompetent, when a good ministry drives a bad 
 from office, when a great general supersedes one 
 who is inferior, or when a true religious teacher 
 destroys the influence of a false, the whole commu- 
 nity gains, except the men who have personally lost 
 
 151
 
 152 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 3 
 
 We must con- 
 sider, however, 
 that the great 
 men who 
 struggle for 
 domination 
 would not do 
 so without 
 some strong 
 motive ; 
 
 authority, and who share the merited fate of their 
 own errors or deficiencies. 
 
 The progress and the maintenance, then, of 
 civihsation in any community depends on its possess- 
 ing a number of great men, of which number the 
 greatest shall, by competition with the others, 
 succeed in gaining a control over the beliefs and 
 actions of the majority. 
 
 Here, however, we are introduced to two new 
 sets of facts, which have not thus far come under 
 our consideration at all. 
 
 In the first place, great men do not come into 
 the world ready-made. Their greatness is potential 
 only, or in other words it is practically non-existent, 
 until it has been developed ; and the process of 
 developing it is in most cases extremely arduous. 
 The philosopher, the soldier, the inventor, the states- 
 man, the great merchant or manufacturer, achieve 
 success only by prolonged and intense effort, by 
 study, by concentrated thought, by action, by 
 rude experience. Genius, indeed, has been defined 
 as an infinite capacity for taking trouble ; and the 
 definition, though very incomplete, is, so far as it 
 goes, true. No one, however, takes trouble with- 
 out a motive ; and a motive being some object of 
 desire, such as money, rank, or pleasure, which a 
 man hopes to attain by a certain line of action, it 
 follows that if a community is to possess great men 
 as actual agents of progress, and not merely as wasted 
 potentialities, its social constitution must be such as 
 to offer and make attainable positions, possessions.
 
 MEANS OF THE GREAT MAN'S INFLUENCE 153 
 
 pleasures, or other advantages which its potentially ^0°'' '^^ 
 great men will feel to be worth working for. 
 
 In the second place, since the great man, as we •'»nd also that 
 
 - . - ,..,.. they cannot 
 
 have seen, is an agent 01 progress and civilisation dominate 
 only because he influences others — because he guides by TomTpl?- 
 their speculative beliefs, and in certain respects *''^"'^'' '"^^"s- 
 commands their actions — the society or community 
 to which the great man belongs must be such as not 
 only to supply him with a motive for exercising this 
 influence, but also to enable him to secure for him- 
 self the means by which it may be exercised ; and, 
 furthermore, the means in question must be of a 
 kind which will enable the rival great men to bring 
 their respective capacities to a decisive practical 
 test, so that the influence of the most efflcient may 
 establish itself, and that of the less efficient cease. 
 
 Now the whole question of motive we will deal Now the ques- 
 
 •11 r 1 • tion o^ motive 
 
 with later on. We will for the present put it we win treat 
 altogether aside. We will assume a natural impulse It present^we 
 on the part of all great men to develop their powers ourseuS'to 
 to the utmost, and employ them in influencins^ the question of 
 
 •' ^ means. 
 
 others, wholly independent of any other reward 
 than such a minimum of sustenance and comfort as is 
 physically essential to their efficiency ; and we will 
 confine our attention altogether to the question of 
 the means by which the influence of the great men 
 over the majority is obtained. 
 
 Human progress, however, being a complex thing, These vary in 
 and taking place in different domains of activity, of social 
 the means by which the great man influences others ^^'""^y- 
 will vary with the nature of the results which his
 
 cussion. 
 
 154 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II influence aims at elicitinor. The social activities on 
 
 Chapters . 111 
 
 which progress depends, though they may be sub- 
 divided indefinitely, are reducible to five kinds — 
 intellectual, religious, military, economic, and politi- 
 cal ; and with regard to the two first, the influence 
 of the great man exerts itself to determine what 
 others shall believe and think; with regard to 
 the three last, it exerts itself to determine what 
 others shall do. 
 In some they Now out of thcse fivc domains of activity the 
 
 are too obvious ii-ii ^^ • 
 
 toneeddis- thrcc first — namely, the intellectual, the religious, 
 and the militaiy — are such that the means by 
 which the great man makes his influence felt in 
 them hardly require discussion. In the first place, 
 they are obvious — there is no dispute about what 
 they are ; and, in the second place, the fact of their 
 being what they are has no bearing, except such as 
 is very remote, on any disputed question concerning 
 the practical organisation of society. In the in- 
 tellectual world thinkers, scholars, and men of science 
 gain their influence by discussions, for the most part 
 embodied in books, which discussions are carried 
 on before a jury of expert critics, each man defend- 
 ing his own views against the views of those who 
 differ from him ; and the jury of experts ultimately 
 gives its verdict, to which sooner or later the com- 
 munity at large submits. The religious leader gains 
 his influence similarly. He gains it by arguments 
 and persuasions, which are felt by a band of followers 
 to touch the spirit more deeply than those of other 
 prophets. He gives to his disciples, and his
 
 FIVE DOMAINS OF ACTIVITY 
 
 IS5 
 
 disciples give to the multitude. But these means Bookii 
 
 . . . Chapter 3 
 
 are of so universal a kind, and have so little con- 
 nection with any specific social arrangements, that 
 none of the disputed points of social politics are 
 involved in them ; and we consequently have at 
 present no occasion to discuss them. So, too, with 
 regard to the military leader, though the means which 
 are employed by him do, beyond a doubt, imply 
 social arrangements of a very specific kind — namely, 
 an iron system of discipline, with death and the lash 
 to sanction it ; yet these arrangements, however they 
 may be denounced by sentimentalists, have always 
 been found essential to the efficiency of every army; 
 and though many worthy people would abolish 
 military activity altogether, and whilst socialists 
 especially express themselves anxious to do so, it 
 is perfectly evident — nor would any socialist deny 
 it — that a socialist State, if it had to fight for its 
 existence, would be obliged to enforce the required 
 military discipline by methods essentially identical 
 with those of Caesar or WeUington. It may, indeed, 
 be disputed whether the great military leader is 
 not a superfluous figure on the social stage; but 
 so long as his greatness makes itself felt at all, 
 it will continue to make itself felt by the same 
 means. 
 
 The only domains of social activity, therefore, in we need con- 
 which the means employed by the great man to are^o^yln ^^ 
 control the actions of others so that ordinary men o^f^pScs and 
 may be guided by the faculties of the exceptional — d^cirn^^"^ 
 the only domains of activity in which these means,
 
 156 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 3 
 
 The question 
 is most im- 
 portant in its 
 bearings on 
 wealth-pro- 
 duction. 
 
 thus employed, really require minute and careful 
 discussion, and have really a direct bearing on the 
 practical problems of the day — are the domain of 
 economic production and the domain of political 
 government. These, indeed, may be said to contain 
 between them the whole of the questions with regard 
 to which parties are divided — with regard to which 
 those who believe that the conditions of civilisation 
 may be indefinitely improved but can never be funda- 
 mentally altered, are divided from those who believe 
 them to be capable of indefinite metamorphosis. 
 
 This is specially true of the domain of economic 
 production ; for it is mainly on account of its con- 
 nection with the production and distribution of 
 wealth that political government excites so much 
 popular interest and forms the subject of so much 
 vehement controversy. And in every other domain 
 of human activity equally, we shall find that the 
 interests, the endeavours, and the disputes of men 
 have an economic process as their basis, or economic 
 progress as their object. The processes of pro- 
 duction and commerce are, in fact, the central 
 processes of every nation's life. Government exists 
 to foster them, and changes its form as these pro- 
 cesses develop, whilst fleets and armies exist mainly 
 for their protection, and more and more depend 
 on the progress that takes place in them. It is, in 
 short, in the domain of economics that all the social 
 problems of the day either begin or end ; and con- 
 sequently in examining the means by which the 
 great man influences others, the question which it is
 
 SLAVERY AND THE WAGE-SYSTEM 157 
 really our first concern to examine relates to the means ^^^'^ " 
 
 '' , . Chapter 3 
 
 by which great men, whose greatness consists in the 
 fact that they are exceptional in their powers of caus- 
 ing the production of wealth, and on whom conse- 
 quently the wealth of the whole community depends, 
 obtain a control over other men's productive actions. 
 
 This control can be secured in two ways only, The great man 
 
 . ... , . in wealth-pro- 
 
 or else m some way that is a combmation or modi- duction can 
 fication of both. One of these ways is slavery ; the L"ction"ofVthers 
 other is the capitalistic wage-system. Let us con- oJiy!!.b/the 
 sider how the two resemble each other, and also how siave-system 
 
 and the wage- 
 
 they differ. system. 
 
 They resemble each other because both, in so far 
 as they subserve progress, subserve it for precisely 
 the same reason. They are both contrivances by 
 which the superior few may secure, so far as industry 
 is concerned, the implicit obedience of the many. 
 On the private lives of the many their effects will be 
 widelv different ; but so far as concerns their direct The slave- 
 
 ^ , , . . . system secures 
 
 connection with industry — their operation on men obedience by 
 
 , . , , r ^ 1 ' 1 coercion, the 
 
 during the actual processes of production — slavery wage-system 
 and the capitalistic wage-system differ only in this: ^y inducement, 
 that the one secures the required industrial obedi- 
 ence by operating on men's fears ; the other secures 
 it by operating on their desires and wills. Thus the 
 slaves who built the pyramids had each some speci- 
 fied task — the making of so many bricks, the cutting 
 of such and such stones, or the fixing of bricks and 
 stones in such and such situations — which had to be 
 performed if the pyramids were to be built at all. 
 So, too, if the Hotel Metropole at Brighton was to
 
 158 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II be built at all, the bricklayers, masons, and other 
 
 Chapters . . •' 
 
 workmen who built it had to perform tasks of a 
 precisely similar kind. But obedience to orders on 
 the part of the Egyptian slave was secured by the 
 knowledge on his part that disobedience would be 
 punished by some form of chastisement, and very 
 likely of torture, whilst obedience on the part of the 
 Brighton workman was secured by the knowledge 
 on his part that, unless he chose to yield it, one way, 
 at all events, of earning a livelihood would be closed 
 to him. 
 
 It is this latter method of securing industrial 
 obedience that is made possible by the capitalistic 
 wage-system ; and it is primarily for this reason that 
 what is called capitalism is an agent of progress, and 
 has developed itself in progressive communities. As 
 for capital itself, this, as we all know, performs part 
 of its functions by assuming the form of machinery, 
 buildings, bridges, railways, and a variety of struct- 
 ures and appliances which are grouped together 
 under the general head of fixed capital by econo- 
 mists. But these structures and appliances are 
 Wage-capital, thcmsclves the result of the previous influence of 
 
 not fixed ,.,.,. f . . 
 
 capital, gives great men on the mdustnal actions of the many ; and 
 
 power'^^clpi- ^s it was by means of wage-capital that this influence 
 
 proiTessye ^^^ securcd, the primary and most essential functions 
 
 agent. which Capital fulfils, and which really form the 
 
 essence of the capitalistic system, are to be found by 
 
 considering capital as employed in the payment of 
 
 wages. 
 
 Now capital as thus employed consists of an
 
 CAPITAL AS ACCUMULATED FOOD 159 
 
 accumulation of the necessaries and comforts of life, ^^"^^ " 
 
 11 • 1 r 1 • 1 11 Chapter 3 
 
 by the consumption and use of which men are able to 
 sustain themselves when engaged on works requir- wage-capitai 
 ing a long period for their completion, which will lation of neces- 
 when completed be useful and produce much, but ^^""°^^'^^" 
 which, until they are completed, will be of no use 
 at all, and will consequently supply nothing to 
 the workers when actually engaged on them. The 
 simplest example of work of this kind is agriculture. 
 The first man who saved sufficient food to support 
 himself, whilst tilling the soil and waiting for his 
 crops to ripen, was the first capitalist. But capital, 
 when it takes the form of accumulated necessaries 
 and comforts, though it now reaches the workers in 
 the form of wages usually, need not do so of neces- 
 sity. It need not do so when the work is extremely 
 simple and the methods employed are rude. Where- 
 ever agriculture, for example, is in its earliest stages, 
 every husbandman may be his own capitalist, and 
 start with an accumulation of food in his own cottage 
 which will keep him alive till his crops are ready for 
 sale or for consumption. In cases such as these we 
 have capital which, so far as its substance is con- 
 cerned, is identical with wage-capital, but is not 
 wage-capital nevertheless. In order to turn it into owned or con- 
 
 ... , , , . trolled by a 
 
 wage-capital it is necessary that these accumulations few persons, 
 of food shall pass out of the control of the workers 
 — such as the husbandmen just referred to — and be 
 brought under the control of some other person or 
 persons, who will dole them out to the workers on 
 certain conditions only. The wage-system, in short,
 
 i6o ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II does not represent capital as such. It represents 
 capital, in the form of the immediate means of sub- 
 sistence, as owned or controlled by a small number 
 of persons ; and its efficiency as a productive agent 
 resides in the bargain which it enables any great 
 andappor- man posscssing it to make with ordinary workers — 
 amongs/ "^^ z. bargain, not that they shall work such and such a 
 ^eSTon- number of hours (for that they would have to do 
 ditions. were each man his own employer), but that they 
 
 shall do their work in accordance with the great 
 man's directions. 
 
 Now this fact that the wage-system represents 
 the control of capital by the few — and this is its 
 essential characteristic — is the fact on which, more 
 than on any other, the socialistic opponents of the 
 modern wage-system insist. They are never weary 
 of insisting that it has its foundation in a monopoly. 
 But though they perceive the fact, they entirely 
 Karl Marx miss its significance. Karl Marx conceives of the 
 
 entirely mis- • t i i r i r i 
 
 understood Capitalists as a body oi men who, so lar as produc- 
 Tonditio^s are. ^iou is conccmed, are absolutely inert and passive. 
 Owing to a variety of causes, he says, during the 
 past four hundred years all the means of pro- 
 duction have come under their control, and access 
 can be had to them only, as it were, through 
 gates, of which these tyrants hold the key. Out- 
 side are the manual labourers, who are the sole 
 producers of wealth, but who, without the means 
 of production, naturally can produce nothing — 
 not even enough to live on; and the sole economic 
 function which the capitalist fulfils is to let the
 
 ESSENTIAL FUNCTION OF WAGE-CAPITAL i6i 
 
 labourers in every day through the gates, on the ^'^^^ " 
 condition that every evening the unhappy men 
 render up to him the whole produce of their 
 labours, except that insignificant fraction of it 
 which is just necessary to fit them for the labours 
 of the day following. Now it is no doubt theoreti- 
 cally possible that a society might exist, composed 
 of a mass of undifferentiated and undirected 
 manual labourers on the one hand, and on the 
 other of a few passive monopolists who extracted 
 from them most of what they produced, as the 
 price of allowing them the opportunity of produc- 
 ing anything; but it is perfectly certain that a 
 society of this kind would exhibit none of the in- 
 creasing productive power which, as even Marx 
 and his school admit, is one of the most distinctive 
 features of industry under the capitalistic wage- 
 system. Under that system productive power has 
 increased, not because capital has enabled a few 
 men to remain idle, but because it has enabled a 
 few men to apply, with the most constant and in- The essence of 
 
 these con- 
 
 tense effort, their intellectual faculties to industry in ditions is that 
 its minutest details. It has increased not because be^^hnIcally 
 the monopoly of capital has enabled the few to say fj^"*^'^ ^^ *^* 
 to the many, " We will allow you to work at noth- 
 ing, unless you give us most of what you produce," 
 but because it has enabled them to say to the many, 
 " We will allow you to work at nothing, unless you 
 will consent to work in the ways that we indicate 
 to you." 
 
 The few, so far as our present argument is
 
 X62 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II concerned, may appropriate much of the gross 
 product or Uttle ; or they may leave the whole of 
 
 What 
 
 the few 
 appropriate of 
 the product is 
 a separate 
 question 
 altogether. 
 
 it to be divided amongst their employees. 
 The question ^j^gy actually havc done, or do, or may do, in this 
 
 of how much •' . •' . i i -ii i 
 
 respect, is another question altogether, and will be 
 discussed hereafter separately. The essence of the 
 wage-system, in so far as it has influenced the act- 
 ual processes of production, is in the power it 
 gives to the few to direct the producers, not in the 
 power it gives them to appropriate the products. 
 It will indeed require very little reflection to show 
 us that if the great men in the industrial world 
 would only develop and use their faculties, without 
 any motive of ambition or self-interest to stimulate 
 them, — as indeed at the present moment we are 
 assuming that they do — they could use the wage- 
 system for the purpose of directing industry merely 
 by monopolising the control of capital without 
 monopolising, and even without sharing in, its 
 possession. 
 lYi^ corvee This truth will become plainer still when we 
 
 system or . . , . . mi 
 
 slavery would reflcct that if Only certain conditions prevailed 
 MpitliTuptr- which in many civilised countries survived till quite 
 SruTthey"show rcceutly, the whole process of production as we now 
 us what the have it mis^ht be carried on without any wage- 
 
 essential ^ ^ , , jo 
 
 function of Capital at all. These conditions are those of the 
 
 such capital is. ^ , i i • i - i i^i i 
 
 corvee system, under which peasants and others who 
 owned the lands upon which they lived, and main- 
 tained themselves on those lands in a certain posi- 
 tion of independence, were compelled to place their 
 labour, for so many days a week, at the absolute
 
 WAGE-CAPITAL A MEANS OF GUIDANCE 163 
 disposal of this or that superior. Such a system, if Book 11 
 
 ... . , '' Chapters 
 
 apphed to modern mdustry, would have, no doubt, 
 many incidental disadvantages ; but if only a number 
 of independent peasant-proprietors could be forced 
 to give half their time to the proprietor of a 
 neighbouring factory, and during that time to work 
 in it under his orders, the entire use and necessity of 
 wage-capital would in theory, at all events, be gone. 
 The same thing is also true of slavery, between 
 which and the wage-system the corvee system stands 
 midway. Like the peasant-proprietor, who is 
 forced to give part of his labour to his over-lord, 
 the slave is supplied with the necessaries of life 
 independently of his obedience to the detailed 
 orders of his task-master. The peasant maintains 
 himself by tilling his own fields ; the slave-owner 
 feeds his slave just as he would feed an animal. In 
 neither case is the giving or the withholding of a 
 livelihood used as the motive or sanction by which 
 industrial obedience is ensured. Obedience is 
 ensured by the direct application of force, or the 
 knowledge on the slave's part or the peasant's that 
 force will be applied if necessary. 
 
 It will, no doubt, be urged by some that whatever so-caiied |' co- 
 assistance is afforded by the talents of the few to the merely the 
 industrial efforts of the many, may be secured by dSluTsed!"* 
 a third means, which is neither slavery nor yet the 
 wage-system — that is to say, by what is called the 
 system of " co-operation." Co-operative production, 
 however, when it differs in anything except in name 
 from production as carried on under the ordinary
 
 i64 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II wage-system, differs from it only in being the wage- 
 system under a thin disguise. For the ideal co- 
 operative factory is simply a factory in which all 
 the shareholders are workers, and all the workers 
 are shareholders, and in which, being shareholders, 
 they elect their manager. Under such conditions, 
 each of these working shareholders may receive his 
 remuneration under the form, not of wages, but of 
 profits. But if any shareholder, or any group of 
 shareholders, should systematically shirk working, 
 or disobey the manager's orders, the whole or a 
 part of the payment that would be otherwise due to 
 him would be withheld ; for unless some regulation 
 of this kind were in force, it would be impossible to 
 ensure any co-operation amongst the co-operators, 
 or any order, or any equality of diligence. Each 
 worker's profits, then, are in reality his wages, being 
 essentially a payment which is made to him only 
 on condition that he performs certain specified tasks 
 in a certain specified way. 
 There are. We are thus brous^ht back to the point from which 
 
 then, only two 111 1 i 1 
 
 alternatives— wc startcd — uamcly, that there are two methods only 
 systrm^and the by which, in the domain of industry, the superior 
 slave-system; faculties of the fcw cau dircct the faculties of the 
 many: firstly, the capitalistic wage-system, which 
 is the method of inducement; secondly, slavery, 
 complete or partial, which is the method of coercion. 
 And of the truth of this assertion the reader shall 
 now be presented with a highly interesting and 
 curiously conclusive proof, taken from the very last 
 quarter in which he would naturally expect to find
 
 SOCIALISM ESSENTIALLY A SLAVE-SYSTEM 165 
 it. This proof is afforded us by the schemes which, ^ook 11 
 
 . . \ f. Chapter 3 
 
 with ever-increasing clearness, have of recent years 
 been put forward by all the more thoughtful 
 socialists. 
 
 These enthusiasts, who are still careful to tell ^^ ^^ =^^i' 
 
 find by con- 
 US that they regard the wage-system as the source sidenng how 
 
 . ,, • 1 M 1 1 11 • i the socialists 
 
 of all social evils, have been slowly coming to can oniy 
 perceive that the ability with which the labour is wag?-!y?tem 
 directed is as important a factor in production as the ^7 substituting 
 
 ... . slavery. 
 
 labour itself, which is directed by it. They propose 
 accordingly to regenerate the human race by 
 transferring the ownership of capital from private 
 employers, not to groups of factory-hands, as the 
 *' co-operators " propose, but to the State ; and by 
 substituting for the private employers a hierarchy 
 of State officials. Now these officials, so far as the 
 wage-system is concerned, if they differed at all from 
 private employers of to-day, would and could differ 
 from them in the following way only. The present 
 dispensers of wages assign the means of sub- 
 sistence to each worker in proportion to the 
 exactness, intelligence, and efficiency with which he 
 obeys orders. The dispensers of wages under 
 socialism would dispense these means daily to every 
 worker alike, with no immediate reference to his in- 
 dustrial actions whatsoever; and the direction of 
 his actions would be a second and wholly distinct 
 process. 
 
 That such is the case is shown, and indeed 
 distinctly admitted, in a preface to the American 
 edition of Fabian Essays. It is there stated that
 
 i66 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II -vvith regard to the apportionment of the means of 
 
 Chapter 3 
 
 subsistence, the only " truly socialistic " scheme is 
 one which would " absolutely abolish " all economic 
 distinctions, " and the possibility of their again 
 arising, by making an equal provision for the 
 maintenance of all an incident and an indefeasible 
 condition of citizenship, without any regard whatever 
 to the relative specific services of differe^it citizeiis. 
 For they would Xhc Ycnderi^ig of such services ^ on the other hand, 
 
 secure in- . 1 r 1 ' r r j • r 1 • • •/ 
 
 dustriai instead of being left to the option of the citizen, with 
 
 coercionT ^ the alternative of Starvation, would be required under 
 07te uniform law or civic duty, precisely like other 
 form,s of taxation or military serviced 
 
 Such, then, is the most advanced socialistic pro- 
 gramme — the programme of the men who have set 
 themselves to devise an escape from capitalism. 
 An escape from capitalism it may be ; but it is an 
 escape into complete slavery. For the very essence 
 of the position of the slave, as contrasted with 
 not through the wagc-labourer, so far as the direction of his 
 
 the worker's . . 1 • 1 1 i 
 
 own desire to productivc actious are concerned, is that he has 
 And thfs ilTe not to work as he is bidden in order to gain 
 essence of j^jg livelihood, but that, his livelihood beino^ assured 
 
 slavery. ' ' o 
 
 to him, he has to work as he is bidden in order that 
 he may avoid the lash, or some other form of 
 punishment; and amongst all the more thoughtful 
 socialists there is now a consensus of admission that 
 the socialistic State would necessarily have in reserve 
 the severest pains and penalties for the idle and the 
 careless and the disobedient. 
 
 Since, then — let us once more repeat it — the
 
 CAPITALISM AND PROGRESSIVE STRUGGLE 167 
 progress and maintenance of economic civilisation ^^Q^^ ^' 
 
 ^ . . . • Chapter 3 
 
 depend, as even socialists are now beginning to 
 perceive, on the industrial actions of average men 
 being subjected to the control of exceptional men, 
 and since this control can be secured by two methods 
 only — that of the wage-payer and that of the slave- 
 owner — it is evident that all progress and civilisa- 
 tion implies the existence of either one system or 
 the other, and that socialists accordingly, in propor- 
 tion as they reject the wage-system, are obliged to 
 replace it by what is essentially the system of 
 slavery. 
 
 We have thus far, however, dealt with but one 
 half of our subject. We have considered merely the Next let us 
 
 ^ ■' . . consider the 
 
 means by which any one great man exercises indus- means by 
 trial control over the actions of a number of ordinary great directors 
 men. We have still to consider the means by which °o^p",J''^ 
 the most efficient of the great men get this control against one 
 
 " ^ "-* another. 
 
 into their own hands, and take it out of the hands 
 of the less efficient. 
 
 Under the regime oi private capitalism this process under capital- 
 
 (^ . ft ism they do 
 
 is simple. The fitness or efficiency of each great so. owing to 
 man is according to the acceptability to the public Jheman^ho 
 of the goods or services which he offers them. If ^^""°' '^'"^''^ 
 
 o mdustry so as 
 
 the public are not pleased with these goods and ser- topieasethe 
 
 1111 • P"t)lic, loses 
 
 Vices, they do not buy or demand them ; and the capi- his capital, and 
 tal of the man by whom they are offered, not being JJ!,eJsof^ 
 renewed by any money received, melts in his hands, direction, 
 and with it his control over other men's labour. 
 Meanwhile, by a converse process, the great men 
 who offer goods and services which the public desire
 
 x68 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 
 Chapter 3 
 
 The wage- 
 system is the 
 only efficient 
 means of com- 
 petition of this 
 kind. 
 
 The socialists, 
 though they 
 affect to be 
 opposed to 
 competition 
 altogether, 
 
 and find serviceable, renew and increase by their 
 payments the capital which has been disbursed by 
 him, and renew and increase his control over other 
 men's labour along with it. 
 
 Now if the wage-system is the sole alternative to 
 slavery as a means by which the great man controls 
 the actions of the ordinary man, it is still more 
 obviously the sole alternative to slavery as a means 
 by which one great man, in controlling them, shall 
 compete against another great man. Indeed, we 
 may speak still more strongly. We may say not 
 only that it is the sole alternative means, but that 
 it is the sole efficient means. And if we desire a 
 proof of this, all we have to do is to repeat our 
 former procedure, and consider how the socialists 
 propose to supply its place. 
 
 It is, no doubt, true that when we first begin this 
 consideration it does not appear that we should 
 derive from it much direct enlightenment ; because, 
 if we may go by what the socialists themselves tell 
 us, one of their principal objects is to abolish com- 
 petition altogether. Their protestations, however, 
 with regard to this matter betray a most curious 
 and most amusing confusion of thought. They 
 declare that competition must be abolished because 
 it inflicts misery on the majority — that is to say, 
 on the weakest in what they call the "■ ctit-throat 
 struggle!' But, as was shown at great length in 
 the last chapter, competition means two, and two 
 absolutely distinct things — one being a struggle 
 to live, the other a struggle to dominate; and
 
 SOCIALISTS ON COMPETITION 169 
 
 the effects of the two on the majority are altogether ^°°^ " 
 different. To this fundamental truth the social- 
 ists are completely blind. The struggle to live, 
 or, in other words, the struggle to secure em- 
 ployment, no doubt, when it is severe, does entail 
 suffering on the strugglers. But this struggle, 
 though it often accompanies progress, under the 
 capitalistic system is not essential to it — as is 
 shown by the fact that when such progress is 
 most rapid the struggle in question tends to dis- 
 appear altogether; for the competition is then 
 amongst the employers to find labour, rather than 
 amongst the labourers to find employment. Now 
 if the struggle for employment could be obviated 
 by any kind of social reform, an indubitable benefit 
 would, no doubt, be conferred on the workers 
 generally. But just as this struggle for work or 
 for existence — this struggle of one worker against 
 another — is not essential to the capitalistic wage- 
 system, and certainly did not originate with it, and 
 just as that system would not necessarily be 
 abolished by its overthrow, so it is not the kind of 
 competition against which the socialists direct their 
 main attacks. Their main attacks are directed 
 against the struggle between the wage-payers, not 
 the wage-earners — that is to say, against the strug- 
 gle not for existence, but for domination ; and the 
 struggle for domination has on the workers generally 
 no evil effects at all, except such as are occasional 
 and accidental. On the contrary, the workers are as 
 much interested in its maintenance as anybody ; for
 
 I70 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II not only does it inflict no injury on themselves, but 
 
 Chapters ^ '•'.... 
 
 to it that progress in the processes of production is 
 due on which their own hopes depend, as much 
 as do those of their employers. Accordingly, the 
 socialists, profound thinkers as they are, propose to 
 abolish the competition by which the workers bene- 
 fit, because they confuse it with competition by 
 which the workers suffer. The point, however, 
 which concerns us here is not that they have made 
 a blunder as to the kind of competition which they 
 re-introduce it shouM attack, but that the kind of competition 
 system. which they declare themselves pledged to abolish, 
 
 as a thing accursed, and the root of all social evils, 
 they really reintroduce into their own programme, 
 altered only by being associated with the system of 
 slavery, and by being robbed of its practical effi- 
 ciency, and robbed of nothing else, 
 the only por our coutemporary socialists, who have at last 
 
 change being .J •' ... r i i i 
 
 that it is come to perceive that the productivity or labour de- 
 
 thrsTave- ^' pcnds ou the ability with which it is directed, perceive 
 
 L^ve™'*^"^'^ also the fact that, out of many possible directors, some 
 
 cumbrous and would dircct it far more efficiently than others. They 
 
 also perceive the fact that the directors of labour, 
 
 who, according to their proposals, would be officials 
 
 of the bureaucratic State, could prove their efficiency 
 
 only by practical experiment. Now if all capital 
 
 were, as socialists propose it should be, owned by 
 
 the State, and if all the means of subsistence were 
 
 apportioned amongst the citizens equally, without 
 
 reference to the work performed by them ; and if all 
 
 the directors of labour, whether inventors or business
 
 COMPETITION INVOLVED IN SOCIALISM 171 
 ororanisers, had to act as State officials, or else not ^°'''^ " 
 
 ^ ' . . Chapters 
 
 act at all, the practical experiments necessary to 
 show which officials were the fittest could be 
 brought about only by the State investing such 
 and such of them with a quasi-military power over 
 so many regiments of labourers for such and such a 
 time, which power would be renewed if they could 
 persuade the State to reappoint them, or taken 
 from them if the State should be persuaded that 
 some other men, their rivals, would employ this 
 power more usefully. And this is precisely what 
 the proposals of the socialists come to. The whole 
 multitude of State officials who would direct 
 socialistic industry would, according to every 
 socialistic programme, be appointed, promoted, or 
 degraded to the ranks of ordinary workers in 
 accordance with the efficiency shown by them 
 in the practical command of labour. Some 
 socialists propose that these officials should owe 
 their appointment to a central governing body ; 
 others propose that they should owe them to 
 popular election ; but, in either case, appointment, 
 promotion, or degradation would necessarily and 
 avowedly, if it did not depend on favouritism, 
 depend on the practical results which the different 
 men in question elicited from labour by their 
 different methods of directing it. In other words, 
 the whole system of socialistic production would 
 involve and depend on competition ; and the only 
 essential difference between this bureaucratic com- 
 petition under socialism and the competition of
 
 172 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II capitalists which socialists so furiously denounce, 
 
 Chapters , *■ . . . •' 
 
 is that whilst the capitalists obtain control over 
 labour by means of wages, which control, by a 
 natural and automatic process, is gradually extin- 
 guished unless it is used efficiently, the competitors 
 for office under socialism would obtain the same 
 control by compulsory powers with which the State 
 would invest them, and which they would lose or 
 retain at the pleasure of some more or less arbitrary 
 authority. 
 Competition Competition, then, between the directors of 
 
 between ^ ... ir-ii 
 
 employers. labour — or, as it is here defined, the struggle for 
 ofTv'eVsociai ludustrial domination — is as much a part of the 
 permUs*or thcorctical regime of socialism as it is a part of 
 progress, \\^q actual regime of capitalism. The only differences 
 between the two consist, firstly, in the means by 
 which labour is directed, coercion being employed 
 in one case, and in the other the inducement of 
 wages ; and, secondly, in the means by which the 
 fittest director is placed in power, and the less fit 
 deprived of it — an official body deciding the mat- 
 ter in the one case, and the mass of the consuming 
 public deciding it in the other for themselves, 
 but since the Now wc may safcly say that the regime of 
 
 re-introduction , , . , . 
 
 of slavery is industrial coercion, or slavery, even though it 
 
 Fmp'osstbJ'e, we sliould bear the name of socialism, is not in these 
 
 t'hewlge-"^ days possible. It is impossible for two reasons — 
 
 system Q^e, that it is out of harmony with the sentiments 
 
 of the modern world; and the other — equally 
 
 strong, though not so generally avowed — that it is 
 
 an exceedingly clumsy and wasteful instrument of
 
 PERMANENT NATURE OF WAGE-SYSTEM 173 
 
 competition. We may, accordingly, dismiss it from ^^^^ " 
 
 our consideration; and such being the case, there 
 
 remains for us the absolute certainty that if society is as a permanent 
 
 ., '11 •/■•• feature of 
 
 to make any further mdustrial advance, or 11 it is to progressive 
 save itself from a relapse into industrial helplessness, ^°"^ '"' 
 the capitalistic wage-system, and with it capitalistic 
 competition, or, in other words, the competitive 
 struesfle for domination, must both of them be con- 
 tinued under some form or other ; nor, although they 
 may be modified in an indefinite number of their de- 
 tails, is there any apparent possibility of ever modi- 
 fying them in any of their essentials. Indeed, the 
 great moral to be drawn from the facts that have been 
 here elucidated is that if any one institution in the 
 modern world threatens to be permanent, that institu- 
 tion is the capitalistic wage-system ; and all proposed 
 alterations in it we may set down as impossible in 
 precise proportion as the socialists attach value to 
 them. The foolish dreamers who imagine that they 
 can overthrow it, consider only its outer aspect, and 
 not the forces of which it is the expression. It is we might 
 
 ^ . reduce society 
 
 perfectly true that this system might at any given to ashes, but 
 
 , . . ,1 11 this system 
 
 time, and in any given country, be paralysed or and capitalistic 
 reduced to ashes ; but the forces that would over- 3^^^°" 
 throw it would be essentially non-productive. The ^e^'" °"^ of 
 men who destroyed it would find themselves power- 
 less without it, and would be obliged to submit to, 
 and assist in, its reconstruction. For the outer form 
 of capitalism is not what capitalism is, any more 
 than a painter's brush is the power that paints 
 great pictures. Capitalism, in its essence, is merely
 
 174 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II ti^g realised process of the more efficient members 
 
 Chapter 3 *■ 
 
 of the human race controlling and guiding the less 
 
 efficient; capitalistic competition is the means by 
 
 for capitalistic which, out of thcsc morc efficient members, society 
 
 competition . ir 1 1 1 • 1 1 • 
 
 means the itsclf sclccts thosc who scrvc it bcst ; and no society 
 
 domination of i'i'<i. • ••i'i i* j_ 
 
 the fittest great which intcnds to remain civilised, and is not pre- 
 
 men. 
 
 pared to return to the direct coercion of slavery, 
 can escape from competition and the wage-system, 
 under some form or other, any more than it can 
 stand in its own shadow. 
 
 With regard, then, to economic production, which, 
 of all social activities, is for the practical sociologist 
 incomparably the most important, what we have 
 thus far seen is as follows. We have seen, not that 
 it is impossible — for this question has been expressly 
 postponed — that men may be made far more equal 
 than they are now in respect of the possession of 
 wealth ; but that whatever degree of equality they 
 may some day attain to in its possession, they can 
 never be otherwise than unequal in the parts played 
 The industrial by them in its production ; that their inequality in 
 
 obedience of"^. , ii-i 11 
 
 the many to productivc powcr IS oi such a Kind as to render the 
 fundamentaf industrial obedicncc of the larger number of them to 
 ^ro'^"T°^ the minority the primary and permanent condition 
 on which economic progress is possible ; that what 
 feather-brained fanatics call " economic freedom " 
 would be merely another name for economic help- 
 lessness ; and that all the democratic formulas which 
 for the past hundred years have represented the 
 employed as the producers of wealth, and the capi- 
 talistic employers as the appropriators of it, are,
 
 THE FEW ARE THE CHIEF PRODUCERS 175 
 instead of beino:, as they claim to be, the expressions ^^^'^ " 
 
 ° -^ ^ Chapter 3 
 
 of a profound truth, related to truth only as being 
 direct inversions of it. Whatever appearances may 
 seem to show to the contrary, it is the few and not 
 the many who, in the domain of economic produc- 
 tion, are essentially and permanently the chief re- 
 positories of power. That this is so in the domain 
 of intellect we have seen already. We will now 
 turn our attention to the domain of political govern- 
 ment, and consider the part played by the excep- 
 tional few there — the nature and origin of their 
 power, and the means by which it is exercised.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GREAT MAN ACQUIRED 
 POWER IN POLITICS 
 
 In discussing In discussing, with reference to political govern- 
 
 the means by i i • i i 11 
 
 which the great ment, the mcans by which the great man controls the 
 po^werin ^ actions of others, it will be found that the point on 
 politics the which we shall have to concentrate our attention 
 
 debatable 
 
 question differs differs somcwhat from that which engaged it when 
 
 from the ques- . . . . , 
 
 tion raised by wc wcrc discussmg the samc question with reference 
 indus°l^T '" to economic production. For all the points which, 
 with reference to the directors of industry, it was 
 necessary to establish in opposition to the socio- 
 logical sophistries of to-day are, with reference to 
 the political governor, admitted by all alike. Thus 
 we shall find on reflection that the extremest demo- 
 cratic reformer, no less than the aristocrat or the 
 for the points strict upholdcr of autocracy, admits, firstly, that 
 
 that are de- _ ^ •' , •' 
 
 bated in the Satisfactory governors must be exceptional or great 
 great°weaith- mcn ; sccondly, that the fittest great men can be 
 admiSbraii sccurcd by competition only ; and, thirdly, that how- 
 in the case of gygj. ^|^gy ^j-g appointed, and whatever may be the 
 
 the governor. ... . 
 
 principles on which they govern, their orders must 
 in every case be enforced by virtually the same 
 
 176
 
 THE PROGRESSIVE STRUGGLE IN POLITICS 177 
 sanctions. The last of these three facts — namely, Book 11 
 
 •' Chapter 4 
 
 that the commands of the governor must be en- 
 forced by some system of restraint and punishment 
 for the disobedient — is sufficiently plain to require 
 no further notice ; but the two others, obvious as 
 they really are, are not perhaps generally realised, 
 and it will be well to give a few words to them. 
 
 That the efficient [governor, though he need not t^^ e^^^^^^^* 
 
 *--' , " democrats 
 
 always be a genius, must in some respects, at all admit that the 
 events, be a great or exceptional man, is of course must be an 
 admitted by the advocates of autocracy, aristocracy, manr'°"*' 
 or oligarchy. All that requires to be shown is that 
 it is admitted also by the thinkers who are most 
 opposed to them — by socialists and extreme demo- 
 crats. This admission on their part is implied in 
 the notorious importance attached by them to the 
 machinery of popular election ; for popular election 
 is simply an elaborate means of expressing the 
 opinion of the people that out of so many possible 
 governors, this one or that one is endowed with 
 greater capacity than the others. If the capacities 
 of all were equal, or if exceptional capacity was 
 not required, the personnel oi the government might and also that 
 
 ^ ' ^ o ^ he must be 
 
 be chosen by casting lots. Next, as to the question chosen by 
 of competition, it must be obvious to every one that competition. 
 the popular election of governors is not only an 
 admission that some few men out of many are 
 greater or more capable than the rest, but is also, 
 on the part of the candidates for election themselves, 
 competition in one of its intensest and most sharply 
 accentuated forms.
 
 178 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 4 
 
 There is a 
 competitive 
 element even 
 in autocracies, 
 
 and democ- 
 racies are 
 essentially 
 competitive. 
 
 Competition, indeed, is implicit in every form of 
 government. Were it absent in any, it would be 
 absent in complete autocracies ; but even in these 
 it is latent, and always ready to come into operation ; 
 for the most absolute autocrat, if he happen to make 
 his rule sufficiently odious to a sufficient number of 
 his subjects, — ''' postqua^n cerdonibus esse timendus 
 cosperat " — will, as history shows us, be assassinated 
 or orot rid of somehow, and some other candidate 
 for power, probably an autocrat also, will be put in 
 his place, and will either retain or lose it, according 
 as experiment shows him to be a tolerable ruler, or 
 the reverse. Here is political competition in its 
 most rudimentary form; but it is competition none 
 the less ; and it generally involves a competition 
 more advanced than itself; for the most absolute 
 autocrat is obliged to govern through ministers ; and 
 these rise and fall according as experiment shows 
 them to be fitter or less fit for the accomplishment 
 of their master's purposes. If, then, even the power 
 of the autocrat rests ultimately on competition and 
 practical experiment, much more does the power of 
 government, under aristocratic and oligarchic con- 
 stitutions. Oligarchies invariably aim at ruling 
 through their strongest members ; and which are 
 the strongest is shown by experimental competition 
 only ; whilst political democracy, under all its forms, 
 is experimental competition open and undisguised. 
 A Gladstone remains in power because, as his years 
 of office succeed each other, he satisfies the majority 
 by the manner in which he governs them ; and his
 
 THE GUIDE VERSUS THE REPRESENTATIVE 179 
 power is taken from him when the majority cease Book 11 
 
 , , . . Chapter 4 
 
 to be satisfied, not only because they are of opmion 
 that he governs badly, but because they are of 
 opinion that a Disraeli will govern better. A democ- 
 racy, in fact, and an oligarchy, so far as competi- 
 tion is concerned, differ merely in the way in which 
 the competitors are admitted to the arena, and 
 in the number and character of the jury which 
 awards the prizes. 
 
 Since, then, with regard to the points just dealt ah parties also 
 
 . . agree that laws 
 
 With — namely, the necessity for great men as must be en- 
 governors, for the selection of the fittest of them a^nTpenaiSei?^ 
 by competition, and for the use of coercion and 
 punishment as a means of enforcing orders — there 
 is no essential difference between the most extreme 
 democracy and its opposites, in what does that prac- 
 tical or theoretical difference between them consist, 
 by which most undoubtedly the former is distin- 
 guished from the latter.? The only essential point of 
 difference between them lies, not in their respective 
 schemes or theories of the machinery of govern- 
 ment, or of their methods of electing governors, but 
 in their, theory of the powers which election com- pecunrroniy^In 
 municates to those elected. An elected governor, JJ^uffg^Jg 
 whether chosen from a larsre or a small class, is, greatness 
 
 required in 
 
 according to the aristocratic or oligarchic theory, their governor 
 chosen because he is personally wiser than those Lnd erecXJ'e*^ 
 who elect him ; and it is theoretically his mission, ^,h^^5""f,i 
 within very wide limits, to follow his own judi^ment, enable them to 
 
 ■' . ^ carry out the 
 
 not that of the electors. The democratic theory spontaneous 
 is the very reverse of this. The elected governor, many. °
 
 i8o 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 4 
 
 This is the 
 only point in 
 which the 
 democratic 
 theory differs 
 from the 
 aristocratic. 
 
 according to that theory, is elected not because 
 he is supposed to be wiser than his constituents, 
 but because he is supposed to be exceptionally 
 capable of understanding their precise wishes, and 
 giving effect to each of them. In the first of these 
 two cases the governor is like the physician whom 
 the patient calls in, but whose orders he never 
 thinks of disputing. In the second, he is like the 
 professional Spanish letter-writer, whom the illiter- 
 ate lover employs to put his passion for him gram- 
 matically upon paper. 
 
 The only point, then, in which democracy can 
 claim to differ essentially, not only from autocracy, 
 but from any form of oligarchy, lies not in its form 
 of government, but in the power that is behind its 
 government. This power, according to democratic 
 theorists, is the power of the mass of ordinary men, 
 as definitely opposed to exceptional men ; and the 
 exceptional men who are picked out as governors 
 would necessarily, in an ideal democracy, be excep- 
 tional only for such qualities as practical activity and 
 a quick apprehension of the wishes of other people, 
 which would enable them to do what their many- 
 headed master bade them ; but they would have to 
 be wanting in any strength of mind or originality 
 which might prompt them to acts out of harmony 
 with their master's temper at the moment, or what 
 is the same thing, to any acts beyond their master's 
 comprehension, even although such acts might be 
 for his future benefit. This is what the democratic 
 theory, in its last analysis, means. All exceptional will
 
 DEMO CRA CYAS THE MASTER OF ITS R ULERS 1 8 1 
 
 is to be smothered or over-ridden by the average Bookii 
 will, as is expressed clearly enough in the well-worn 
 democratic formula — every man's vote is to count 
 for one in government ; no man's vote is to count 
 for more than one. 
 
 Now this theory of the relation of the great man 
 to the many, so far as regards the conduct of civil 
 government, is identical with the theory which, with 
 a much wider application, Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 enunciates as the foundation of his sociological 
 system. As enunciated by Mr. Spencer we have 
 already submitted it to examination, and we have 
 shown that, in every practical sense, it is altogether 
 fallacious, and that its acceptance renders all 
 practical sociology impossible. We will now proceed 
 to show that, as applied even to the most popular 
 forms of government, it is as false as it is when 
 applied to social phenomena generally. 
 
 That the essential principle of democracy, as The demo- 
 
 , ,. 1'111'fi cratic ruler is, 
 
 just described, accordmg to which the brain or the theoretically, 
 ideal ruler is merely a balance for weighing the wills weighki^thJ 
 of multitudes, which are dropped into one or other ^'"^ °^ '^^ 
 
 ' A^^ many; 
 
 of its scales, like marbles — that this principle has 
 ever yet been completely realised, no democrat will 
 perhaps venture to maintain ; but the whole demo- 
 cratic propagandism of the present day implies, 
 before all things else, that its complete realisation 
 is possible, and that every day " the peoples " are 
 getting nearer to it. The facts, however, which are 
 supposed to warrant this conclusion are to be sought, 
 not in the sphere of official government, but
 
 l82 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 4 
 
 or a machine 
 for executing 
 their " man- 
 dates " ; 
 
 and there are 
 signs which 
 might suggest 
 that the few in 
 politics are 
 really becom- 
 ing the mere 
 instruments of 
 the many. 
 
 without it. They are to be sought not in the 
 conduct of elected legislators, but in the machinery 
 by which they are elected, and, above all, in those 
 unofficial movements, meetings, and agitations by 
 which the prophets of democracy affirm that the 
 great mass of the people is learning to exert the 
 power which was always latent in it, and to express 
 its will with regard to every question of govern- 
 ment as it arises, even if it has something yet to 
 learn in the art of securing that its governors shall 
 carry out its commands. It is this view of the 
 situation which is expressed in the popular saying 
 that a constituency has elected a member, or that 
 the people has elected a parliament, with what is 
 called a " mandate " to do some specified thing or 
 things — to break up the United Kingdom, to 
 disestablish the English Church, to penalise the 
 drinking of a glass of beer on Sundays, or to 
 deprive our soldiers of protection against the most 
 malignant of contagious maladies. 
 
 Now the democrats, it must be admitted, are so 
 far right, that a real political power has come into 
 existence which has no constitutional connection 
 with the men who nominally govern ; and this is 
 frequently used with such efficiency, and with such 
 definite purpose, that official governors — men of 
 most exceptional intellect — are compelled by it to 
 use their intellect for ends which they themselves 
 condemn. Here, then, in this external power, is to 
 be found, if it is to be found anywhere, the will of 
 the many, as conceived of by the theorists of democ-
 
 COMPLETE DEMOCRACY AN ILLUSION 183 
 
 racy, exerting itself independently of any separate ^^"^"^ ^^ 
 will of the few, and turning the powers of the few 
 into its willing or unwilling instruments. 
 
 Now perhaps the question which will in this place 
 most naturally suggest itself is whether this will of 
 the many, however effectively it may be exercised, 
 is really a power that makes for civilisation and 
 progress, and whether it is not more likely to bring 
 harm than benefit to those very collections of or- 
 dinary men who exercise it. And this question is, 
 no doubt, extremely pertinent ; but it is not one that 
 need engage our attention now. The fact which 
 alone we are now concerned to demonstrate is that 
 the alleged will of the many is not what democrats 
 conceive it to be, and that it is not really the will of 
 the many at all. 
 
 For although there is much in the history of the But these signs 
 
 , '11 ^''^ deceptive ; 
 
 present century to warrant the assumption that the for wimt seems 
 political will of the many is at last emerging as a I^an^ re°aiiy ^ 
 supreme and independent governing power, we f^t^on*{3^f°" ^"^^ 
 shall find that these movements and opinions, which another 
 
 • 1 r • 11 1 r 1 niinority. 
 
 seem, when viewed superficially, to result from the 
 spontaneous actions and spontaneous thoughts of 
 the man}^ really imply the influence of exceptional 
 men, just as much as those movements which are 
 avowedly aristocratic in origin ; and that in the 
 absence of these men the movements could never 
 have taken place, nor the opinions have ever 
 assumed any uniform and coherent shape. 
 
 To understand how this is, we need merely reflect 
 upon the fact that masses of men, as masses, can
 
 1 84 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II 
 Chapter 4 
 
 Opinions, to 
 derive power 
 from the num- 
 bers who hold 
 them, must be 
 identical ; 
 
 but they 
 seldom are 
 identical till a 
 few men have 
 manipulated 
 them. 
 
 only have a will at all when their judgments with 
 regard to certain particular questions happen to be 
 absolutely identical, and have thus a cumulative 
 force, like that of weights piled on one another 
 above some substance which it is desired to com- 
 press. Now, whatever may be the thoughts, wishes, 
 or opinions which spontaneously shape themselves in 
 the minds of any body of ordinary men — men various 
 in training and temperament, and none of them 
 remarkable for wisdom — these never take a shape 
 which will give them any cumulative power unless 
 amongst the ordinary men there is some man more 
 active than the rest, who weighs them, compares them, 
 eliminates what he thinks to be their discrepancies, 
 adds what is in his opinion necessary to their logical 
 completion, and clothes them in catching language, 
 which appeals both to the mind and to the memory. 
 Not till this is done do the mass of persons concerned 
 realise how identical their opinions on a given 
 question are ; and they then perceive them to be 
 identical for an exceedingly simple reason — that the 
 exceptional man has made a mould for them, into 
 which they have all been run. 
 
 It is then, for the first time, that the mass of 
 ordinary men become conscious of corporate power; 
 for then they become, with regard to a given ques- 
 tion, conscious for the first time that their opinions 
 are absolutely identical, and that in a certain given 
 direction their power is consequently cumulative. 
 But the opinion of these men, whose numbers give 
 political force to it, is very far from representing
 
 THE UNANIMITY OF MULTITUDES 185 
 
 the capacities of these men only. It represents (?°°^" 
 the capacities, the character, and very probably the 
 personal designs of the exceptional man who sup- 
 plied that common mould to which the unanimity 
 of the other men's opinions is due ; and the one 
 opinion which thus comes to be held by all of them 
 will not be precisely the opinion that was originally 
 held by any. The original opinion of each will 
 have undergone some modification. It will have 
 been softened, emphasised, developed, or other 
 elements will have been added to it, which would 
 never have entered the mind of the ordinary man 
 naturally, and which even when admitted he does 
 but imperfectly understand. Thus whilst a political Thus what 
 
 . . , T • 1 1 ^ 11 seems to be the 
 
 opmion expressed, or a political demand made, by a opinion of the 
 body of ordinary men thus absolutely unanimous ^en'erany de- 
 seems at first siffht a genuine expression of the will pendent on the 
 
 00 r^ influence of a 
 
 and the capacities of the many, it always in part, few. 
 and it very often mainly represents capacities and 
 purposes belonging to one man alone, the many 
 being practically little more than a phonograph, 
 which repeats his words to the world through an 
 enormous resonator. 
 
 Let us take, for instance, the two questions of J^^ many, for 
 Free Trade and Bimetallism. If any British Govern- never have had 
 ment were to revert to the system of protection, it orrJeeTrade 
 cannot be doubted that throuQ:hout the country there P/ ^'metaiiism 
 
 .^ if a few men 
 
 would be meetings and demonstrations, at which ^^d not 
 
 . . , . worked on 
 
 every throat would be unanimous in shouting con- them, 
 demnation of their conduct. America has witnessed 
 a precisely similar outburst in favor of a proposal
 
 1 86 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Bookir to remonetise silver. The issues raised, how- 
 
 Cbapter 4 ... 
 
 ever, both by the free traders and the bimetalHsts, 
 are of a kind so complicated that exceedingly few 
 people would be able even to describe their nature 
 clearly enough to satisfy the most lenient examiner 
 who should set them a paper in economics. The 
 majority of those who declared for bimetallism in 
 America had as little to do with forming their own 
 opinions as the little boys would have in a pre- 
 paratory school who should shout their approval of 
 some new emendation made by one of their masters 
 of a corrupt passage in Pindar; nor does that 
 British opinion in favour of free-trade principles 
 which has caused our Government to adopt them, 
 and would hinder or prevent their repudiation, 
 rest in the minds of the majority of those who 
 hold it, on any larger amount of original thought 
 or knowledge. Ninety-nine free traders out of 
 a hundred would never have been free traders at 
 all if it had not been for the oratory of Cobden. 
 The least educated portion of the citizens of the 
 United States would never have howled themselves 
 hoarse over an intricate financial problem if it had 
 not been for the oratory and the singular activity of 
 Mr. Bryan. Indeed, what is oratory itself, which in 
 all democracies, from that of Athens downwards, has 
 been essential to the work of government, but an 
 embodied expression of the fact that the many are 
 powerless, unless here and there some thinker will 
 think for them, and give them opinions which may 
 form a mould or a nucleus for their own } Even a
 
 DEMOCRACY IS DISGUISED OLIGARCHY 187 
 
 village meeting is never got together without the ^^^\l'^ 
 agency of some one who is slightly more efficient 
 than the rest. He need not be wiser than they. 
 He very frequently is not ; but he has some gift or 
 other which qualifies him for taking the lead. His 
 temperament is more active, his words flow more 
 freely, or he is hampered by less insight into his 
 own ignorance or imbecility ; and his opinions are 
 the nucleus round which those of the rest form 
 themselves, and which generally imparts to them 
 something of its own character, as a vinegar plant 
 does to the liquor in which it is immersed. 
 
 Without some such nuclei afforded to the many Popular 
 by the few, popular thought is nebulous, and popular requires excep- 
 will unborn. An exceptional few are essential even Huciei.'^oun? 
 to those revolutionary movements which have the J^J^JJ'^ ^° ^^^^ 
 destruction of the power of the few for their 
 object. It is impossible for the many to attack 
 one set of superiors, except by submitting them- 
 selves to the leadership or dictatorship of another 
 set; and although these last may to a certain 
 extent represent the multitude, it is usually just as 
 true that the multitude represent them. The multi- 
 tude cannot even unite to influence those excep- 
 tional persons to whom is entrusted the official work 
 of government without placing themselves under 
 the influence of another set of exceptional persons ; 
 and thus the extremest democracy will be found, if 
 we only look below the surface, to be neither more 
 nor less than an oligarchy disguised. It is, no doubt, 
 true that those who actually govern do in a certain
 
 1 88 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II sense derive their power from the many. They do 
 
 Chapter 4 . •11 • 
 
 SO even in countries where the supreme governor is 
 an autocrat. In countries with a popular constitu- 
 tion they derive their power from the many by an 
 organised and conscious system; but even in the 
 extremest democracies the average men can exercise 
 their power only by constant processes of surrender- 
 ing it into the hands of exceptional men. They 
 Thus even in surrcudcr it iuto the hands of the exceptional men 
 extremest for thc slmplc and enduring reason that, with very 
 feTrr?^*^^ '^^ few exceptions, which will be examined in another 
 essential. placc, it comcs into existence only in the very act of 
 surrendering it; and the many accordingly place 
 themselves in the hands of the few because, from 
 the very constitution of human nature, they cannot 
 avoid doing so. 
 
 We thus see that even in that sphere of political 
 
 action in which, if anywhere, the many should be 
 
 independent of the few, the many without the few 
 
 would have no power at all. 
 
 Democrats, The apologists of dcmocracy, however, have 
 
 a^gueThat"™^^ auothcr argument left them. They may contend 
 
 racy^^hlTw*^ that the exceptional men, who are necessary to the 
 
 do, in the long- (^gyglQpjy^gi^t: of thc collcctive Dowcrs of ordinary 
 
 run, carry out •■• ^ ■*■ _ •' 
 
 the genuine mcn, though cach of them is constantly, with regard 
 
 wishes of the . , . r 11 • 1 • i • 
 
 many. to particular questions, tollowing his own devices 
 
 rather than the instructions of the electorate, do on 
 the whole, and in the long-run, substantially carry out 
 the intentions and devices of those who are theoreti- 
 cally their masters; and that though they may do what 
 their masters could never have thought of for them-
 
 EQUALITY OF POWER NON-EXISTENT 189 
 
 selves, yet they can never continue to do anything ^0°^ '^ 
 of which their masters do not actually approve. 
 Now even were this representation of the case true, 
 it would leave untouched that broad and fundamen- 
 tal truth on which It is the primary purpose of the 
 present work to insist. It would leave untouched Even were 
 
 111 /• 1 1 • *his wholly 
 
 the truth that the great mass of human bemgs are true, the cur- 
 helpless without the assistance of a minority more ordemTcra^y 
 efficient than themselves. If ninety-nine average ^""''^ ^^ ^f^^' 
 
 J & for unequal 
 
 men, through the aid of a hundredth man who is men would be 
 
 111 1 • rr essential to 
 
 exceptional, can develop and give effect 'to a col- executing the 
 lective will, which Is altogether their own, and equals. 
 originates entirely with themselves, but If they can 
 neither develop It nor give effect to it unless the 
 hundredth man lends them his services, the power of 
 this one man Is as essential to the power of the 
 ninety-nine, as it would be if the orders which he 
 executes had been largely originated by himself; 
 just as a lens Is essential to the photographer's cam- 
 era though its function Is solely to focalise, not to 
 colour, the rays transmitted by It. Accordingly, even 
 on the above hypothesis, the modern democratic 
 formula, which makes each man count for one, and 
 nobody count for more than one, would, if judged 
 scientifically, be absolutely and fundamentally false ; 
 for the power ascribed by it to the accumulated 
 faculties of equals would be really the power of 
 equals united with the power of a superior ; and the 
 difference between the equals and the superior 
 would be at once apparent from this — that if one of 
 the equals were subtracted, the power of the whole
 
 190 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II hundred would be diminished by one ninety-ninth 
 
 Chapter 4 . . -' -^ . 
 
 only; but if the one superior were subtracted, it 
 would collapse altogether. Thus the presence of 
 the superior, and the terms on which his services 
 can be secured, would even in this case be sub- 
 jects on which the sociologist would be bound to 
 bestow the same attention as he bestows at present 
 on the activities of the ordinary men ; and unless 
 he should do this, his conclusions would be wholly 
 valueless. 
 Now in reality As a matter of fact, however, the hypothesis that 
 
 the few are , . - , 
 
 never mere the supcnor lew are ever the mere passive agents 
 passive agents; ^j^j^,]^ ^]^g dcmocratic thcory assumes them to be is 
 
 false ; and it is as a rule false in exact proportion to 
 the difficulty and importance of the cases to which 
 it is applied. The qualities which enable men to 
 organise the opinions of others are usually qualities 
 which endow them with strong opinions of their 
 own ; and in addition to their own opinions, these 
 men, with their exceptional vigour, have usually 
 their own purposes also ; and the popular will, as put 
 into execution by them, is always modified, and very 
 often metamorphosed, by what they themselves add 
 to or subtract from it. Still it must be admitted 
 that, in spite of their dependence on the few, the 
 many can, and do to a great extent, impress their own 
 but neverthe- gcnuinc will — the will and wishes of the average 
 dTimprSr^ man as distinct from the will and wishes of the man 
 their will on vyho is in any way exceptional — on the exceptional 
 
 them to a great j j r r 
 
 extent. mgn to whom their power is surrendered. The acts 
 
 of the governing few may never entirely represent
 
 EXTENT OF THE POWER OF THE MANY 191 
 the will and wishes of the averaoje man, when these '^^''\ " 
 
 «-> Chapter 4 
 
 acts are considered as a whole; but they may be 
 forced to embody, and they generally do embody, a 
 certain element of what average men wish and will ; 
 and their character as a whole is profoundly modi- 
 fied in consequence. The question then is simply a 
 question of degree. What is the extent — or rather The question is 
 
 ^ *-* f 1 • • to wAa/ extent ? 
 
 what IS the utmost possible extent — of this genuine 
 power of the many to make the faculties of the 
 exceptional few their servants.? Is it great or 
 small } 
 
 The reader will perceive that when this question This intro- 
 
 , , . • . 1 1 1 i 1 • duces us to a 
 
 is asked our inquiry is gradually taking a new new side of the 
 turn, and that having started with asserting the eiS'm of"*^" 
 claims of the great man as the author and sustainer *|^^ p°^^" °^ 
 
 o ^ the many. 
 
 of both intellectual and economic progress, we are 
 led, when we come to consider him as an agent in 
 the domain of politics, to inquire into what is done 
 by the average man, as well as into what is done by 
 him. And the reason for this is that in the domain This is greater 
 
 . in politics than 
 
 of politics the many, so far as direct and intentional in industry; 
 influence is concerned, are actually capable of playing 
 a far larger part than they are in the domain of 
 speculation or of advanced economic production. 
 A statesman like Mr. Gladstone might, without 
 absurdity, maintain that he had a mandate from the 
 many to grant home-rule to Ireland; but nobody 
 could pretend that any body of mechanics had given 
 Watt a mandate to invent the steam-engine, or 
 that any one gave Newton a mandate to discover 
 the law of gravitation. And yet the reflection will
 
 192 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book II probably force itself upon every reader that if the 
 many play a part in politics which is commensurate 
 with that of the few, they play a part in intellectual 
 and economic progress also. It would be useless for 
 the few to unfold their thoughts and their discov- 
 and yet when eHes to the many, if the many were not, in various 
 over w"e shall dcgrccs, Capable of assimilating and responding to 
 greaunmost them. Still Icss could the great man of industry 
 domains of realisc his progressive inventions, or carry out his 
 extending schemes of business, if it were not that 
 an indefinite number of ordinary men — those 
 "serviceable animals," as Mr. John Morley calls 
 them — were endowed with capacities that enabled 
 them to carry out his bidding. What would 
 Mahomet have done if he had not had followers ? 
 What would Columbus have done if he had not had 
 seamen.'' The reader, accordingly, will inevitably 
 be led to urge that in attributing to the great men 
 of the world the results which we have attributed to 
 them, our statements are unmeaning, unless they are 
 accepted as incomplete, and are understood to imply 
 more than they have actually expressed. If no 
 progress of any kind could have taken place without 
 the many, surely, it will be argued, the many must 
 have had some share in producing it ; and unless 
 we can assert and discriminate precisely what this 
 share is — what are the phenomena of progress 
 which are due to the activity of ordinary men — it 
 is meaningless to assert that most of them are due 
 to the activity of exceptional men. 
 
 And the larger part of this argument is perfectly
 
 examine it. 
 
 THE TWO CO-ORDINATE POWERS 193 
 
 true. In dealing with the activities of the few, we ^^^"^ " 
 
 . Chapter 4 
 
 have taken those of the many for granted. This 
 general assumption, however, though inevitable at ^^<^ '^^^ <o 
 the beginning of our inquiry, has been provisional granted at 
 only. To any scientific conception of what is done must "/ow 
 exclusively by the few, an equally scientific con- 
 ception of what is done by the many is essential. 
 We must measure the former by the latter, as we 
 measure mountains by their respective heights above 
 the sea-level. That such a discrimination between 
 the work of these two bodies is possible may be 
 doubted by some ; and accordingly before we actually 
 proceed to undertake it, we will dispose of the 
 arguments that will be, and actually have been, 
 advanced in proof of its impracticability, and set forth 
 the principles on which it must be, and obviously 
 can be, made. 
 13
 
 BOOK III
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 HOW TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE PARTS CON- 
 TRIBUTED TO A JOINT PRODUCT BY THE FEW 
 AND BY THE MANY 
 
 In the first chapter of his Principles of Political '^^^^^^'^^^''^^ 
 
 '■ . . . . that when two 
 
 Economy Mill alludes to the question raised by agencies are 
 certain thinkers, of " whether stature gives more producing an 
 assistance to labour in one kind of industry than ^ Jp'g'ct^e'^ 
 another " ; and he endeavours to show that the contributions 
 
 to It cannot be 
 
 question is useless and unanswerable. In every discriminated, 
 industry, he says, there would be no product at all 
 unless nature gave something and labour did some- 
 thing. Each is ''■absolutely indispensable^' and the 
 part played by each is consequently " indefinite 
 and inco7nmenstirabler " When two conditions^'' he 
 proceeds, " are eqtially necessary for producing the 
 effect at all, it is unmeaning to say that so fnuch of 
 it is produced by one, and so much by the other ; 
 it is like attempting to decide which half of a pair 
 of scissors has most to do in the act of cutti^ig, or 
 which of the factors five and six contributes most 
 to the production of thirty!' If this argument is 
 applicable to nature and labour as agents in the 
 
 197
 
 198 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter i 
 
 Mill argues 
 thus with 
 special refer- 
 ence to land 
 and labour ; 
 
 but he over- 
 looks what in 
 actual life is 
 the main feat- 
 ure in the 
 case. 
 
 The labour 
 remaining the 
 same, the prod- 
 uct varies 
 with the quality 
 of the land. 
 
 production of commodities, it is equally applicable 
 to the few and the many as agents in the production 
 of social progress generally ; and the crisp phrases 
 and illustrations which Mill employs in formulating 
 it, put in the clearest and most forcible manner 
 possible the whole class of objections referred to at 
 the close of the last Book. 
 
 Mill brings the argument forward with special 
 reference to agriculture. Let us take, he says in 
 effect, the products of any farm ; and it is obviously 
 absurd to inquire which produces most of it — the 
 fields or the farm labourers. Now if all labour were 
 equal, and if there were only one farm in the world, 
 or if every acre of land, when the same labour was 
 applied to it, yielded the same amount of produce, 
 this would, no doubt, be true. The actual state of 
 the case is, however, widely different. Acres vary 
 very greatly in fertility ; and if the produce of one — 
 the least fertile — when cultivated by a given amount 
 of labour, be symbolised by ten loaves, the produce 
 of others, when cultivated by the same labour, will 
 be symbolised by loaves to the number of twelve, 
 fifteen, or twenty. Here, then, we have a constant 
 quantity of labour, which produces ten loaves from 
 each of the four acres in question ; but when 
 applied to the first, it produces ten loaves only; 
 when applied to the three others, it produces two, 
 or five, or ten loaves in addition. About the first 
 ten loaves, in each case, it is not possible to argue. 
 So far as they are concerned, the result is in each 
 case the same ; with regard to them we cannot
 
 LAND AND LABOUR 199 
 
 make any comparison; and we must admit that the Book in 
 parts played by land and labour in producing them 
 are " indefinite and incommensurable" precisely as 
 Mill says they are. But the two, the five, or the 
 ten extra loaves which result when labour is ap- 
 plied to the second, the third, and the fourth acre 
 respectively, but do not result at all so long as it is 
 applied only to the first, constitute phenomena of a 
 different order altogether. The labour being in 
 each of the four cases the same, and these additional 
 loaves resulting in three cases only, these additional 
 loaves are obviously not due to labour, but to certain 
 additional qualities present in the last three acres 
 and not present in the first. In other words, though The extra prod- 
 
 . , . ,11 n/TMi • 7 uct resulting 
 
 m producmg the loaves, or, as Mill puts it, " ///^ from labour 
 effecC the parts played respectively by land and J^ndTdlS^to 
 labour are incommensurable so lono^ as the land, *^^, '^"'^' "°' 
 
 o ' to labour. 
 
 the labour, and the effect remain the same, the parts 
 become immediately mensurable as soon as the 
 effect begins to vary, and one of the causes, and one 
 of the causes only, varies also. 
 
 This truth can be yet further elucidated by this is easily 
 means of Mill's two other illustrations. If the two number of 
 blades of a pair of scissors were made of two musn-Sns. 
 different materials, and the one blade were of such 
 a nature that it was always of the same quality, and 
 human ingenuity was not capable of improving it, 
 whilst the qualities of the other blade varied with 
 the skill devoted to its manufacture, and if one pair 
 of scissors should cut twenty yards of cloth in a 
 minute, whilst another cut only ten, the additional
 
 200 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III efficiency of the more efficient pair would, it is 
 
 Chapter i .... ,, iiii- 
 
 perfectly obvious, be due to that blade in respect 
 of which this pair differed from the pair which was 
 less efficient, not to the blade in respect of which 
 both pairs were similar. Again, let us take Mill's 
 case of the two numerals five and six. If five is 
 always to be the number multiplied, and six is 
 always to be the multiplier, it is true we cannot say 
 which does most in producing the result — thirty. 
 But if the number to be multiplied remains always 
 five, whilst the multiplying number varies, if it is in 
 one case six and in another case ten, and if the result 
 of the multiplication in the second case is not thirty 
 but fifty, it is obvious that the additional twenty 
 which results from our multiplying by ten is due 
 not to any change in the number multiplied, but to 
 the additional four introduced into the number 
 multiplying. To these illustrations we may add two 
 others — the movement of a modern bicycle and the 
 movement of a man running. A modern bicycle 
 cannot be propelled without a chain ; and if there 
 were only one kind of bicycle in the world. Mill 
 might fairly have said that it was meaningless 
 and useless to ask whether the wheels or the chain 
 contributed most to its velocity. But if there are 
 two bicycles, with precisely similar wheels, but with 
 dissimilar chains, and if the same man riding on one 
 can accomplish ten miles an hour only, but on the 
 other fifteen, the common sense of every bicycle 
 rider in the world will tell him that the additional 
 five miles are contributed entirely by the chain, and
 
 ERROR OF MILLS ARGUMENT 201 
 
 the patentees of the chain, we may be certain, Book 111 
 
 ^ . . ■' Chapter i 
 
 will add their valuable testimony to the fact. So 
 with regard to running, Mill might fairly have said 
 that if we consider it in an abstract and general 
 sense, it is absurd to ask which contributes most to 
 '' the effect'' — the ground or the man that runs on 
 it, because the first is as indispensable to the man's 
 movement as is the second. But if two men are 
 racing each other over the same course, and one 
 runs a mile whilst the other runs only half, it is 
 perfectly obvious that the extra speed of the winner 
 is contributed not by the ground, which for both 
 men is just the same, but by certain qualities in the 
 winner which the loser does not possess, or which 
 the winner possesses in larger measure than he. 
 
 Now in all questions connected with progressive mhi errs by 
 social action the effects which have to be considered changilfg* ^ 
 are not general effects, such as running at some '^'^^'^'^"^•^'^ ^^ 
 indeterminate speed, each of which effects is con- 
 sidered as being single of its kind, and which, in 
 consequence, cannot be compared with anything, 
 but effects each kind of which exhibits many com- 
 parable varieties, such as the running of several 
 men whose respective speeds are different. The 
 whole error of Mill's argument depends on his 
 failure to perceive this. He describes the result 
 of man's labour applied to land — a result which 
 we have for convenience' sake expressed in terms 
 of loaves as " the effect." He says " nature and 
 labour are equally necessary for producing the effect 
 at air,' as though the same amount of land and 
 
 langing 
 
 laracter 
 
 the effect.
 
 202 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III labour must always result in the production of the 
 same number of loaves. To conceive and speak 
 of the matter in this way is to ignore entirely all 
 the phenomena of progress — all the phenomena 
 which differentiate civilisation from savagery, and 
 which it is the special function of economics and 
 of sociology to explain. Rent, for example, the 
 theory of which Mill states with extreme lucidity, 
 and insists upon with the utmost emphasis, arises 
 from the fact that one man and one acre of land, 
 The case of instead of producing: something; that can be described 
 
 labour directed ^ 7 rr T ' ^• rr 
 
 by different generally as " the effect, produce m different cases 
 fhTsamras^ effccts that are widely different — ten loaves when 
 labouTlppiied ^^^ ^^^^ ^s ^^^' twenty loaves when the acre is good : 
 to different ^ud, iw a similar way, when the acres are of the 
 
 qualities of , •' . 
 
 land. The samc quality, twenty loaves will be produced by an 
 du?e the^hi-^° acre if it is cultivated by the methods of civilisation, 
 crement. ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ j^^ ^^ ^^^^ j£ j^ jg cultivated by the 
 
 methods of a savage. Now, just as agricultural rent 
 arises from different qualities in the soil, so does 
 agricultural progress arise from differences in the 
 powers of the men. It is measured by, and it consists 
 of, not " the effect," but a series of effects, similar 
 indeed in kind, but continually increasing in de- 
 gree ; and it is their differences in degree, not their 
 similarity in kind, that form for the economist the 
 particular subject to be considered. 
 
 And what is true in this respect of production 
 and progress in agriculture is equally true of pro- 
 duction and progress generally. The former indeed 
 are the simplest type of the latter, just as they are
 
 THE PRODUCT OF LABOUR ALONE 203 
 their orio^inal basis ; and before we proceed farther, ^ook in 
 
 , ■» ' . . ■'^ . ' Chapter i 
 
 there is one fact more in connection with them on 
 
 which it is necessary for the purposes of our present Labour, how- 
 
 ■^ ever, must be 
 
 argument to msist. Of soils the same as to area, held to pro- 
 but not the same as to quality, some, it has been Jntmum 
 said, will produce ten loaves, some fifteen, some "upportThl" 
 twenty ; and soils may exist, perhaps, which would labourers 
 produce only five. But in order that any soil may 
 be cultivated by human labour, it is necessary that 
 the product should be at least sufficient to keep the 
 men alive who devote their labour to cultivating it. 
 No set of men, unless artificially subsidised, could 
 continue to cultivate any region if the product of 
 twelve months' labour would support them for only 
 three months. It follows, therefore, from this 
 truism that no soils can be cultivated which will 
 not yield to labour a certain minimum product. 
 Now, though this minimum is, in a certain sense, 
 the product of labour and of land jointly, for all 
 purposes of practical reasoning it is the product of 
 labour alone. It is so because the sole object of 
 practical reasoning about the matter is to determine 
 the principles on which the product of the land is 
 to be distributed ; and with regard to that minimum 
 there can be no doubt or question. It must go to 
 the labourer, and it can go to no one else. The 
 landlord, if there be one, cannot take any part of 
 it ; for if he did, the labourer would die, and there 
 would cease to be any product to take. Labour, both in agri- 
 then, in agriculture must be held for all practical 
 purposes to produce the whole of that minimum
 
 «04 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III resulting from its application to the least productive 
 soils which the labourer can live by cultivating ; 
 and it is only in the case of soils which are more 
 productive than these, and which yield to similar 
 labour a product above this minimum, that land, 
 apart from labour, can be said practically to produce 
 anything at all. 
 and in all kinds Now just as wc Can argue with regard to land 
 
 of production. •* . 
 
 and labour, so can we argue with regard to the 
 
 average men and the great men, and measure what 
 
 they contribute respectively to any given civilisation ; 
 
 for just as a thousand men from some good soil will 
 
 elicit twice the produce they would be able to elicit 
 
 from a bad soil, so from a bad soil may a thousand 
 
 average men manage to elicit, if directed by some 
 
 agricultural genius, twice the product which they 
 
 would elicit if left to themselves; and just as in 
 
 the former case, according to the principles above 
 
 stated, we shall ascribe the smaller product to labour 
 
 without any reference to land, and ascribe to land 
 
 the excess only of the larger product over the 
 
 smaller, so in the second shall we ascribe the 
 
 smaller product to the average men, and the excess 
 
 of the larger product over the smaller to the great 
 
 The great man man. Wc shall Say, in fact, that the sfreat man pro- 
 produces the 1 r 1 1 11 • 
 increment that Quccs SO much oi thc product as comcs anuually mto 
 
 produced by cxistcncc whcn hc directs the others, and disappears 
 
 influenie^'^ as soon as hc ceases to direct them. 
 
 ceased. Hcrc, howcvcr, the original objection of Mill 
 
 will suggest itself again, though in a somewhat 
 different form ; for in spite of all that has been
 
 A PLAUSIBLE FALLACY 205 
 
 said, it still remains certain that the great man could ^°°^ "^ 
 
 , , Chapter i 
 
 not produce this excess unless the average men 
 
 were present to carry out his directions ; and the Labour, it is 
 
 1 Ml M 1 1 T 1 11 true, is essen- 
 
 reader will possibly be disposed to argue that the tiai to the pro- 
 
 1 11 T, 1 • ,^ duction of the 
 
 average men may be as reasonably credited with increment 
 the whole of the product, except that insignificant ^^^°' 
 fraction which the great man could have produced 
 without them, as the great man may be credited 
 with the whole of the product except that which 
 the average men could have produced without him. 
 
 Now this reasoning has a certain fanciful ^ut we cannot 
 
 1 -1 -I- 1 ••11 1 1 '1 r draw any con- 
 
 plausibility, but it is absolutely devoid of any elusions from 
 practical meaning ; and in order to show the of^iaboS ceas- 
 reader how and why it is so, it will be necessary'"^' 
 to direct his attention to a certain fact which lies 
 at the bottom of all practical reasoning, but which 
 few practical reasoners ever consciously realise. 
 All such reasoning is in its nature hypothetical, 
 and can be reduced to a statement that if such 
 conditions are present, such consequences will 
 result; and that if existing conditions be altered 
 in any specified way, the results will exhibit a 
 specified and corresponding difference. If, however, 
 this reasoning is to have any practical value, one 
 thing is essential to it — namely, that the supposed 
 alterations shall be at least approximately possible. 
 No practical conclusion, for instance, could possibly 
 be drawn as to machinery by considering what 
 would happen if the properties of the circle were 
 to be changed, and different parts of the circum- 
 ference should be at different distances from the
 
 206 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter i 
 
 for the 
 labourers 
 would have to 
 labour whether 
 the great men 
 were there or 
 no. 
 
 The cessation 
 of the great 
 man's influ- 
 ence is a practi- 
 cal alternative ; 
 the cessation 
 of labour 
 is not; 
 
 as we see by 
 
 frequent 
 
 examples. 
 
 centre. It is equally evident that no practical 
 conclusion as to the claims and prospects of labour 
 could be drawn by considering what would happen 
 if the labourers could live without food. Now since 
 no food is producible without labour, a population 
 which does not labour is just as impossible a con- 
 ception as a population which does not require to 
 eat ; and no practical conclusions can be arrived at 
 by supposing it to exist ; but populations which have 
 developed and submitted themselves to no great 
 men, not only can exist, but have existed, and do 
 exist to-day; and thus we are reasoning in a 
 strictly practical way when we consider what would 
 be produced by the average men if the great man 
 ceased to direct them, but we are reasoning to no 
 practical purpose at all by considering what would 
 happen if the average men ceased to labour. The 
 latter — or the majority of them — would have to 
 labour in any case, whether there were any great man 
 to direct their labour or no; and the supposition 
 of their labouring is bound up with the supposition 
 of their existence. The sole practical alternatives 
 which can in the present case be conceived and 
 reasoned from are average men labouring under the 
 direction of the great man's talents, or the same men 
 labouring blindly as best they can by themselves. 
 
 These alternatives are being constantly exempli- 
 fied in the actual life of communities. We may see 
 men to-day, not only amongst savages, but amongst 
 the peasantries of civilised countries, such as Russia, 
 India, and parts of Ireland and the Scottish islands,
 
 GREAT MEN AND THE INCREMENT 207 
 
 who are still almost independent of any intellect ^"^ "^ 
 superior to their own, and who maintain themselves 
 by the exertion of man's commonest faculties only. 
 We may see again populations who have been in the 
 same condition, but who, under great men's guidance, 
 become agents in producing a civilisation which they 
 could by themselves not only not produce, but could, 
 by themselves, hardly even imagine ; and again we 
 may see how in more than one country the energies 
 of the great man, having worked these wonders for 
 a time, become paralysed by insecurity under a 
 barbarous and predatory despotism, and how, as 
 his action ceases, the masses relapse again into 
 their former condition of relative inefficiency. 
 
 Accordingly, though the productivity of the 
 average men, as distinct from the great men, will 
 be different in one race or region from what it is 
 in another, just as their diet will be and the other 
 necessaries of existence, yet within each community 
 experience furnishes us with comparisons which show 
 us, roughly at all events, how much the average 
 men produce without the aid of the great men, and 
 how much the great men, by directing the average 
 men, add to this.^ To calculate these amounts 
 
 * It is, of course, true that in densely populated countries and 
 in certain industries the average workmen, if left to themselves 
 suddenly, with no man of business ability to guide them, would be 
 unable to produce anything. But so long as the man of exceptional 
 talent employs them to produce anything, they contribute something 
 to the result, and must, for practical purposes, be held to produce so 
 much of it as will provide them with the means of living. If it 
 happens, as is sometimes the case, that the total value of the profit
 
 2o8 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III -vvrith any approach to exactness will, no doubt, be 
 
 Chapter I ^.i^ \^ . , , . . 
 
 more dimcult in some cases than others, just as is 
 the case with book-keeping in various businesses. 
 But it is enough to have shown the reader that, 
 despite Mill's contention to the contrary, the cal- 
 culation is one which is based on the simplest 
 Thus the great and most iudisputablc principles, and that not only 
 most practical in a thcorctical, but in the most strictly practical 
 du"c«'Sh°at sense, what great men produce, when they co- 
 labour would operate with average men by directino^ them, is 
 
 not produce in ^^ . . 
 
 his absence, the amouut or dcgrcc in which the total result pro- 
 duced exceeds or excels that which was produced 
 by average men when unaided, and would be again 
 produced by them were the great man's aid with- 
 drawn. 
 
 An analysis of fhc absolutc Validity of this method of argu- 
 
 practical ••111 
 
 reasoning as to ment and calculatiou Will be yet more apparent 
 auywiifshow to the rcadcr when we pursue a step farther 
 our analysis of reasoning generally as applied 
 to practical matters, and consider it especially 
 when it takes the form of a direct discussion 
 with regard to causes and effects. In the strictest 
 sense of the word it would plainly be quite im- 
 possible to specify fully the causes of even effects 
 of the simplest kind. The motion, for instance, of 
 a ball when a cricketer hits it, would, in any dis- 
 cussion of the game, be said to have been caused by 
 
 is less than the workmen's wages, the employer must either alter the 
 character of his product, so as to meet the public demand, or he will 
 otherwise be crushed out of existence as an employer, and his work- 
 men will pass under the control of some more able rival. 
 
 us the truth of 
 this.
 
 CAUSES IN PRACTICAL REASONING 209 
 
 the cricketer ; but the entire antecedents and con- ^'^°^ "^ 
 ditions which have rendered this effect possible 
 comprise not only all the incidents of the cricketer's 
 past training, but the history of cricket itself, and 
 half the properties of matter. It would be impossible 
 and useless to specify all these. When we say that 
 anything is the cause of anything else, we are always 
 selecting that cause out of an indefinite number, on 
 which, for the purpose on hand, it is practically 
 important that we should insist ; and the cause on 
 which it is important that we should insist for For practical 
 practical purposes will be found to be always one cause of an 
 which, under the circumstances in view, may or ^fus^ o^Ij,^* 
 may not be present,^ — which a careless person may "^^'^^ '"f.y °' 
 
 J i- ' i- J may not be 
 
 neglect to introduce, or an ignorant person be present; 
 persuaded to take away ; whilst those other causes 
 whose presence is assumed by all parties to the dis- 
 
 ^ It was his complete neglect of these considerations that enabled 
 Karl Marx to impose on himself and others his doctrine that the 
 value of commodities depended on the amount of average labour 
 embodied in them — a doctrine which is the most remarkable in- 
 tellectual mare's nest of the century. It is perfectly true that if all 
 other circumstances were always equal — the demand for the com- 
 modities in question, the ability with which average labour is 
 directed, and the assistance which the genius of the great inventors 
 gives to it — it is perfectly true that then the amount of average labour 
 embodied in various commodities would be the measure of their 
 value ; for labour in that case would be the only variant. But, in 
 reality, the important variants are not average labour, but the ability 
 by which labour is directed. The efficiency of labour itself is 
 practically constant ; and for the student of wealth-production the 
 principal force to be studied is the ability of the few, by which the 
 labour of the many is multiplied, and which only exerts itself under 
 special social circumstances. 
 14
 
 2IO ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III cussion, and which no one proposes to take away, 
 or which no one is able to take away, or whose 
 number, if they were mentioned, would make all 
 discussion impossible, are passed over in silence, 
 for there is no need to mention them. Thus we 
 as we see all know that when a house is burnt to the ground 
 
 when men , r i i • i 
 
 discuss the thc causcs 01 the phenomenon comprise the 
 cause of a fire, j^iflammable nature of timber, and indeed the 
 whole chemistry of combustion ; but if an insurance 
 office is disputing the owner's claim to compensation 
 on the ground that the owner set a light to it pur- 
 posely, whilst the owner maintains that the scullery- 
 maid set it alight by accident whilst reading in bed 
 a novel of Belgravian life, the only causes that will 
 be put forward by the litigants will, let us say, be 
 a candle alleged by the owner to have ignited the 
 scullery-maid's pillow-case accidentally, and on the 
 other hand a match which is alleged by the agent of 
 the insurance office to have been applied by the owner 
 to the drawing-room curtains intentionally. Or 
 again, let us take the case of a ship's chronometer, 
 or of the Xhc reliability of a chronometer, any practical man 
 
 accuracy of a _ , . 
 
 chronometer, will tell US if wc ask him about the matter, depends 
 on the balance and the escapement. It is the perfect 
 " compensation " of the latter and what is called the 
 " detachment " of the former that differentiates the 
 chronometer from the ordinary lever watch ; and 
 these are rightly said to be the causes of the 
 chronometer's superiority as a time-keeper. But 
 a balance and escapement of themselves will not 
 keep time at all. They are useless without a main-
 
 EXAMPLES OF PRACTICAL REASONING 211 
 sprino: and a train of intervenino: wheel-work. But ^°°^ ^^^ 
 
 ^ o _ o Chapter i 
 
 if any one were explaining the causes of a chronom- 
 eter's exceptional accuracy he would never think of 
 mentioning these last at all. He would not dwell 
 on the properties of the coil of elastic steel, or on the 
 interaction of the ordinary toothed wheels, or on the 
 steel axes which make their interaction possible. 
 And why would he omit these causes .? He would 
 omit them because they would be assumed, because 
 there would be no discussion about them, and 
 because they are implied in the existence of all 
 watches and chronometers equally. If, however, 
 the case were reversed — if all escapements and all 
 balances were alike, and there was no room for 
 superiority except in the main-spring and the 
 wheel-work — the latter would be dwelt on, and 
 the former would be passed over, in any discussion 
 that turned on the causes of accurate time- 
 keeping. 
 
 Let us take one case more. A man is hanging by o^ the causes 
 
 , , . of danger to a 
 
 a rope, which is fastened to a spike of rock, and is man who is 
 looking for samphire or birds' eggs on the face of a a ^pe.^ 
 sheer cliff. It is suddenly perceived by some of his 
 friends on the summit that the rope is frayed a 
 yard or two above his head. They are anxious for 
 his safety; and if any one asked them why, they 
 would answer, Because his life depends on the rope 
 not breaking. Let us suppose, however, that the 
 rope is perfectly strong, but that the spike of rock 
 it is attached to shows signs of being about to 
 fall. The man's friends in that case will explain
 
 212 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III their anxiety by saying that his life depends not 
 on the rope but on the rock. In either case it 
 would literally depend on both, and on a thousand 
 other things besides ; but in either case one cause 
 only is mentioned, or calls for mention, and that is 
 the cause whose cessation or continuance is doubt- 
 ful. For similar reasons, and in a similar sense, 
 great men are said to be the causes of all that is 
 done or produced in the communities to which they 
 belong, beyond a certain minimum which, even 
 when not insignificant, is stationary ; for though the 
 efforts of the average men are essential to the pro- 
 duction of this addition to the minimum, just as 
 they are to the production of the minimum itself, 
 there is no question of their efforts coming to an 
 end unless the men come to an end also ; whereas 
 the activities of the great men require special 
 circumstances for their development, and constitute 
 the only productive force which modern democratic 
 activity practically tends to paralyse, or at all events 
 diminish or impede. 
 But there is But thcrc is yct auothcr method, still more neces- 
 
 another means . . mii i*i ii ^• rr 
 
 of discriminat- sary to bc described, by which we are able to dirfer- 
 JJf produces of ei^tiate the respective products of these two classes 
 exceptional q£ j^gj^ — 3^ mcthod which will assist us not only to 
 
 men and -' 
 
 ordinary men. assigu to cach a Certain portion of one joint effect, 
 but also to particularise many of the elements of 
 which each portion is composed. This method will 
 be explained more fully in the following chapter, 
 but it will be well to give a general and preliminary 
 explanation of it here. It is founded on the two
 
 FACULTIES AND RESULTS 213 
 
 following propositions, which, when once they have ^°°^ ^" 
 been considered, will be seen to be self-evident. 
 Whatever the many contribute to the social con- This is by an 
 
 ... f . ... - f. analysis of the 
 
 ditions of a community, either in the way of faculties 
 industrial production or of the formation of habits producTIhe 
 and sentiments, consists of effects produced by those p''°'^"'=*- 
 traits or faculties of human nature in which all 
 members of that community are approximately and 
 practically equal. Thus the fact that all men are 
 alike obliged to eat, and that all parents as a rule 
 have a preference for their own offsprino^, are facts Are these 
 
 1-11 • 1 • 1 T . r ,1 faculties 
 
 which determine much in the conditions of all possessed by 
 societies. On the other hand the social effects few oniyV 
 which are produced exclusively by the few are 
 effects produced by certain traits and faculties which, 
 though possibly possessed in a rudimentary state by 
 all men, are appreciably and efficiently developed 
 in the persons of the few only. The dramas of 
 Shakespeare, though in a sense they are eminently 
 national, could never have been produced had 
 Shakespeare possessed no gifts except such as were 
 possessed at the time by the English nation at 
 large. The discoveries of Newton, the inventions 
 of Watt and Stephenson, similarly were produced by 
 powers that were indefinitely above the average. 
 It is needless to say that they could not have been 
 produced otherwise. If we will but reflect carefully 
 on obvious truths like these, we shall see that 
 civilisations are woven out of two kinds of materials, 
 the one originating in traits common to the com- 
 munity generally, the other in traits confined to a
 
 214 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III more or less numerous minority; and even when 
 
 Chapter i •' ' 
 
 the two are most closely woven together we shall 
 be able to follow out and identify the different 
 threads, which never can lose the trace of their 
 different and opposite origins.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PURELY DEMOCRATIC 
 ACTION, OR THE ACTION OF AVERAGE MEN IN 
 CO-OPERATION 
 
 The erreat-man theory as held by the conventional cariyie was 
 
 • 1 ii/-<ii 11 • wrong in his 
 
 historian, and expressed by Carlyle and others in claims for the 
 those vehement formulas which have so justly becaure^he 
 excited the ridicule of Mr. Herbert Spencer, errs [^.^tisVowL 
 not because it emphasises the fact that the orreat were con- 
 
 ^ . *^ ditioned by the 
 
 man is the sole cause of progress in the sense that capacities of 
 no progress could have taken place without him, meninfluenced 
 but because it ignores the fact that the ordinary ^^ *"™* 
 men of his time, being the tools with which he 
 works, or the instrument on which he plays, the 
 result is conditioned not only by his capacities, but 
 by theirs ; just as the kind of music that can be 
 produced by a pianist is determined not only by his 
 own skill, but by the character of the piano also. 
 Writers like Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, and The socialists 
 
 r ' ... . ^re wrong 
 
 with him the whole school of socialists, impressed because, seeing 
 by the obvious fact that the many do something, do^'something. 
 never pause to inquire what they do, or how much iJey do^evei^!* 
 they do, or how little, but rush to the conclusion that ^^'"g- 
 
 215
 
 2i6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III the many do evervthinor. This conclusion is even 
 
 Chapter 2 ^ jo 
 
 more meaningless than the doctrine which it is 
 intended to contradict. The many do something, 
 and they do what is of extreme importance ; but its 
 importance is strictly limited, and is indeed only 
 intelligible through its limitations, just as the 
 character of a profile is intelligible only through its 
 outlines. The object, therefore, of the sociological 
 inquirer must be to discover precisely what these 
 What the limitations are. The methods by which the dis- 
 iTmited.^ We covcry is to be made have been already indicated. 
 Sy wh^t'the Let us now go on to apply them.^ They are of two 
 limits are. kinds. One consists of an examination of what, in 
 any domain of activity, the many would produce, if 
 the influence of the few were absent. The other 
 consists in an examination of the kind of faculties 
 which the production of such or such a result im- 
 plies. If these faculties are common to all, we say 
 the result is produced by the many ; if the faculties 
 are rare, we say it is produced by the few. 
 If a Russian Xhc practical validity of both these kinds of 
 employs a rcasouing is shown by the following imaginary but 
 mTn[odig°'^ " not impossible case. A hundred Russian workmen, 
 u^a^ldrr*^'"'' ^^1 of them loyal to the Czar, are employed by 
 a citizen of Moscow to enlarge a subterranean 
 cellar, and another hundred are employed to fill it 
 with heavy wine-cases. A week after the work is 
 completed the Czar is driving outside, and, as he 
 passes the citizen's house, is killed by an explosion 
 but is a mine f rom bclow. The so-callcd cellar was a mine, the 
 theCz^r"^"^ wiuc-cascs wcrc filled with dynamite. Now if all
 
 DIFFERENT ELEMENTS IN ONE RESULT 217 
 those who were concerned in the production of this ^ook iii 
 
 * Chapter 2 
 
 catastrophe were tried it is perfectly evident that 
 the part played by the workmen would be sharply 
 separated from that played by the man employing 
 them ; and that, though they no doubt would have 
 contributed something to the result, they would have 
 contributed nothing to its essential and criminal 
 elements. It is equally evident that if the designed the conspirator 
 
 *■ ■^ , , *=* contributes the 
 
 and attained result had been not criminal, but entire criminal 
 beneficent, the elements in it that made it glorious the enterprise, 
 would be the product of the man who planned and 
 intended it, and not of the workmen who blindly 
 obeyed his orders, neither knowing nor caring what 
 the result would be. Let us take another case of a 
 somewhat different character. When a spontaneous 
 cheer bursts from a thousand people, the volume of 
 sound is obviously the unadulterated product of the 
 many. On the other hand, when a thousand peo- when a choir 
 pie with ordinarily good voices are so trained and mu!ic, Handei 
 organised as to sing a chorus out of Israel ^^^ specific^chlr-^^ 
 EzvPi, the peculiar qualities which render the »«='«'" ^^ '"^^ 
 
 1 1 1 • 1 • 1 sounds sung 
 
 sounds produced by them valuable, obviously imply by them. 
 the existence of the musical genius of Handel, or in 
 other words faculties which belong to hardly one 
 man in a million, and are thus the product not of 
 the many, but of one. 
 
 And now let us turn to the actual facts of life, and Let us turn to 
 
 . the facts of 
 
 the kinds of activity on which progress and civilisa- social progress, 
 tion depend, and let us apply our two analytical 
 methods to these. It is needless to repeat, after 
 what has been said in a previous chapter, that it is
 
 2i8 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III impossible, in a case like this, to examine social 
 
 Chapters \ , . . . ^ . , . 
 
 activity as a whole. Such activity is of various kinds, 
 and each must be dealt with separately. Let us 
 begin, then, with two — the activity of economic pro- 
 duction, and the activity which results in the growth 
 and begin with of spcculativc knowledge. The first affords us the 
 
 economic . . . , .... 
 
 progress and clcarcst iliustration of how to discriminate the prod- 
 knowTedge. uct of the many by considering what it would 
 shrink to were the influence of the few absent. The 
 second affords us the clearest illustration of how to 
 discriminate the product of the many by consider- 
 ing the nature of the faculties which the produc- 
 tion of the result implies. 
 In the case of To begin with production, then, let us take the 
 
 economic r i tt • i rr- i i • i i 
 
 progress we casc 01 the U nitcd Kingdon, and consider theamount 
 method'o/ * * pei" head that was annually produced by the popula- 
 is'^roXce'd'by ^^^^ ^ huudrcd ycars ago. This amount was about 
 labour with £iA. At the present time it is something like 
 
 and without >. , , , . r , 
 
 the assistance ^35, and the purchasing power of money has so 
 man.^^"^^^^ iucrcascd with the cheapening of commodities, that 
 the excess of the latter sum over the former is far 
 greater than it seems. Now, if we attribute the 
 entire production of this country, at the close of the 
 last century, to common or average labour (which is 
 plainly an absurd concession), \ve shall gain some 
 idea of what the utmost limits of the independent 
 productivity of the ordinary man are ; for the 
 ordinary man's talents as a producer, when directed 
 by nobody but himself, have, as has been said 
 already, not appreciably increased in the course of 
 two thousand years, and have certainly not increased
 
 PROGRESS IN KNOWLEDGE 219 
 
 within the past three generations. The only thing ^^ok in 
 that has increased has been the concentration on the 
 ordinary man's productive talents of the productive 
 talents of the exceptional man. The talents of the 
 exceptional man, in fact, have been the only variant 
 in the problem ; and, accordingly, the minimum which 
 these talents produce is the total difference between 
 £1^ and ^35. This sum is no mere piece of fanci- 
 ful ingenuity. Parts of it are being done daily before 
 our eyes, and its practical character is being shown 
 in the most conclusive manner, when the profits of 
 a business decline on the death of some head or 
 partner, or when some declining town is restored 
 to its old prosperity by some man of industrial 
 genius, who starts in it some new manufacture. 
 
 And now let us pass from industrial activity to "^^ ^^^ 
 
 •"■ , '' question of 
 
 intellectual, and apply to this our second method progress in 
 of analysis. Of purely intellectual results, or, as Mill nTusTa^ppiy '"^^ 
 calls them, ''advances in speculative knowledge',' ^^^^^^^^^[^ 
 the most striking examples are to be found in ^'="|*'"'^'^«. 
 
 <^ ^ ^ involved in it. 
 
 the mathematical sciences. To the advances made 
 in these it is not only certain but obvious, that the 
 many have contributed nothing, because even of 
 that section of mankind which has some mathe- 
 matical aptitude the majority are unable even to 
 appreciate them completely when they are made; 
 much less do they possess the powers to make them. 
 No one would contend that the books of Euclid are These are 
 the result of the faculties possessed by every average entirely con- 
 school-boy, or of the kind of man into which the few. 
 average school-boy grows. We may indeed dismiss
 
 220 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III purely intellectual progress as the domain in which 
 
 Chapter u ^ ^ r q 
 
 the efficiency of the many stands absolutely at zero. 
 
 Let us pass now to the domain of political 
 
 government, and consider to what extent the 
 
 And now let facultics of the many, as distinct from those of 
 
 poihicai° the few, are capable of operating there. This 
 
 government, jj^q^jj-y rcsolvcs itsclf mainly into the question 
 
 of how much the many can do to direct the 
 
 activity of the few, the activity of the few being 
 
 presupposed; but it will be well to consider first 
 
 how much, if anything, the many can accomplish, or 
 
 What can the the facultics of Ordinary men can accomplish, without 
 
 faculties of . • i r i • i 
 
 average men any assistancc from exceptional faculties whatsoever, 
 to^themseives? In the domaiu of politics, which is here meant to 
 include all organised action of a public and political 
 character, as well as the making and the administra- 
 tion of laws, the only positive functions or actions 
 which can be performed by the co-operation of the 
 average faculties of men, or by absolute and unadul- 
 terated democracy, are very simple destructive actions 
 They can and the formulation of and the insistence on, very 
 only the simplc dcmauds. Of the destructive actions referred 
 
 aSnl* to we shall find an excellent example in the lynching 
 of a negro who has outraged some white American 
 girl, or in such an act as the burning of the Tuileries 
 by the communists. In each of these actions the 
 feelings of those who take part in it are as nearly as 
 possible identical. In the first, all of the men are 
 equal in their sense of righteous indignation ; in the 
 second, they are all equal in their feeling of blind 
 rebellion; and no special skill is in either case
 
 DEMOCRACY AND AVERAGE FACULTIES 221 
 required by any one of them. It is true that even ^°°^ "' 
 
 , , Chapter 2 
 
 in such cases as these there will most probably be 
 leaders, of some sort, but they will be leaders by 
 accident, and the others will be their comrades 
 rather than their subordinates. Of the simple 
 demands which the many can formulate and insist ^"^^°"""'^*^ 
 
 '' only the 
 
 upon unaided we may take as an example a demand simplest 
 for the abolition of a tax which distresses in an 
 obvious way multitudes of men equally; or a 
 demand for the continuance of a war, in which the 
 issues at stake are sufficiently apparent to anybody 
 who can read a newspaper. The protest against 
 the tax by the multitudes of men whom it harasses, 
 and the national demand, when it arises, for the 
 continuance of such a war, are phenomena which 
 are absolutely democratic. They are each the sum 
 of a number of spontaneous feelings and reasonings. 
 They do not require any leader to stimulate them ; 
 and all who contribute to their force do so in an 
 equal degree. 
 
 But the moment we come to cases of any com- The moment 
 plexity the situation changes. If the negro s guilt become at aii 
 could be established only by inference, the lynchers Acuities of the 
 would have to be convinced of it by some clever exceptional 
 
 -' man are 
 
 advocate. If the lynching itself were a matter of required. 
 extreme difficulty, the lynchers would require to be 
 commanded by the boldest and shrewdest of their 
 number. If the tax protested against were indirect, 
 if its injurious effects were hard to detect and 
 realise, and if it were capable of being represented 
 as less injurious than any other, men of exceptional
 
 222 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter 2 
 
 Now in any 
 civilised 
 country few 
 governmental 
 measures are 
 really simple. 
 
 Exceptional 
 men must 
 simplify them 
 for the many. 
 
 activity and exceptional sharpness would be required 
 to rouse the sufferers to a perception of what caused 
 their suffering. In other words, democracy, the 
 many, or the faculties possessed by the many, are 
 incapable of initiation in any complex matter, or of 
 carrying out any course of complex action when 
 initiated ; and we may sum up the case by saying 
 that all corporate action in politics is less and less 
 purely democratic in proportion as the questions 
 dealt with are less and less simple. 
 
 Now, as a matter of fact, in any civilised country 
 the majority of the measures which the Government 
 has to devise and carry out, however simple in 
 appearance, are very far from simple in reality. 
 Even when their details are few, the good or the 
 bad effects of them are certain to depend on a great 
 variety of circumstances, with regard to which 
 ordinary faculties can form no independent judg- 
 ment; and if ordinary men are to express any judg- 
 ment on such measures at all which is not put into 
 their mouths by others and then uttered by rote, 
 these measures must be placed before them by 
 talented interpreters and advocates, who will reduce 
 the details to a real or apparent simplicity and 
 invest their alleged results with charm and an air of 
 certainty.^ Accordingly, when we approach the 
 
 1 This truth is strikingly illustrated by the history of the Home 
 Rule agitation in Ireland. Whether Home Rule would be advan- 
 tageous for the British Empire or for Ireland is a very complicated 
 question, and the demand for it consequently never became genu- 
 inely popular until it was identified with the simplest of all aspira- 
 tions — the non-payment of rent.
 
 ORIGIN OF DEMOCRATIC OPINION 223 
 
 question from the point of view of the many, we do ^"^^^ ^^^ 
 nothing but arrive at the same conclusion to which ^ 
 we were brought when we approached it from the 
 point of view of the few. We arrive, that is to say, 
 at the conclusion that, if we mean by government 
 the devising, the passing, and the administration 
 of this and of that measure, the genuine power of 
 the many, even under the most popular constitution, 
 becomes less and less in proportion as the greatness '^'^"^ the voice 
 
 . . , *-* of the many, 
 
 and the civilisation of the country increases. The in aii complex 
 voice of the many is heard as loudly as ever ; but tTrvoice of" 
 what guides the voice is not the personality that '^'^ ^^*' 
 seems to utter it. What guides it is a handful of 
 men, exceptionally active, though not always excep- 
 tionally wise. The voice is the voice of Jacob, 
 but the hands are the hands of Esau. 
 
 And here before pursuing the subject farther let 
 us look back for a moment, and consider the point 
 in our argument at which we have now arrived. 
 We have seen, then, that in the domain of modern 
 industrial activity the many, if we estimate the total 
 produced in terms of value, produce only an insig- . 
 nificant portion of the total. We have seen that in 
 the domain of intellectual and speculative progress 
 the many literally produce or achieve nothing. We 
 have seen that in the devising and administration 
 of governmental measures the many are powerful in 
 proportion as the issues are exceptionally simple 
 — that is to say, in proportion as they are few and 
 far between. 
 
 Now the reader may think that this brings us to
 
 224 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III the ej^(j Qf QUI- inquiry ; but it only brings us to the 
 
 beginning of what is really the important part of it. 
 
 This, however, For though these conclusions, so far as they go, are 
 
 is not the end ii-i 11 ^^ r ^ 
 
 of the matter, absolutely truc, they by no means dispose of the 
 whole question which is before us, nor do they 
 really reduce the social power of the many to such 
 small dimensions as they at first sight seem to do. 
 Thus speculative knowledge, though the many con- 
 tribute nothing to its progress, itself contributes 
 nothing to progress until the many are affected by 
 it, and respond somehow to its stimulus ; economic 
 production, when regarded merely as an affair of 
 quantity or as an accumulation of values — a process 
 in which the part played by the many is humble — 
 
 for the details docs not represent that process in its true social 
 
 of govern- , ... ^^ . 
 
 mental entirety; nor is civil government wholly an affair 
 
 measures are 
 
 iiiccuiui c:> ixic f 1*1 1*11* 1 11 
 
 not the whole 01 mcasurcs which are devised, discussed, amended, 
 of government, (jgniandcd, opposcd, carHcd, or rejected from year 
 to year. We shall find, accordingly, that, in spite of 
 what has just been said, there is room in social life 
 for the operation of the genuine will of the many — 
 of pure, spontaneous, and unadulterated democracy. 
 We shall find that the power of this will, though it 
 is in certain directions incalculably less than it is 
 at present generally believed to be, is paramount in 
 domains where its action is not generally recognised 
 The true at all; and the nature of its action here will throw 
 
 power of , 
 
 democracy is 3. remarkable light on the nature of all action which 
 reiiglonand"in is in a truc scusc dcmocratic. Of the domains of 
 family hfe. activity hcrc referred to, the most important are 
 those of religion and family life.
 
 RELIGION AND THE AVERAGE MAN 225 
 
 Every religion, regarded as a body of doctrines ^°°^ "^ 
 and observances, with the special habits of mind 
 and dispositions of the heart which are appropriate -^A^g^^Jof 
 to them, which has ever influenced great masses of '''^ g'^^at man 
 
 ., . .in religion is 
 
 mankind, is mainly a result of pure democratic action, enormous, 
 It is true that in the establishment of the great 
 religions of the world another agency has played a 
 great part also. In no other sphere has the influence 
 of great individuals been so vast and so far-reaching 
 as in this. The mere mention of such personages 
 as Christ, Buddha, and Mahomet will make us realise 
 that such is the case ; and to these we may add the 
 missionaries, saints, and theologians who have spread y^t religions 
 
 '-' ^ have only 
 
 and explained the respective gospels entrusted to grown and 
 them, and given by their saintly lives examples of cL^JIhey 
 the value of their teaching. But whilst nowhere is S7hVave?ag? 
 the power of the few — of the very few — more '"^"• 
 conspicuous than in the domain of religion, nowhere 
 is the power of the many more conspicuous also. 
 No religion has ever grown, become established, and 
 influenced the lives of men unless its doctrines and 
 its spirit have appealed to those wants of the heart 
 and soul which have been shared, to a degree 
 approximately equal, by all members of the commu- 
 nities, nations, or races amongst whom the religion 
 in question has become established. 
 
 The truth of this statement is not in the least Christianity 
 
 exemphnes 
 
 invalidated if we apply it to a religion which we as- this fact; 
 sume to have been supernaturally revealed. Indeed, 
 the clearest example of its truth may be found in the 
 phenomenon of Christianity. Whether we attrib- 
 »5
 
 226 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III ute the doctrines of Christianity to a natural or a 
 
 Chapter 2 ... ,,,... 
 
 supernatural source, it will be equally plain in either 
 case that they have found acceptance amongst men 
 because there was something inherent in the nature 
 of each individual Christian which naturally responded 
 to them. Even the staunchest Protestant who takes 
 his stand most exclusively on the Bible will be unable 
 to deny that Protestant Christianity, as it exists, 
 represents not merely an assent to a number of bare 
 propositions uttered by Christ, or made with regard 
 to Him by His disciples, but also the subjective inter- 
 pretation given to these by each believer as he as- 
 sents to them. Thus the doctrine of the Atonement 
 would never have been accepted by men, it would 
 never even have conveyed any meaning to them, if 
 there had not been something in their nature corre- 
 sponding to a sense of sin ; and the universal effect 
 which, for a time at least, this doctrine had on all 
 the Western nations and on all classes alike, showed 
 that this something which corresponded with the 
 sense of sin was one of those characteristics in which 
 all men were approximately equal, and that the 
 acceptance of the doctrine was therefore a true act 
 of democracy, 
 and especially gut the clcarcst illustration of the truth thus 
 
 Catholicism. ... 
 
 insisted on is to be found, not amongst the vary- 
 ing and conflicting doctrines of Protestantism, which 
 represent theoretically the direct result of the re- 
 vealed truths of the Bible on each believer individu- 
 ally, but in Christianity as represented by the Church 
 of Rome. According to ordinary Protestant opinion,
 
 AVERAGE BELIEVER AND CATHOLICISM 227 
 the doctrines of the Church of Rome represent a 5°°'' "^ 
 
 . Chapter 2 
 
 structure built up by the misguided ingenuity of 
 
 priests, and imposed by them on a credulous and ^^yiaS'bv 
 
 passive laity ; but so far, at all events, as the the aristocracy 
 
 ■•• •' of Popes and 
 
 ncils 
 
 more important doctrines are concerned, the very counc 
 reverse is the case really. It has been the world amongsMhe 
 of ordinary believers that has imposed its beliefs JJJo" believer's. 
 on the priests; not the priests that have imposed 
 them on the world of ordinary believers. Let 
 us take, for instance, the Catholic doctrine of the 
 Eucharist, or the beliefs implied in the ctiltus of the 
 Virgin Mary. That the sacramental elements were 
 actually the body and blood of Christ, that the 
 Redeemer who died on the cross for each individual 
 sinner entered under the form of these elements 
 into each sinner's body — entered bearing the stripes 
 on it by which the sinner was healed, and mixing 
 with the sinner's blood the divine blood that had 
 been shed for him — this was the belief of the com- 
 mon unlettered communicant long before priests 
 and theologians had, by the aid of Aristotle, 
 explained the assumed miracle as a process of 
 transubstantiation ; and longer still before their 
 philosophic explanation was, by the ratification of 
 any general Council, given its place amongst the 
 definite teachings of the Church. Similarly, the 
 devotion to the Virgin Mary first sprang up amongst 
 the mass of believers naturally, because the idea of 
 God's mother, with all her motherly love, with all her 
 virgin purity, and with all her human sorrows allied 
 so closely to omnipotence, touched countless hearts
 
 2 28 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III in a way which was in all cases practically similar ; 
 
 Chapter 2 ' . 
 
 just as the offer of a helping hand would make a 
 
 similar appeal to each one of a multitude of men 
 
 drowning. The official teaching of the Church with 
 
 Theologians regard to the Virgin's sinlessness, and the degree of 
 
 and Councils » , . - . °- , , , , °, 
 
 merely worship which IS her due, has been the work, no 
 
 thrmateria"s doubt, of the few, uot of the many — of priests, of 
 
 them^^*'^ theologians, of Councils, of the spiritual aristocracy ; 
 
 but the doctrines which they have thus defined have 
 
 been no more fabricated by themselves than the 
 
 wines, good or bad, which a peasantry have made 
 
 for centuries, are made by the chemist of to-day, 
 
 who at last undertakes to analyse them. 
 
 Catholicism It has been said that the part which democracy 
 
 shows the great -iii r ^' ' • ^ 1 
 
 part played by plays m the dcvelopmcut 01 religion is shown us by 
 d^ariy becTuse the Church of Romc with greater distinctness than 
 Jj'^ P^'^j^P'^y^'^ it is by any other great communion of believers ; 
 defined by it and the rcason is that no other great communion of 
 believers shows us with so much precision the part 
 played by an aristocracy, and thus leaves the part 
 played by democracy with so sharply defined a 
 frontier. The Roman Church alone is in possession 
 of a complete machinery by which all the pious 
 opinions of the whole body of its members — the 
 opinions which have spontaneously shaped them- 
 selves in the minds of innumerable Christians as the 
 result of a multitude of independent spiritual experi- 
 ences, and which, when sufficiently manifested, have 
 been studied by various theologians, and reduced 
 by them to logical and coherent forms — shall 
 be finally submitted to one great representative
 
 RELIGIOUS DEMOCRACY A TYPE 229 
 
 Council. This Council considers how far they are ^°°^ "^ 
 
 . Chapter 2 
 
 consistent with doctrines already defined, and with 
 one another, and how far, explicitly or implicitly, 
 there is any warrant for them in the Scriptures. It 
 ends with rejecting some, whilst others are reconciled 
 and affirmed by it ; and then these last are added 
 to the authoritative teachings of the Church. But 
 the Council, with the Pope included in it, is nothing 
 more than a lens by which the rays originating in 
 the democracy of the faithful are focalised and made 
 to transmit a clear and coherent picture ; and the 
 Roman Catholic religion, regarded as a body of 
 doctrines which have actually influenced the spiritual 
 lives of men, is a magnified picture, projected, as 
 it were, upon the sky, of those secret but common 
 elements of the human mind and heart, in virtue of 
 which all men are supposed to be equal before God, 
 and which unite the faithful into one class, instead 
 of graduating them into many. 
 
 This analysis of what may be called the natural ca'^oiic'sm. 
 
 -' -' however, is 
 
 history of Catholicism may be thought, perhaps, only aiiuded to 
 
 ,,., '11 • '11 here because it 
 
 to have little appreciable connection with those illustrates the 
 
 • 1 'I'l 11 I'll. L. essential nature 
 
 social or sociological problems which at present of,ruiy demo- 
 agitate the world, and give to the theory of de- *="*'^ ^'=^'°"- 
 mocracy its main practical interest. But neither 
 Catholicism nor religion at large has been referred 
 to here for its own sake. They have been referred 
 to because the case of religion affords a singularly 
 clear illustration of the essential nature of democratic 
 action generally, because it helps us to understand 
 that action in the affairs of ordinary life, and
 
 230 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III because it shows us very vividly how democracy, 
 as a political power, operates outside the domain to 
 which it is popularly supposed to be confined.^ 
 Thus en- And now let us turn again to a nation's family 
 
 lightened by it ,. , ^• ^ I'li e 
 
 let us turn lifc, aud cousidcr it m the light which the case oi 
 back to family (^^^i^QiJcism throws ou the question of what, 
 essentially, democratic action is. The religious 
 life of a Catholic is meritorious only when the 
 beliefs and dispositions of heart which his religion 
 requires of him are spontaneous. No doubt they 
 may have been developed in him by some stimulus 
 from without, but it is essential that, when once 
 present in him, they should draw their life from 
 himself. A saint may rouse a sinner to repent- 
 ance, but the repentance in its minutest details 
 must be the sinner's own work. He must be his 
 own overseer, he must be his own taskmaster. In 
 economic production this is not so. A bricklayer 
 may contribute to the building of some exquisite 
 cathedral without any sympathy with the architect's 
 intentions, and indeed without any knowledge of 
 them ; but a man cannot be a true Christian unless 
 Christ's will becomes his, and unless the beliefs 
 suggested from without are seized on by his own 
 soul, and made a part of himself by his soul's spon- 
 
 * The political power of the religious beliefs of a community can 
 be seen at a glance when we consider our own government of India. 
 Our government there, in the ordinary sense of the word, is a govern- 
 ment of the few, not a government of the many ; and yet the religion 
 or religions of the many impose limitations on our legislators as strin- 
 gent as any that could be imposed on them by any number of formal 
 mandates.
 
 DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 231 
 
 taneous workinsrs. Thus the common religious ^°°^ '" 
 
 •^ , *^ Chapter 2 
 
 opinions of the mass of devout Catholics are, theo- 
 retically at all events, the sum of a number of inde- 
 pendent opinions, which agree because they result 
 from a number of similar but independent experi- Catholicism 
 
 ^ . shows that 
 
 ences. Here we have the essence of democratic democracy is a 
 
 1 J 1 • • 1 <■ 1 natural coinci- 
 
 action — namely, a natural coincidence ot conclu- dence of con- 
 sions, which happen to be identical, not because *=^"5'°"'- 
 those who hold them have allowed their thinking to 
 be done for them by the same thinkers, but because 
 with regard to the points in question they naturally 
 themselves think and feel identically. 
 
 Now the home or family lives of the citizens of '^•^ ^o'"* ''^« 
 
 -' ^ _ of a race 
 
 any race or nation owe their points of identity to depends on 
 essentially the same causes. They result from incidence, or 
 propensities in a vast multitude of men which, ousiHimi'i^ 
 although they are similar, are independent. The propensities, 
 structure of the family differs amongst different 
 races. Amongst some it is based on polygamy; 
 amongst others on monogamy ; but no matter what 
 its details in either case may be, the govern- 
 ment, however autocratic, accommodates itself to 
 the family life of the people, not the family life of 
 the people to the laws and the dictation of the 
 government. It will be enough to confine ourselves 
 to the Western or progressive races, amongst whom 
 family life has its basis in monogamy. Advocates 
 of socialism often distinctly say, and the principles 
 of socialism beyond all doubt require, that the 
 family, as now existing, shall be practically broken 
 up; and that whilst the union of the parents is
 
 232 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III made terminable with an ease unapproached at 
 
 Chapter 2 ... . 
 
 present, the multiplication of children shall be 
 regulated by State authority, and that the children 
 themselves shall be reared by the State rather than 
 by the parents. For both these arrangements there 
 are many obvious arguments, which are from the 
 point of view of the socialist quite unanswerable. 
 If the State binds itself to provide for all the children 
 that are born, it is bound to claim some control over 
 the number of them that shall be thrown on its 
 hands. If the State is to be the sole employer and 
 sole director of labour, it must settle the number of 
 children that shall be educated for each branch of 
 industry. If the solidarity of feeling requisite to 
 make socialism possible is ever to be obtained, it 
 can be obtained only by fusing into one those 
 family groups now so obstinately separate. But 
 here the socialists encounter one of their great 
 stumbling-blocks.^ In theory the advocates of the 
 extremest and most complete democracy, they are 
 baffled by the habits and character of the very masses 
 to whom they address themselves. There may be 
 unhappy homes, and there may be unnatural parents, 
 but the masses, as a whole, will not listen to any 
 proposal for invading the privacy of the home or 
 for tampering with the parental tie. Any average 
 
 ^ The Italian socialist, Giovanni Rossi, who attempted in 1890 
 to found a socialistic colony in Brazil (an attempt which completely 
 failed), attributes his failure largely to the tenacity with which his 
 followers clung to family life. " If I had the power," he writes, " to 
 banish the greatest afflictions of this world, plagues, wars, famines, 
 etc., etc., I would renounce it, if instead I could suppress the family."
 
 DEMOCRACY AND THE HOME 233 
 
 mother would, when it came to the point, tear out b°o^ ^^^ 
 the eyes of any socialist legislator who, under 
 pretext of increasing her weekly wages, should 
 seriously attempt to snatch her children out of her 
 arms. Similar resistance would be offered to any 
 attempt to modify, beyond certain limits, the institu- 
 tion of marriage, or to interfere in any way with the 
 habits of a people's home life. These habits give This truly 
 rise to legislation by the few, but they do not coincidence 
 originate in it. The legislation of the few, on the g°o'^ernments 
 contrary, has so to shape itself as to protect those datTth^"*"" 
 modes of life and institutions which these habits selves to it. 
 naturally produce ; and the laws that do this, no 
 matter who devises and administers them, come into 
 being under genuinely democratic dictation. It is 
 a genuinely democratic power which maintains them 
 unaltered, or imposes its own limits on any modifica- 
 tion of them which may be made. 
 
 The effects, however, of the natural similarities The same 
 of men's family lives are not to be found only in power deter- 
 the domain of laws and government. They confront ^ructure^ofour 
 us even more openly in the material surroundings *»o"ses, 
 of our existence, especially in the structure of the 
 dwellings of all classes except the lowest. The 
 detached cottage as well as the large mansion, the 
 row of cottages each with its separate door, and the 
 tenement of three rooms, are in one respect all alike. 
 They are constructed and arranged in accordance 
 with those propensities which keep the members of 
 the family group united, and each family group 
 separate from all others. Nor do matters end here ;
 
 234 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III for if the propensities which result in family life 
 
 Chapters r r r ^ ^ ^■^^ 
 
 affect the structure of the dwelling, other tastes or 
 propensities equally spontaneous determine what 
 commodities shall be put in it. It is true that these 
 tastes are different in different social classes; it is 
 and the furni- truc also that thev have not, so far as their details 
 
 ture and other , , 
 
 commodities are conccmed, as deep a root m our nature as 
 mthem; ^^^ propensities which give its character to the 
 family. They are stimulated, sustained, and modified 
 by constant suggestions from without, by circum- 
 stances, and by tastes which, within limits, vary 
 greatly ; but they are all alike in this, that when 
 they become efficient, or, in other words, take defi- 
 nite shape as a want, the want has become a part 
 of the man who feels it, and is for the time as 
 spontaneous as are the family instincts themselves, 
 and indeed on The influence, howcvcr, of men's spontaneous 
 
 all economic , .. .. .. 111 
 
 products. wants IS not confined to the house and household 
 appliances, but extends itself over the whole domain 
 of economic products. And here we are brought 
 back again to another portion of the ground which 
 we have already traversed. We are brought back 
 to the domain of economic production, but brought 
 back with eyes opened to a new order of facts. 
 
 Now before we proceed to a consideration of 
 these, let us recapitulate what has been said with 
 regard to this subject already. The main fact 
 which was dwelt upon in our previous examination 
 of it was the fact that in wealth-production all 
 but the earlier advances are due, both in their 
 achievement and their maintenance, to the few,
 
 SUPPLY DEPENDENT ON THE FEW 235 
 and to the few alone. The practical validity of this ^°°^ '^^ 
 
 . . •' Chapter s 
 
 reasoning has been shown in the preceding chapter, 
 and defended against the common objections sure to 
 be brought against it; and just now it was reinforced 
 incidentally when we were considering the influence 
 of the many on the doctrines of the Church of Rome ; 
 for whilst the essentially democratic origin of these 
 doctrines was insisted on, it was shown that the 
 religion of the Catholic democracy could have no 
 organic growth, no definition nor cohesion, without 
 the aristocracy of theologians and the machinery of 
 popes and councils. It was further pointed out ^°'^*^°"shin 
 
 ^ ••■ ^ ^ -^ ^ _ the process of 
 
 that if even in the development of religion the production 
 
 , . , . , . the many are 
 
 many are dependent on the exceptional powers of dependent on 
 the few, in the process of economic production *^^^^^ 
 they are incalculably more dependent. For whilst 
 Catholicism represents the ideas of the multitude, 
 analysed, perfected, and carried out by the few, 
 advanced economic production, such as the produc- 
 tion of a beautiful cathedral, represents the ideas of 
 the few carried out in partial or complete ignorance 
 by the multitude. 
 
 Attention must now be called to certain further 
 facts which constitute the final evidence of the truth 
 of the same conclusions. 
 
 The facts now referred to are those of con- (^ ^^^^ ^'"'^'^ 
 
 the powers of 
 
 temporary trade unionism. These are supposed by trade unionism 
 many of the trade unionists and their sympathisers mo^ 
 to show the growth of democratic power in the ^pp^'^^'^')- 
 domain of production generally. What they do in 
 reality is to exhibit its essential limitations. They
 
 236 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III show this in a way which is hidden from the careless 
 
 Chapter a , . , , . , . i • 1 t 
 
 thinker by a curiously inaccurate and misleading use 
 of language. Trade unionism is constantly described 
 as the organisation of Labour. In reality it is nothing 
 of the kind. It is an organisation of labourers ; and 
 that, as we shall see, is a totally different thing ; for 
 where labourers are spoken of under the collective 
 name of Labour, they are so spoken of with special 
 and exclusive reference to the phenomena which 
 they manifest when actually exerting themselves in 
 production. Were the same men organised for some 
 ethical or religious purpose, they would be spoken 
 of not as Labour, but as the National or Popular 
 Conscience. The organisation of Labour is the set- 
 ting men to perform a large variety of correlated 
 productive tasks, and prescribing to each man what 
 his own task shall be. But the organisation of 
 labourers that has been brought about by trade 
 unionism is of a precisely opposite kind, and has 
 a precisely opposite end. Its end is not production, 
 but the cessation of production ; not the prescribing, 
 the devising, and the allotting of tasks, but the taking 
 men away from them. In a word, it is the organisation 
 not of production, but of obstruction ; nor does the fact 
 that the trade unions have succeeded in organising 
 the latter give so much as a hint that they would 
 be able to organise the former. Even if they could 
 do so, it would be the leaders, not the men, that 
 performed the feat — a new race of employers 
 separating themselves from the body of the em- 
 ployed ; and this fact is oddly enough acknowledged
 
 DEMAND DEPENDENT ON THE MANY 237 
 
 by the very men who are apparently most blind to 
 it. For one of the arguments most frequently used 
 to show the practicability of industrial democracy is 
 based on the unusual ability manifested by the 
 officials of the trade unions in managing strikes and 
 great demonstrations of strikers. Must not these 
 men, it is asked, have very exceptional capacities 
 who can gather together their thousands at the 
 shortest possible notice, and march them into 
 Hyde Park through the crowded thoroughfares of 
 London ? And it is perfectly true that many of the 
 trade union leaders are, in their own way, men 
 with remarkable and exceptional characteristics. 
 But, in the first place, the more that their admirers 
 magnify them, the more do they detract from the 
 democratic character of trade unionism ; and in the 
 second place, if a man is necessarily exceptional 
 because he can so far organise some thousands of 
 men as to march them occasionally into an enclosure 
 where they walk about sucking oranges, how much 
 more exceptional must be the abilities that can 
 organise similar men, day after day, for the per- 
 formance of the most intricately adjusted tasks, in 
 such a way that their efforts shall result in an 
 Atlantic liner ! Trade unionism, then, whatever the 
 ability of its leaders, does not represent democratic 
 action in the actual process of economic production 
 at all ; and instead of pointing to any development of 
 such action in the future, merely helps to show us 
 that no such development is to be looked for. 
 
 Such being the case, then, the facts that now 
 
 Book in 
 Chapter 2
 
 238 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter 2 
 
 yet it is the 
 wants and 
 tastes of the 
 many which 
 determine 
 what shall be 
 produced ; 
 
 claim our attention will, when they are first stated, 
 wear an appearance of paradox; for though the 
 power of democracy, in the advanced processes of 
 production, is smaller than it is in any other kind 
 of social activity, abstract thought and discovery 
 alone excepted, yet it exercises an influence on 
 production none the less, which is as purely 
 democratic in character and as far-reaching in its 
 consequences as that which it has ever exercised 
 over the doctrines of any religion. 
 
 For what is the object of production ? It is the 
 satisfaction of human wants, which begin as needs, 
 and gradually develop into tastes. The multiplica- 
 tion of these needs, together with the satisfaction 
 of them, is what civilisation means ; and though 
 material wealth may increase, as it does in many 
 new countries, without any concurrent development 
 of civilisation in its higher forms, civilisation in its 
 higher forms cannot increase, and certainly cannot 
 diffuse itself throughout the community at large, 
 without a development in the means of material 
 production. Books, for example, though they are 
 vehicles of mental culture, are themselves economic 
 commodities, and depend for their accessibility to 
 the public on the same kind of industrial agencies 
 as do cotton, sugar, tobacco, and that comforter of the 
 nations — alcohol. Refinement of taste and feeling, 
 again, is largely diffused by pictures ; but the ac- 
 cessibility of any great picture to the vast majority 
 of any nation depends on the industrial processes by 
 which it can be cheaply and faithfully reproduced —
 
 DEMAND FOR COMMODITIES DEMOCRATIC 239 
 processes which have only of late years reached ^°^^ ^" 
 
 ^ ... ^ ^ Chapter 2 
 
 any sort of perfection. 
 
 But all the industrial ingenuity that great men have 
 ever possessed would be absolutely futile unless the 
 commodities they were employed in producing, or 
 the services they were employed in rendering, sat- and though 
 
 • /-•■ 1 ... . . . great men 
 
 istied tastes and wants existmg m various sections of eiidt these 
 the community. The eliciting of these wants, or the Zl^^x^mz^'' 
 development of these tastes, depends often on the *^^'"' 
 previous supply of the products or services that 
 minister to them. Thus the introduction of rail- 
 ways, of the electric telegraph, of the telephone, of 
 the electric light, preceded any popular demand for 
 them ; and many a great writer, according to the 
 well-known saying, has to create the taste by which 
 he is to be appreciated. But he could not create 
 the taste, or, in other words, make it actual, unless 
 it existed already in human nature as a potentiality, 
 any more than the producers of electric light could 
 make the general public anxious to have it in their 
 houses if mankind at large entertained no wish 
 whatever to do anything but sleep between the 
 hours of sunset and sunrise. The wants and tastes, 
 then, to which all production ministers, whether the wants 
 
 ... 1 1 • r r 1 themselves 
 
 common to all men, like the desire tor lood, or must be latent 
 
 in the nature 
 
 e many. 
 
 developed by influences from without, like the desire JJ ,h' 
 for telegraphic accommodation, are, when once they ^ndwhen 
 
 or J once aroused 
 
 are in existence, essentially democratic in their are essentially 
 
 . . democratic 
 
 nature. They are not like the movements 01 a phenomena. 
 mason, who constructs under an architect's order a 
 cathedral with the design of which he has nothing at
 
 240 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III all to do. They represent the uncontrolled prompt- 
 ings of the individual's own nature, and they affect 
 production, and dictate to the producers what they 
 shall produce, because they represent a spontaneous 
 similarity of taste amongst a multitude of individuals 
 living under similar circumstances. Here we have 
 the reconciliation of the seemingly contradictory 
 facts, that the power of the many over production 
 is at once paramount and small. 
 Thus, though Economic demand, thoutrh it owes most of its 
 
 economic sup- ... i • i i 
 
 piyisaristo- dcvelopmcnt to the few, is yet, when its develop- 
 no^rtlk demand ment has taken place, fundamentally democratic 
 dem^ocratic. ^^ ^^^ naturc. But, on the other hand, economic 
 supply, which not only ministers to existing wants, 
 but elicits new ones, tends ever more and more as 
 civilisation advances to depend on the action of the 
 few. For as wants increase there is required, in 
 order to satisfy them, a growing elaboration in the 
 methods and organisation of supply; and in pro- 
 portion as supply becomes more and more elabo- 
 rately organised, it becomes, from the necessities of 
 the case, less and less democratic. In the Middle 
 Ages, for instance, the only rich supplying class 
 consisted of merchants, because the exchange of 
 commodities, and the bringing them in the required 
 quantities to the proper markets, was a process 
 more complicated than the original processes of 
 producing them. Production has now become quite 
 as complicated as commerce ; and a manufacturing 
 aristocracy has developed itself equal in wealth to 
 rthe .commercial.
 
 DEMAND FOR COMMODITIES DEMOCRATIC 241 
 
 But thouorh supply thus depends on the domi- ^o^^^ ^^^ 
 
 r 1 r 1 • 1 r 11 • , , Chapter 2 
 
 nation of the few, and rises and falls with the 
 ability with which that domination is exercised, '^^^ "1°^* 
 
 , , '^, . gifted brewer 
 
 it is itself at the same time under the domina- cannot make 
 tion of the many. Some industrial genius may drink beer 
 make a colossal fortune by directing the labour of j|!2[^°"°* 
 some thousands of men to the production (let us 
 say) of a new species of beer; but his enterprise 
 will succeed only because millions of men like the 
 beer, and demand it under the direction of their own 
 taste alone. The tastes of the many, of course, 
 exhibit many varieties. Where a million men 
 demand beer, another million will demand whiskey ; 
 and there are many commodities, such as guns, golf 
 balls, and cricket bats, the demand for which is 
 confined to comparatively small classes. But the 
 point here insisted on is, not that every member of 
 the community demands the same commodities, 
 but that whatever commodities are demanded, are 
 demanded in each case in accordance with the 
 spontaneous wishes of individuals, and that the total 
 force of the demand is the cumulative result of a 
 number of actions and desires which happen to be 
 spontaneously similar. The commodities supplied 
 to them have, in other words, to be accommodated 
 to a genuinely democratic order ; and if the consum- 
 ing democracy does not consider them suitable, it 
 virtually, by refusing to buy them, condemns them 
 to be destroyed. Thus if we direct our attention to 
 consumption, the few — the directors of industry — 
 are the servants of the many ; though if we direct 
 
 i6
 
 242 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III our attention, as we did previously, to production, the 
 many, in the capacity of workers, are the servants or 
 subjects of the few. 
 Nowin politics ^^^ j^Q^ let yg i-uj-j^ ba^,]^ to the domain of 
 
 also there is a 
 
 similar demand poHtics. Wc shall find that wc do SO posscssed of 
 
 and supply ; ^ i r i 
 
 a new clue to the true nature and extent of the 
 powers of the many there. For we shall find that 
 in civil government, just as in economic production, 
 the process involved is a process of supply and 
 demand ; and that whilst there is a certain kind of 
 political demand in respect of which the many are 
 paramount, and act as a true democracy, their 
 power in the business of supply is never more than 
 partial, and is in most cases illusory, 
 but the truly The first poiut of which we must here take 
 demand in noticc is this — that though the analogy between 
 
 politics is not • i j.* ^ • •^ x. • 
 
 for laws. economic production and civil government is a 
 genuine one, it is not to be found in the phenom- 
 ena in which we should naturally be tempted to 
 look for it. What we should naturally be inclined 
 to do would be to take the demand for laws and 
 policies as the counterpart to the demand for 
 commodities, and the framing of such laws and 
 the carrying out of policies as the counterpart to 
 economic supply; the first of these, like the demand 
 for commodities, being simple and spontaneous ; the 
 second difficult, like the manufacture of them. But 
 in arguing thus we should be wrong. 
 
 The demand for laws and policies is, as we 
 have seen already, by no means a simple thing, 
 like the demand, let us say, for a particular kind
 
 DEMAND FOR RESULTS AND FOR MEANS 243 
 
 of beer ; nor is it the true counterpart to such a "Book ni 
 
 demand; for the beer is demanded for its own 
 
 sake, but laws and policies are not. They are "^"^^ ^^'"a"'' 
 
 , 1 1 f If • . , for laws is not 
 
 demanded for the sake of certam results on social the counter- 
 life which, by various processes of reasoning, those demrncTfor 
 who demand them have been led to believe that ^°'""'od'<'". 
 
 for commodi- 
 
 they will produce ; and it is the results of laws and ^'^^ ^""^ '^^■ 
 
 ,.. ,, .... , ,. manded for 
 
 policies, not the laws and policies themselves, which their own 
 are in the political sphere what commodities are in the sawf"'^ 
 the economic, and for which alone the demand is '^^"' '^""'^** 
 purely and genuinely democratic. The multitudes of 
 men who were led to demand the abolition of the 
 corn laws were not led to do so because the 
 actual process of abolishing them was profitable 
 or pleasurable in itself, but because they believed 
 it would mean a larger loaf on their breakfast- 
 tables. It was in the demand for the loaf that the 
 many were spontaneously unanimous, and expressed 
 their own views, not those of anybody else. Their 
 unanimity in demanding the measure was produced 
 by the arguments of an intellectual oligarchy, and 
 could not have been produced without them. 
 Thus whilst the demand for the larger loaf was The demand 
 equivalent to a demand for a particular kind of a demand that 
 beer, the demand for the law was equivalent to a sh^uki^be"^^ 
 demand that the brewer should employ some novel ^^^^ I^^^T! 
 
 A •'_ ^ special kmd of 
 
 appliances for brewing, with the merits of which machinery, 
 they were acquainted only through the puffs and 
 explanations of the patentee. 
 
 There is therefore a great difference between 
 political demand and economic. Economic demand
 
 244 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III is single ; political demand is double : and whilst 
 
 Chapter 2 ^ . . 
 
 one part of political demand — namely, the demand 
 No one makes for social results — corrcsponds with economic de- 
 
 this latter '■ 
 
 demand. mand, or the demand of the consumer for com- 
 mandTiingle; modities, the other part of political demand — 
 demand is namely, the demand for particular measures — does 
 double. jjq|- correspond with economic demand at all, but 
 
 is, on the contrary, in contrast to it. For when 
 workmen's wives buy some particular make of 
 calico for their husband's shirts, or when cyclists 
 buy some particular kind of tyre for their bicy- 
 cles they do so because they approve of the quali- 
 ties which those goods manifest when in use, 
 not because they approve of the machinery by 
 Political de- which the goods were made. But in politics, 
 
 mocracy is vul- ^ • i-i • i ^ r ^• • ^ 
 
 gariy identified although thcrc IS likcwisc a demand tor political 
 
 with the de- -, t r . i • . i 
 
 mand, not for goods, as such, — for social sccurity, personal pros- 
 buTfor^°°'^^* psi"ity, and so forth, — of which each man is natu- 
 machinery. rally his own judgc, just as those who use them are 
 of the tyres or calico, and although statesmen and 
 governments are frequently supported by the nation, 
 not because they have carried this measure or that, 
 but because the political goods supplied by them are 
 on the whole satisfactory, yet the political demand 
 which is supposed to be the special characteristic of 
 democracies is not a demand for the completed 
 goods, but a demand that this or that patent shall 
 be used in the hope of producing them. 
 
 Now political patents are most of them highly 
 complicated devices ; the action of all of them is de- 
 pendent on a complication of circumstances ; and they
 
 DEMOCRACY AS A DEMAND FOR MEANS 245 
 are always the work of a special class of inventors. ^^°^ "^ 
 
 T"! 1 • M • 1 Chapter 2 
 
 rhey never represent the spontaneously similar ideas 
 of the mass of ordinary men, any more than the ^"' '" ^^ ^'^'' 
 
 1 • 1 ^^ democracy 
 
 machinery used in a great brewery represents the is a demand 
 spontaneously similar ideas of the happy and united butfor^°° ^ 
 customers whom a spontaneously similar taste ™no^t'pureiy' 
 leads to the same tied house. All that the many democratic. 
 can do with regard to these political patents is 
 to listen to the accounts of them given by the 
 patentees, their agents, and their travellers, and to 
 make the best choice they can between a number of 
 different contrivances which they have had no share 
 in devising, and which they only partially under- 
 stand. They are, indeed, in much the same 
 position in which that portion of the public would 
 be placed which travels habitually between London 
 and Glasgow, if it were asked to decide by its 
 votes which of five kinds of reversing gear should 
 be made use of on the London and North Western 
 engines. If this question had really to be decided 
 by vote, the public might so far instruct itself by 
 lectures from the competing inventors as to give The demands 
 votes for this contrivance or for that ; but the very are manipu- 
 grounds on which its choice was formed would be J^J^^^ ^^ '^^ 
 obviously supplied to it by others ; its choice would 
 be limited by the number of the contrivances before 
 it, and the part spontaneously played by it in the 
 whole transaction would be small. And yet, as has 
 just been said, it is the making of a choice of this 
 kind that is regarded as being, in the domain of 
 politics, typically, if not exclusively, the exercise of
 
 246 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III ti^e power of the many. The result is that, whilst 
 the many do in reality exert, through their spon- 
 taneously similar demand for certain social results, 
 an influence on legislation which in certain respects 
 is paramount, the political theorist, neglecting this 
 fact altogether, confines himself to asserting their 
 Why. then, powcr in the demand for political means — the kind 
 
 is democracy '■ , ■*• . 
 
 specially asso- of demand in respect of which they are most 
 
 ciated with the • r\ 11 i 1 
 
 demand in miluenced by others. 
 
 powtli? least? ^^^ what, let US ask, is the explanation of this 
 fact-f* How does it come that in government a 
 power is attributed to the many which is, even by 
 recent socialists, not attributed to them in economic 
 production ? The reason is that over the processes 
 of economic production the many can exercise no 
 control at all, but that over the devising of govern- 
 mental measures they can exercise some, which, 
 though absolutely small, is yet, by comparison, 
 large. 
 
 Because it is Thus, for instancc, thous:h the structure and 
 
 the only sphere _ _ "-^ , 
 
 of activity in manufacture of watches is in one sense determmed 
 many can by the many, because the manufacture of those 
 th'e^mldillll^ watches only can be continued permanently which 
 of supply at satisfy the many, and which the many will consent 
 to buy, it would be impossible for any watchmaker 
 to produce good watches at all if his workmen 
 were constantly required to be altering or readjust- 
 ing the escapements in order to introduce some 
 " dodge " devised by any man in the street. But in 
 politics this is not the case. The influence of the 
 men in the street, though it can exert itself through
 
 DEMAND FOR MEANS IN POLITICS 247 
 
 exceptional men only, and is consequently not ^°°*' ^'^ 
 
 wholly their own, does continually make itself felt 
 
 in law-making as it does not make itself felt in 
 
 watchmaking ; and yet the conduct of government 
 
 is not rendered impossible, whereas the making of 
 
 the watches would be. Indeed, in very many cases 
 
 is not even rendered unsatisfactory. 
 
 For this peculiarity in politics there are three ^nd they can 
 
 interfere with 
 
 reasons. One is that the connection between meas- it here because 
 ures and the general welfare of the community is polificar^ ° 
 by no means so close or immediate as the con- ^r^"''?^"' °° 
 
 •' _ life are less 
 
 nection between a watchmaker's tool and the wheel ^lose and less 
 
 . • 1*11 1 • • o • 1 rr important than 
 
 or pmion to which he applies it. Social eiiects the effects of 
 follow on measures slowly, and the tendencies of bad m"anaglment 
 measures are neutralised by other causes, fhe on business; 
 second reason is that, as Mr. Spencer rightly in- 
 sists — agreeing in this judgment with the wisdom 
 of Dr. Johnson — the social ills which governments 
 " can cause or cure " are far less numerous than 
 many thinkers imagine ; and the third reason is 
 one with which we are already familiar, that the 
 power of the many in determining what measures 
 shall be adopted is, although not an illusion, less 
 considerable than it appears to be. But whatever 
 their power in this respect, the great point to and in any 
 
 «••« ca- , C3S6 tne &p* 
 
 remember is that it cannot exert itself or exist parent power 
 for any practical purpose unless the few provide even h^elfon- 
 it with the means of doing so, any more than aj^^"^^^^^^* 
 rudder has power to guide a ship unless some 
 other power shall have set the ship in motion. 
 The popular demand for measures, or the popular
 
 248 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III choice between them, alike presupposes the few who 
 
 Chapter 2 . ..... 
 
 will make the supply a possibility. 
 The power of And if the power of the many over supply is 
 
 the many is a ^, .•' ... 
 
 power to thus limited even in the domain of politics, in the 
 
 determine the , ., . ■, ,- •, • I'-.i 
 
 quality of domain of economic production it is more limited 
 progrestnoT'^ Still, and in the domain of intellectual progress it is 
 to produce absolutcly non-existent. Their true power is in 
 their demand for completed results — for knowledge 
 which they can assimilate, for dogmas logically 
 stated, which reveal to them clearly what they 
 already believe dimly, for food they can enjoy, for 
 clothes that please their eyes, for commodities and 
 appliances that minister to their comfort and con- 
 venience, for social security, for freedom, and for 
 personal and national prosperity. In other words 
 the truth, when properly understood, is a truism. 
 The many are all powerful in determining the quality 
 of progress and civilisation because it is their own 
 tastes and wants to which civilisation must minister, 
 and their own qualities which civilisation must draw 
 out ; but of initiating civilisation, of advancing it, or 
 even maintaining it, the many are absolutely in- 
 capable unless they have the few to guide them. 
 They contain within themselves the things that 
 have to be developed, but they cannot themselves 
 provide themselves with the conditions of their own 
 development. Without the few to assist them they 
 could no more progress than a train of railway 
 carriages could progress in the absence of the 
 locomotive. 
 
 It is impossible, however, to state these conclu-
 
 THE MANY DEPENDENT ON THE FEW 249 
 sions plainly without realising: that in some quarters ^ook in 
 
 . 1 , . . .„ 1 1 , . . Chapter 2 
 
 Violent objections will be taken to them ; nor is it 
 difficult to see on what grounds the objections will 
 rest. These shall accordingly be discussed in the 
 next chapter; and it shall be shown that the con- 
 clusions to which our inquiry has brought us thus 
 far really contain in them nothing inconsistent with 
 the sentiments, or incompatible with the objects, of 
 even, those extreme reformers who will certainly feel 
 impelled to attack them.
 
 It will be ob- 
 jected that the 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE QUALITIES OF THE ORDINARY, AS OPPOSED TO 
 THE GREAT, MAN 
 
 The objections which will be taken to the con- 
 conciusions clusion arrived at in the preceding chapter resolve 
 
 reached in the . r i • i 
 
 last chapter thcmselvcs into two groups, one of which rests on 
 
 derogate from , ■, , ^ • j^ i • i 
 
 the dignity of gcncral and more or less sentimental considera- 
 
 man^''^'^^*^ tions, the other on practical. We will deal with the 
 
 former first. 
 
 This group of objections will, by those persons 
 
 who entertain them, be probably first expressed 
 
 in an outburst of fine indignation at the wrong 
 
 which the conclusions just epitomised do to the 
 
 average man ; for such persons will at once take 
 
 them as implying that the average man is a 
 
 miserable and helpless creature with only enough 
 
 intelligence to carry out blindly the orders which 
 
 his betters are condescending enough to give 
 
 him; and this implication will strike them as a 
 
 wanton insult. They will think over various men 
 
 in private and humble life who were never thought 
 
 by themselves or others to be above the average 
 
 level, but who yet were gifted with intelligence, 
 
 250
 
 MEANING OF TERM ORDINARY MAN 251 
 
 taste, and skill equal to any possessed by the men ^^^^ ^" 
 who are called great. They will reflect that these 
 men represent not the few, but the many ; and they 
 will angrily reject a theory which frankly denies to 
 the many any of those forces which specifically 
 make for progress. 
 
 But this class of objections, which was already ^ut they do 
 
 I'ni 1 1 ' ^ ' 1 "°* really do 
 
 briefly glanced at when we were considermg the so; 
 precise points by which the great man is dis- 
 tinguished from the average man, will disappear 
 altogether when we take the matter conversely and 
 consider the precise points in which the average 
 man differs from the great man. 
 
 In any discussion that aims at scientific precision for since the 
 
 . . . .... , great man, as 
 
 it IS necessary to give to the principal terms used a here techni- 
 far more definite meaning than is given to them JJ" mln^who '^ 
 when they are used ordinarily ; for most words when '"^"^"^^s 
 
 •' -' ' others so as 
 
 used ordinarily have several meanings, but when used to promote 
 
 1 • 11 1 1 1 A progress, 
 
 technically they must have only one. Any term, 
 then, when used technically will of necessity specifi- 
 cally exclude a number of ideas — and it may be very 
 important ones — which are frequently attached to it 
 when it is used in conversation or general literaturie. 
 This observation, as the reader will readily perceive, 
 has a special application to our use of the term^r^<a;/ 
 man. The greatness of the great man, regarded as 
 an agent of progress, is a quality, as has been said, 
 which is to be measured by its overt results; and 
 its overt results consist of, and are brought about 
 by, not what he does in his own person, but what 
 he makes others do. It is needless to insist upon
 
 25* ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III this truth again, as it has been explained at great 
 
 length already, and it is impossible that any reader 
 
 can misunderstand it. What it is necessary for us 
 
 here to explain and insist upon is its converse — 
 
 the ordinary namely, that if the essence of technical greatness is 
 
 man, as ' r\ ^ ' iiri 
 
 opposed to so to mfluence the actions or thoughts of other men 
 
 b^'tupid. "°' fhat the productivity of human labour is increased 
 
 or the scope of human thought enlarged, no man is 
 
 technically great who is not in this way influential. 
 
 When we come to reflect closely on this definition, 
 
 some of the results will strike us as not a little 
 
 curious ; for if we exclude from the class of great 
 
 He is merely mcn and rclcgatc to the class of ordinary men all 
 
 talents do not thosc whosc grcatucss bcgins and ends with them- 
 
 effiSncy of sclvcs, and docs not tend to communicate itself to 
 
 other men. ^^y Qj^g bcsidc themsclvcs, SO as to make others 
 
 think or act more efficiently than they would unaided, 
 
 ordinary men, or the many, in our present technical 
 
 sense of the words, will include a number of men of 
 
 the most brilliant capacities and accomplishments. 
 
 Poets, in this Th^ ercatcst Docts, for iustance, will in this way 
 
 technical sense, '-' '■ ^ _ , -' 
 
 are ordinary bc classcd as Ordinary men, whilst the inventor of 
 machinery for making good boots cheaply will be 
 classed as a great man. And the reason is as 
 follows. A great inventor is great as an agent of 
 progress because when the apparatus invented by 
 him is in process of being manufactured, and a 
 thousand workmen are shaping or multiplying its 
 separate parts, or again, when ten thousand other 
 workmen are using the machines when completed, 
 he makes each workman do precisely what he would
 
 SKILL NOT A KIND OF GREATNESS 253 
 do himself if he were performino: their several tasks ^^^'^ ^" 
 
 '■ '-' Chapter 3 
 
 actually with his own hands. But a great poet — 
 let us say Shakespeare — could not in a similar way 
 so influence a thousand ordinary writers that they 
 should all of them be producing plays like Macbeth 
 or Hamlet. Indeed, the greater the poet is, the 
 more absolutely incommunicable is his gift. Shake- 
 speare may have so far contributed to progress as to 
 have aided in the development of literary English 
 generally, but he has not, in the course of some three 
 hundred years, brought into existence one drama- 
 tist comparable to himself.^ In art, in fact, after a 
 certain point has been passed, it can hardly be said 
 that there is any progress at all. 
 
 It is still more important to observe that what is so are the most 
 
 . *• skilful manual 
 
 true of the arts is also true of the crafts, or, in other workers, 
 words, those kinds of manual work whose special char- 
 acteristic is rare personal skill. Manual skill, though 
 essential to material progress no less than unskilled 
 labour is, does not, except during the earlier stages 
 of civilisation, itself constitute an actively progres- 
 sive principle. That is to say, at a very early stage 
 in the development of productive industry manual 
 skill reaches its utmost limits, and thenceforward re- 
 mains stationary, whilst industry continues to pro- 
 gress. Thus the skill which is evidenced by the 
 
 ^ Of course the great poet, like the great religious teacher, may 
 have an effect on the thoughts and imaginations of his readers, and 
 he may be a great man or an agent of progress in this way. But he 
 is not, in the technical sense of the word, a great man in reference to 
 his own art. He does not promote progress amongst other poets.
 
 254 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III orem-enscravino; of the Greeks and Romans has rarely 
 
 Chapters ° ° ^ . . , , 
 
 been equalled since, and has certainly never been 
 surpassed. But we need not stop short at the 
 antiquity of the Greeks and Romans. Many of the 
 implements made by the prehistoric lake-dwellers 
 could not, so far as mere manual workmanship is 
 concerned, be better made by any workman or 
 mechanic of to-day. Indeed, so far is the progress 
 of material civilisation from depending on or coin- 
 for very great cidino: with auv prosfrcss in manual skill, that it 
 
 manual skill ,, , / • • i r i 
 
 does not pro- actually dcpcuds on a getting rid of the necessity, 
 ^r°infCce"^ Hot Certainly of all skill, but of skill of the rarer 
 others, kinds. If any machine, for example, depended for 
 
 its successful operation on an accurate finish in 
 certain essential parts which only one workman in 
 half a million could give, such a machine would be 
 practically almost worthless. A productive machine 
 is of use in the service of society generally in pro- 
 portion as the machines or processes by which it is 
 itself manufactured obviate the necessity for any 
 skill in manufacturing it beyond such as can be 
 obtained with considerable ease and constancy. 
 
 Many sentimentalists — and it is difficult not to 
 sympathise with them — regret the manner in which 
 manufacture is thus superseding craftsmanship, or 
 that kind of production in which the beauty or 
 excellence of the product is the direct result and 
 expression of the skill of one producer. But this 
 natural regret, though most frequently expressed 
 by socialists, is defensible only on grounds of the 
 narrowest social exclusiveness. That the artist-
 
 PROGRESS AND CRAFTSMANSHIP 255 
 
 craftsman who gives his talents directly to each par- ^oo'^ ^" 
 ticular commodity in the production of which he is 
 concerned — a silver cup, or a lamp, or a curiously- 
 designed carpet, or a printed volume — will produce 
 objects having a charm which is wanting in similar 
 objects produced by the methods of the manufacturer 
 is, no doubt, true. But great artist-craftsmen being 
 few in number, the beautiful objects they make by 
 the craftsman's methods are few in number also, and 
 are consequently obtainable by a few persons only ; 
 whilst the objects inferior, but approximately similar 
 to them, which the great manufacturer multiplies in 
 indefinite quantities, are accessible to the many, 
 who, under any social system, must either have 
 these or have nothing of the kind at all. An artist- 
 craftsman, for example, such as the late Mr. 
 William Morris, or a transcriber and illuminator in 
 a mediaeval monastery, could produce a volume 
 indefinitely more beautiful than any product of the 
 steam printing-press ; but a book which the methods 
 of the manufacturer would admit of being sold for 
 sixpence might cost, if produced by the craftsman, 
 twice that number of pounds ; and it is easy to see 
 that, supposing a study of the Bible to be desirable, 
 a village comprising four hundred and eighty families 
 would be benefited more by each family having a 
 sixpenny Bible of its own than it would by the exist- 
 ence of one sumptuous copy chained to a desk in the 
 village church or reading-room. 
 
 Rare manual skill, in short, does not promote 
 progress, or help to maintain civilisation at any
 
 256 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III oriven level, unless it can metamorphose itself — 
 
 Chapters » . ' . ^ 
 
 as m many cases it can do by means of patterns 
 unless it can or otherwisc — into a series of orders which men 
 
 be metamor- 1 1 1 1 -ii 
 
 phosedinto who havc Icss SKill Can execute, and thus affects 
 orders^gfvrn to commodltics uot directly, but indirectly. So long 
 others. ^g jj. j-esides in exertions of the craftsman's hand, 
 
 applied directly to each commodity produced, it has 
 on the progress of the arts generally no effect at all. 
 The man or men who invented the slide rest com- 
 municated a new power to every one of the in- 
 numerable artisans now using it ; but an artisan 
 who should produce exceptionally accurate work, 
 owing to the exceptional accuracy and steadiness of 
 his own hand, could no more add anything to the 
 faculties of even one of his fellows than a beautiful 
 woman can, by means of her own beauty, improve 
 the eyes, nose, or hair of her plainer sisters. 
 Material progress, then, as has just been said, is 
 so far from being dependent on the growth of rare 
 manual skill that it takes place in proportion as the 
 necessity for such skill is eliminated. 
 Again, brill- And now let US tum from the consideration of 
 
 iance or charm 
 
 in private life humau capacitics, as applied to and expressing 
 m°oTe°progress. thcmselvcs in the production of particular com- 
 modities or results, and consider them as they 
 reveal themselves in ordinary life and conversation. 
 We shall find ourselves confronted by a similar set 
 of facts here. We shall see that many of the talents 
 and qualities which, when possessed by our friends 
 or by ourselves, elicit our strongest admiration, and 
 give an interest to human nature, do nothing to
 
 DIGNITY OF THE ORDINARY MAN 257 
 
 advance or to maintain civilisation at all. No one, ^^^'^ "^ 
 for example, who knows anything of English society 
 will deny that conversational wit is one of the rarest 
 faculties to be met with in it, and earns for its 
 possessor the reputation of an exceptionally brilliant 
 man; but its possession by one man does not cause 
 its existence in others. The wit leaves the rest of 
 society precisely where he found it. The same is 
 the case with private goodness and wisdom. They 
 may indeed affect an exceedingly small circle, but 
 there is in their influence nothing certain or lasting. 
 The most highly moral parents have often the most 
 dissipated sons ; it requires almost as much wisdom 
 to take sound advice as to give it; even if the 
 sensible and the excellent exert a good influence on 
 their own friends, they have no tendency to inaugu- 
 rate any general moral advance ; and a man whose 
 life is rendered interesting by an exceptionally ro- 
 mantic passion may illustrate the capacities of 
 human nature, but he does nothing to expand them. 
 
 It will thus be seen that when we describe the Therefore the 
 
 '. e 1*1 1' r ' ' t ordinary men, 
 
 majority or mankmd as bemg so far passive with who do not 
 regard to the production of progress that unless PJesTlre^not 
 there were a minority of men with faculties which fsserted to be 
 
 ... ... lacking m high 
 
 the majority do not possess, no progress or civilisa- qualities. 
 tion would take place at all, we are not declaring 
 that the larger part of mankind are stupid, foolish, 
 unskilful, or void of resource, or that human nature 
 as exemplified in the normal man or woman is 
 not often noble and beautiful, and is not always 
 interesting. On the contrary, the very reverse is the 
 17
 
 «S8 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III case. What is really interesting: in human life and 
 
 Chapters . . , . i i • i i 
 
 in human nature is the universal and typical elements 
 in it, not the exceptional; and we can show ourselves 
 the truth of this in a very convincing way by looking 
 into the mirror that is held up to nature by art. 
 Indeed what is Thc most famous and interesting characters to be 
 
 really interest- , . - . • i i i 11 
 
 ing in human fouud in hction or lu the drama, though they may 
 t"ypk;al part^of havc bccn iuvcstcd by their creators with exceptional 
 It, not the circumstances and endowed with exceptional gifts, 
 
 exceptional, ^ o ' 
 
 have interested and appealed both to the world and 
 their creators through the qualities and experiences 
 which they share with human beings generally, not 
 through those which may incidentally make them 
 peculiar. Very few men, for example, are as 
 intellectual as Hamlet; but Hamlet has interested 
 the world because, as has been well said of him, 
 he is not " a man," but " man." If a great dramatist 
 or novelist makes his heroes exceptional, he does so 
 only because he can, by this device, more easily give 
 a magnified representation of what is universal ; and 
 as we may see the uuivcrsal clcmcnts which he magnifies excite 
 
 by referring to ... , , 1 m • 1 
 
 art and poetry, uuivcrsal intcrcst, not bccause they are exhibited 
 on more than a common scale, but because they are 
 thus exhibited with a more than common clearness. 
 What are the most beautiful love-poems that have 
 made their writers immortal but an expression of 
 what is felt by millions, though it can be expressed 
 only by a few ? Why is there life still in the two 
 marriage songs of Catullus, if it were not for the 
 living strings in the normal human heart which the 
 magic of his hand still touches }
 
 ARISTOTLE ON THE AVERAGE MAN 259 
 But not only is the normal man the type of what b°°'' 'i^ 
 
 . . . , . . , -'.,,. Chapter 3 
 
 IS mterestmg and important m humanity. He is 
 also the type of wise conduct in life, and secures 
 amongst men in general a conformity to this con- 
 duct, not by means of advice given by exceptionally 
 excellent individuals, but by the purely democratic 
 pressure of cumulative class opinion. The force 
 which this opinion exercises is commonly called 
 " The World." The details of its injunctions and Average 
 
 1 •! 'i' yrr , • ^• rr 1 1 opinion also on 
 
 prohibitions are dirierent in diiierent classes; and sodai matters 
 when it is called " The World," reference is usually daS^thTwise 
 being made to the pressure exercised by it in°P™°"! 
 the highest classes only. But this limitation of 
 meaning is altogether arbitrary. Every class is 
 " The World," so far as regards itself. It has 
 its own standards of manners, honour, prudence, 
 dress, and also of moral judgment as applied to 
 social conduct; and it is in respect of all of them 
 incalculably wiser than most individuals who differ 
 from it. In social life even the greatest genius is 
 ridiculous, in so far as he is unusual in anything 
 except his greatness. 
 
 It is, moreover, the same cumulative common and the 
 sense, the same spontaneous identity of perception fiesTSred^"" 
 on the part of ordinary men, that forms, as Aristotle oL^sense'the 
 says, the fundamental test of what is real. The ^"^ °^ ^''"'h. 
 world of reality is distinguished from the world of 
 dreams because the former is the same for all men. 
 It is 6 Trao-t Sofcet. The same fact is the foundation 
 and the justification of trial by jury — an institution 
 in which, as Sir Henry Maine has observed, we
 
 26o 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter 3 
 
 Therefore in 
 denying to 
 average men 
 the powers 
 that produce 
 progress, 
 
 we are not 
 degrading the 
 average man. 
 We are merely 
 asserting that 
 these powers 
 form but a 
 small part of 
 life. 
 
 have the very abstract and essence of all practicable 
 democratic government. 
 
 It is true that even here we are brought sharply 
 back again to those limitations by which the powers 
 of the normal man are surrounded. The jury, who 
 represent the normal man's intelligence, require, as 
 Sir Henry Maine points out, to have the facts on 
 which they are to base their judgment, in exact pro- 
 portion as these are obscure or complicated, reduced 
 to order for them by advocates whose powers are 
 more than normal. It is also true that, though 
 it is the identity of ordinary men's perceptions 
 which shows the reality and the qualities of ex- 
 ternal objects, ordinary men's perceptions would 
 never have sufhced to show us that the earth was 
 not the centre of the universe, and that the sun 
 did not move round it. But the true moral of all 
 that has been just insisted on is, that in denying to 
 the masses of mankind those special powers which 
 actively initiate and actively promote progress, and 
 actively sustain the fabric of advanced civilisation, 
 we are not denying to the masses of mankind great 
 moral and great intellectual qualities generally. 
 We are not asserting that the normal, the average, 
 the ordinary man is incapable of being developed 
 into a creature endowed with beliefs, thoughts, and 
 feelings which are not only noble and correct, but 
 which expand and improve as civilisation advances. 
 We are merely asserting that the ordinary man, or 
 the masses of mankind, which are simply the or- 
 dinary man multiplied, cannot provide themselves
 
 PROGRESS NOT THE WHOLE OF LIFE 261 
 with the conditions of their own progressive develop- ^°°^ ^" 
 
 , . ^ .,, ^ Chapters 
 
 ment ; or, to put the matter in a still more compre- 
 hensive way, we are merely asserting that that 
 particular form of greatness which improves those 
 conditions or sustains them, by influencing, or com- 
 pelling, or enabling masses of men to act or think 
 as they would not act or think otherwise, consti- 
 tutes a very small portion of human activity, and a 
 still smaller portion of human life. 
 
 This truth has been lost sight of because modern 
 social philosophers, led astray by political and other 
 passions, have confused two distinct things — man 
 as a moral being, moving in a circle of prescribed 
 duties, and man as a being capable of public or social 
 initiative ; and the more we study the ordinary 
 man, and the more fully we appreciate the varied 
 possibilities of his nature, the more clearly shall 
 we see, and the more ungrudgingly shall we rec- 
 ognise, how absolutely he is, so far as civilisation 
 is concerned, dependent on the exceptional man 
 for even those very powers in virtue of which 
 the action of the exceptional man is controlled by 
 him. 
 
 The general or the sentimental objections, then, 
 which might not unnaturally arise in the minds of 
 many when the claims of the great man to be the 
 sole agent of progress are first broadly asserted, are 
 found to disappear altogether when the meaning of 
 these claims is more fully considered. But senti- 
 mental objections, as has been said already, are by 
 no means the only objections which these claims have
 
 262 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III to encounter. Objections will be raised agrainst 
 
 Chapters . • i i • i 
 
 them which are economic rather than sentimental, 
 and which, moreover, — this is a still more important 
 fact, — rest solely upon a practical, and have no 
 theoretical, basis. 
 Socialists can Jq order to scc what these objections are it will be 
 
 object to this . . . "' 
 
 conclusion wcU to cousidcr them in their extremest and most 
 
 only because it .. f ■,-,,■ ... ... .. 
 
 establishes the uucompromisiug lorm. We will accordingly consider 
 doiTi men 'r them as put forward by the socialists. That the 
 exceptional objcctions of the socialists to the claims made for the 
 
 wealth. ■' 
 
 great man are not grounded in any theory that con- 
 sistently disallows them, is sufficiently shown by 
 the fact that even the most extreme socialists, 
 no less than the members of every other militant 
 party, are always extolling the exceptional qualities 
 of their own leaders. Agitators, thinkers, and writers 
 like Karl Marx, Lassalle, and Engels have been 
 extolled by their followers as though in their own 
 way equal to Caesar and Napoleon, to Aristotle, 
 Galileo, and Bacon; and their works are continually 
 called " marvels of reasoning," and described as 
 evincing " such powers of thought as are given to 
 only a few men in the course of five hundred 
 years." The arguments, therefore, which are em- 
 ployed by socialistic thinkers to convince them 
 that the great man is not essential to social progress, 
 and plays no real part in it — those arguments to 
 the examination of which the first chapters of this 
 work were devoted, do not really convince even those 
 who lay most stress on them, so far as they are 
 applicable to social progress generally. For the
 
 SOCIALISTS AND THE AVERAGE MAN 263 
 socialists in practice are forced to limit the applica- ^ook in 
 
 ,, I'lr -I • 1 1 Chapter 3 
 
 tion 01 them to two kmds 01 social action only ; and 
 these are social activity in the domains of political 
 government and of wealth-production. They are, 
 moreover, applied to the latter of these with so much 
 more strictness than to the former, that the objec- 
 tions to the special claims of the great man as a They cannot 
 wealth-producer are the only ones that here require th^e'Jret'icai 
 our attention. S^'STa,:"' 
 
 Now even here we shall find that the objections beginning to 
 
 ■' recognise the 
 
 in question are originated not by theoretical, but by importance of 
 
 . . 1 ... . f . . the exceptional 
 
 practical considerations only ; for one of the most man them- 
 curious features in the history of socialistic thought, ^^^''"* 
 from the time when socialists claim that it first 
 began to be scientific till to-day, has been the unwill- 
 ing replacement, in their theory of production and 
 progress, of that factor or element — and this factor 
 is the great man — which Karl Marx, with his doctrine 
 of labour as the sole creator of value, had eliminated. 
 Under one disguise or another the great or excep- 
 tional man, as distinct from the average labourer 
 whose productivity is measured by time, has been 
 put back in the place from which the theory of Marx 
 had ousted him; and the inventors, the men of enter- 
 prise, the organisers and capitalists of to-day — or, as 
 Mr. Sidney Webb calls them, " the monopolists of 
 business ability''' — are given back to us in the guise 
 of officials of the bureaucratic State, armed by the 
 State with the industrial powers of slave-owners. It 
 is true that socialistic theorists still do their utmost 
 to hide from themselves and their followers the nature
 
 264 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter 3 
 
 and only 
 obscure the 
 fact for pur- 
 poses of 
 popular agita- 
 tion. 
 
 So far, how- 
 ever, as the 
 reasoning of 
 this book has 
 gone already, 
 no claim has 
 
 of this change, by means of those curious arguments 
 which find their chief exponent in Mr. Spencer, and 
 which have rendered sociology thus far so useless 
 as a practical science. But the change is but partly 
 hidden, nevertheless, even from themselves. 
 
 Why, then, should they endeavour to hide it at 
 all ? Why should they shrink from a perfectly frank 
 avowal — an avowal which they are constantly com- 
 pelled to make by implication — that the great 
 man's power in wealth-production is what has been 
 described, and that every increase in the wealth of 
 civilised communities is due to him } They shrink 
 from making this avowal for one reason only. This 
 reason is that their main practical object is to repre- 
 sent the possessions of the great man, or of the few, 
 as a treasure to which the few have no theoretical 
 right, and which can be, and ought to be, divided 
 amongst the many. They are therefore compelled, 
 by the necessities of popular agitation, to obscure the 
 part that the few have played in producing it, and 
 to pretend, so far as possible, that it is produced by 
 the undifferentiated many. If it were not for its 
 promise to the many of some indefinite pecuniary 
 gain, it may safely be said that socialism would have 
 been never heard of ; and if this pecuniary promise 
 were made good, the demands of the socialists, as a 
 practical party, would be satisfied. 
 
 And now having considered this, let the reader 
 look back at the claims that have, in our present 
 argument, been advanced for the great man thus far. 
 It will be seen that not a single claim has been
 
 SOCIALISM AND PRECEDING ARGUMENTS 265 
 
 advanced on his behalf to which, on practical grounds, b^""^ '^i 
 any socialist could object. We have not assumed 
 that out of all the wealth he produces he shall take a been made for 
 larger, or even so large a share, as the least efBcient to which 
 of his workmen. On the contrary, we have assumed objectT "^^^ 
 that his contributions to the national wealth find their 
 way into the pockets of those around him, and that for 
 him nothing is left but the bare means of subsistence. 
 It has indeed been shown that he must necessarily 
 have the control of capital, and be free to use it in the 
 way that he thinks best ; but this is only because the 
 control of capital affords the sole means by which, 
 amongst free men, industrial discipline can be en- 
 forced and the productive genius of the few be 
 communicated to the muscles of the many. For all 
 that has been said thus far to the contrary, the great 
 man himself may derive from his control of it no 
 advantage whatsoever. We have assumed only that for we have 
 by his use of it he shall concentrate his exceptional he keeps none 
 faculties on the practical business of wealth-produc- Sonaf weauh 
 tion with as much intensity and devotion as he J^^gjf^^' ^°^ 
 would do if the whole of what he produced were to 
 go into his own coffers. We have, in fact, been 
 regarding the great man as being socially the servant 
 of the ordinary men, though in technical matters he 
 is their master. 
 
 So far, then, as our argument has up to this point 
 proceeded, we have merely in our theory assigned 
 to the great man functions which are implicitly 
 assigned to him in the reasonings of the more recent 
 socialists themselves, whilst in practice we have
 
 266 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter 3 
 
 but that he 
 works exactly 
 on the terms 
 the socialists 
 would dictate 
 to him. 
 
 It now remains 
 to consider 
 whether he 
 would really 
 do so. 
 
 assumed the realisation of the very conditions at 
 which socialism aims. For let us consider very 
 briefly what these conditions are. The more care- 
 fully the theoretical admissions and the practical 
 promises of the more recent socialists are examined, 
 the more clear does it become that the sole essential 
 change which socialism would introduce into the 
 existing economic regime would consist not in getting 
 rid of the great man, but in securing his activity on 
 totally new terms. The socialists aim, in fact, at 
 securing the best industrial masters and treating 
 them like the worst servants. This, as social 
 reformers, is their fundamental peculiarity. For 
 whilst they propose to secure an equal distribution 
 of products, they implicitly admit that the producers 
 may be divided into three classes — the men of ex- 
 ceptional ability who produce an exceptional amount 
 of wealth ; the mass of average men who produce 
 a normal amount ; and the idle, the refractory, and 
 the worthless, who produce less than the normal 
 amount ; and they propose accordingly to apportion 
 the products as follows. To the average man they 
 would give twice as much as he produces; to the 
 idle and the worthless man they would give a hun- 
 dred times as much as he produces ; and to the 
 great man, on whose talents the fortunes of all the 
 others depend, they would give from a hundredth 
 to a thousandth part of what he produces. 
 
 Now, whatever the reader may think of this 
 economic programme, there is nothing in the present 
 work, thus far, to show that it is impossible ; and if
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S REWARD 267 
 
 the object of socialists is to level social conditions, 
 to abolish all differences of rank, and to confiscate 
 all exceptional incomes, this book up to the present 
 point might be accepted as a handbook of sociahsm. 
 For the reader will recollect that when it was said 
 that the great man's activity involved the existence 
 of motives which would lead him to develop his 
 faculties, and that without such motives these facul- 
 ties would be practically non-existent, the question 
 of what these motives were was for the time alto- 
 gether waived, and we assumed the development 
 and the subsequent exercise of his abilities as 
 something that would take place no matter under 
 what conditions. The question, however, which 
 we then put on one side must now be taken up and 
 submitted to a careful examination. It being granted 
 that the activity of the great man is necessary, on 
 what conditions can his activity be secured ? Can it 
 be secured on the conditions that are proposed by 
 socialism, or on any others that even remotely 
 resemble them.? 
 
 Book III 
 Chapter 3
 
 BOOK IV
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DEPENDENCE OF EXCEPTIONAL ACTION ON THE 
 ATTAINABILITY OF EXCEPTIONAL REWARD, OR 
 THE NECESSARY CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE 
 MOTIVES TO ACTION AND ITS RESULTS 
 
 In enterino: on the inquiry which now lies before Great men 
 
 . . ° n 1 ... differ from 
 
 US it IS necessary to recall to the reader, and to insist ordinary men 
 with renewed emphasis, on a fact which has been ex- ITot i^kind !* ^' 
 plained with the utmost fulness already. This is the 
 fact that those exceptional efficiencies of the few on 
 which the initiation, the progress, and the mainten- 
 ance of civilisation depend, and which in a technical 
 sense we have here described 2iS greatness, do not con- 
 sist of qualities which are unique in kind, or which are 
 not possessed in some measure by the masses of or- 
 dinary men ; but that they are made up of ordinary 
 faculties magnified or mixed together in unusual pro- 
 portions. For although, as George Eliot observes in 
 a striking passage, the faculties of all men are the 
 same in kind, they manifest themselves in different 
 men in such very different degrees that a faculty or 
 feeling which in one man has the power and dimen- 
 sions of a tiger, may never in another man outgrow 
 
 271
 
 272 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter i 
 
 and the use of 
 exceptional 
 powers is con- 
 ditioned like 
 the use of 
 ordinary 
 powers. 
 
 Now let us 
 take the most 
 universal 
 powers 
 possessed by 
 man, viz. 
 those used in 
 acquiring the 
 simplest food. 
 
 Man's powers 
 in agriculture 
 would be latent 
 unless man 
 wanted food 
 and the earth's 
 surface were 
 cultivable. 
 
 those of a weasel. Greahiess, then, is simply the pos- 
 session and exercise by such and such a person, in 
 an exceptional degree, of some faculty or assortment 
 of faculties, the rudiments of which are possessed by 
 all. And the reason why it is necessary to insist on 
 this fact here is that, as a consequence of it, the use 
 which the great man makes of his exceptional 
 powers — or, in other words, their whole efficient 
 existence — depends on certain causes which are 
 relatively, though not absolutely, similar to those 
 on which depends the use which the ordinary man 
 makes of his. 
 
 Let us, then, consider the powers of the ordinary 
 man first, and let us take as examples of them those 
 powers or faculties which are most universally dis- 
 tributed amongst the human race — namely, the 
 powers by which the rudest populations obtain 
 enough food to live upon. Now such faculties, practi- 
 cally universal as they are, would be potential only, 
 not actual, if it were not for two things. These are 
 certain appetites or desires, having a physiological 
 origin, on the one hand, and the external conditions 
 on the other, which make the satisfaction of those 
 appetites, or the fulfilment of those desires, a possi- 
 bility. Thus if men could live without eating, and 
 had no desire for food, those special faculties would 
 be dormant which are now exercised in agriculture ; 
 and this means that for all practical purposes they 
 would not exist at all. These faculties would also 
 not exist at all, no matter what men's desire for food 
 might be, if the whole of the earth's crust had
 
 FACULTIES ACTUALISED BY MOTIVE 273 
 happened to be cast-iron, and if tillage were conse- b°°'« ^v 
 
 1 • Ml 11 1 Chapter! 
 
 quently impossible, and there were no seeds to sow. 
 In other words, the very commonest and very 
 simplest faculties which human beings possess have 
 a practical and a universal existence in those beings, 
 only because, in the first place, they minister to Thus the 
 
 exercise of the 
 
 universal wants, and because, in the second place, simplest facui- 
 the earth is so constituted as to supply the materials orthe'Jvrm 
 on which these faculties can operate. Or, to put the of ^o^e certain 
 
 ■C^ ' 1^ object, and on 
 
 matter in more general terms, the very commonest ♦'^^ possibility 
 
 1-1 e ^ ' -11 ir- of attaining it. 
 
 and simplest laculties are not practically self-existent, 
 
 except as mere barren potentialities ; and as practical 
 
 forces they exist only in the degree to which they 
 
 are evoked by external things and circumstances — 
 
 by some external object, such as food, which excites 
 
 and will satisfy desire, and by external circumstances 
 
 which make the object obtainable. 
 
 Now if this be true of those faculties of the com- if this is true 
 ..... . , 11*111 of the com- 
 
 monest kind, ministering to the needs which all men monest facui- 
 
 inevitably feel alike, and which they always must afsupplying"" 
 feel so lono: as they remain alive, it is yet more necessaries, 
 
 Q J 'J much more is 
 
 obviously true of those higher and rarer faculties it true of rare 
 
 *"~^ fi&culties which 
 
 ministering to needs which are so far from being aim at produc- 
 inevitable, that whole races have existed and do ex- Auitiesr"^' 
 ist without any conscious knowledge of them. The 
 great inventor, the great director of industry, will not 
 develop or use his exceptional latent faculties unless 
 by the use of them he can achieve some object which 
 he desires ; and this must be something which the 
 community has to give, or the possession of which it 
 will secure to him if it be something which he himself 
 18
 
 274 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV produces. Columbus, for instance, as the records of 
 
 Chapter i * . . 
 
 his life show us, would never have braved the Atlantic 
 if the society of his time, though in the end it rewarded 
 him ill, had not rendered an enormous reward both 
 in money and rank possible — a reward which he 
 specifically bargained for in the event of his enter- 
 prise being successful. And similarly in the case of 
 Society, then, great mcu iu general, unless society is so constituted 
 Lrftrw^rrin as to rcudcr some reward or other the natural or 
 coSit^d^i possible result of the exercise of certain exceptional 
 to make the facultics, and unless this reward shall be one which 
 
 reward they 
 
 desire possible, the great men shall think worth working for, their 
 exceptional faculties will remain potential only. 
 That is to say, their faculties will be practically 
 non-existent, and the community will be as helpless 
 as it would be if it had no great men at all. 
 
 In so doing Now here we have what is virtually a genuine social 
 
 society uncon- . • i i i t-» 
 
 sciousiy makes coutract. It IS uot, indeed, such a contract as Rousseau 
 Tract'^witMu drcamcd of. It was never made deliberately at any 
 great men; period of history by two independent parties coming 
 together for the purpose. It was the result of a 
 gradual and quite unconscious process. Ordinary 
 men, having experienced the advantages of being 
 directed by great men, submitted instinctively to 
 such conditions as the great men demanded, and 
 instinctively offered them, or allowed them to retain 
 possession of, such rewards as were necessary to 
 stimulate them to further action. But these proceed- 
 ings were a bargain, a social contract, none the less, 
 although they were not recognised as such ; and they 
 constitute a bargain still — a bargain which is continu-
 
 THE TRUE SOCIAL CONTRACT 275 
 
 ally bein^ renewed, and the terms of which reformers ^0°^' 'v 
 
 • 11 • 1 T-i 1 • 1' > Chapter I 
 
 are contmually trymg to alter. Ihus the socialists 
 proposal to take from the founder of a new industry 
 all the wealth that his exceptional faculties have 
 created, and pay him, as they propose to do, with 
 the paper money of honour, is merely an attempt to 
 make a new bargain with the great man, which shall 
 secure his services on cheaper terms for the little 
 men. Similarly, all encouragement offered to art 
 and science by the State is a bargain offered to a 
 number of unknown persons, who are presumed to 
 be the possessors potentially of artistic and scientific 
 faculties, the State engaging to give them certain 
 opportunities and rewards, if they on their part will 
 make their potential faculties actual. 
 
 Now with regard to this bargain or contract and tws is a 
 
 , . , , . , , 1 1 • contract which 
 
 which the community has not only made, but is is being con- 
 always remaking and revising with its great men, **^"^^ "^^^"^^ * 
 we must observe that it is a bargain which, from the 
 necessities of the case, is made by the community 
 solely with individual great men who are living. It 
 is not a bargain offered to the great men of the past, 
 no matter how much of his greatness the living 
 great man may owe to them. It is impossible to 
 bargain with the dead, and therefore to the present 
 question the claims of the dead are as irrelevant as 
 the claims of protoplasm. The present question is 
 how shall such and such living people be induced 
 to develop certain superiorities which are latent 
 in them, or to use to the best advantage superi- 
 orities which have been developed already. And
 
 aye ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV the answer depends on these men themselves. It 
 
 Chapter i '■ 
 
 depends on the characters which they personally 
 possess, and not on the parents or ancestors from 
 whom their characters have been derived. We can 
 no more go behind the personality of the great man 
 in bargaining with him, than we can go behind the 
 personality of the dipsomaniac in attempting to cure 
 him. We may excuse the failing of the latter as 
 something which he has inherited from his ancestors; 
 we can cure it only as something for which he is 
 himself responsible. If civilisation, therefore, depends 
 The great men on the great man, no community can become or 
 
 themselves are ...,.,..,. ... 
 
 the ultimate rcmam Civilised which does not so arrange itself as 
 ownprice!"^"^ to accord to its liviug great men such rewards as 
 they themselves feel to be a sufficient inducement 
 firstly to develop their faculties, and secondly to 
 employ them to the utmost. 
 Here is the Hcrc, thcu, wc havc a new and final verification 
 
 living great of that truth which has already been established 
 Sitionrare ^gaiust thc argumcnts of Mr. Spencer — namely, that 
 ^raSS^ the great man is a vera causa of progress, and that 
 involved in no explanation of progress has any practical value 
 which does not base itself on an examination of the 
 great man's character. And that such is the case 
 will become yet more apparent when we take into 
 consideration the following additional facts, which 
 are quite distinct from any we have yet touched 
 upon, and which practically have an equal, or per- 
 haps even a superior, importance. 
 
 If the exceptional faculties of the great man 
 were so far like the faculties possessed by all men, 
 
 progress.
 
 THE GREAT MAN AT AN ADVANTAGE 277 
 that by lookinor at him we could tell that he was a ^o"'' ^^ 
 
 < , . ^ . f . , , M Chapter I 
 
 potential inventor, or organiser or industry, or philos- 
 opher, as easily as by looking at a common man we These living 
 can tell that he can trundle a wheelbarrow, the entire masters of the 
 force of the foregoing argument would be lost. The ^""^"°"' 
 community would then know what each great man 
 could do for it, and could force him to do it by 
 flogging or starving him if he refused. The ordinary 
 faculties — the faculties of manual labour — can be 
 made to exert themselves precisely in this way. A 
 large number of the great works of antiquity were 
 due to labour successfully stimulated by the whip. 
 But it is only a man's commonest faculties that can 
 be called into action thus ; and they can be called 
 into action thus only for this reason — that those who 
 coerce him know that these faculties are possessed 
 by him, and they also know the task which they 
 wish to make him accomplish. But in the case of 
 the great man both these conditions are wanting. 
 It is impossible to tell that he possesses any excep- 
 tional faculties till he himself chooses to show them ; because no 
 and until circumstances supply him with some motive that they have 
 for exercising them, he will probably be hardly aware pg^^J'^'g^Jf 
 that he possesses such faculties himself. Moreover, ^Y^ "^^^^^^ '° 
 
 *■ . show them. 
 
 even if he gives the world some reason to suspect 
 their existence, the world will still not know what 
 he can do with them, and will consequently not be 
 able to impose on him any task until he himself 
 chooses to show of what he is capable. Any farmer 
 by looking at Burns could have told that he had the 
 makings of a ploughman in him, and have forced
 
 278 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter i 
 
 They cannot, 
 therefore, be 
 coerced from 
 without, like 
 ordinary 
 workers. 
 
 They must be 
 induced to 
 work by a 
 reward 
 
 him, under certain circumstances, to do so much 
 ploughing daily; but no one could have told that 
 he was a poet if he had not of his own free will 
 revealed the fact to the public ; and even when the 
 public were aware of it, no one could have forced 
 him to compose The Cotter s Saturday Night. A 
 press-gang could have turned Columbus into a 
 common sailor, but not all the sovereigns of Europe 
 could have forced him to discover a new hemisphere. 
 On the contrary, it was he who had to force sover- 
 eigns into the reluctant belief that possibly there 
 was a new hemisphere to discover. The great man, 
 therefore, is lord of his exceptional faculties in a way 
 in which the common man is not lord of his common 
 faculties. The existence of the latter faculties can- 
 not be concealed ; the kind of work that can be 
 accomplished by them is known to everybody ; and 
 therefore the community by the exercise of mere 
 force can command the average man, and make him 
 work like an animal. But over the exceptional 
 faculties of the great man it has no command what- 
 ever, except what the great man gives it; for it 
 neither knows that the faculties exist, nor what things 
 the faculties can do, until the great man elects to 
 reveal the secret. He cannot be made to reveal 
 it, he can only be induced to do so ; and he can be 
 induced to do so only by a community which offers 
 to exceptional faculties some assured and exceptional 
 reward, just as a reward is offered for evidence 
 against an unknown murderer. Moreover, just as 
 in the latter case it very often happens that the re-
 
 THE GREAT MAN'S TERMS 279 
 
 ward originally offered has to be raised several times ^°°i' ^^ 
 
 '-> J ... . Chapter i 
 
 before a sum is reached which will induce the witness 
 to come forward, so must any community, as the 
 condition of becoming civilised, raise the rewards of ^^'ch they 
 
 , r ^ ^ r themselves feel 
 
 greatness to such a figure that the possessors of to be sufficient. 
 latent superiorities will be induced to develop and 
 use them. And hence the great man not only causes 
 progress by what he does, but he influences also the 
 entire structure of society, by his character, which 
 regulates the terms on which he will consent to 
 do it. 
 
 This is the point at which the science of sociology "^"^^ ^^^ 
 
 . . . great man's 
 
 primarily comes in contact with the practical prob- character and 
 lems of to-day. That all progress is due to the [m'jJiesTthem. 
 efforts of the superior minority is a truth which, J,^^'^"^°^ 'J* 
 taken by itself, and apart from other truths allied to it, society. 
 we can merely recognise and assent to. We can do 
 nothing to alter it; nor will the fact of our recognis- 
 ing it, if taken by itself, tend to alter or guide our 
 conduct. We are not even able to settle the number 
 of males and females which shall be produced in 
 each family. Still less can we settle or increase the 
 number of individuals who shall bring into the 
 world with them talents more than ordinary. But 
 though no community can do anything to settle or 
 alter the per centage of potential greatness that will 
 be born into it from generation to generation, it can 
 'settle or alter the social conditions and rewards by 
 means of which this potential greatness shall be 
 developed and enabled to use itself; and a very 
 large part, though not the whole, of political wisdom
 
 28o ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV ^fii thus consist in arranging these conditions and 
 
 Chapter i i • i 
 
 rewards, so that from each potentially great man, 
 whatever degree or kind of potentiality may be his, 
 the community may elicit the highest and most far- 
 reaching efforts of which he is capable. It will, of 
 course, be to the interest of the community to secure 
 this result by offering the great man the smallest 
 and least costly reward, the desire of which will 
 induce him to develop and exert himself to the 
 utmost ; but the ultimate fixer of the great man's 
 price — let it once again be said — is not the com- 
 munity, but the great man himself. 
 This is what \\_ {^ this sociological and psychological truth 
 
 socialists con- " ^■' *-' . 
 
 stantiy forget, that cvcn the clearest-headcd amongst the socialists 
 are continually forgetting. They perceive it at one 
 moment, at the next moment they entirely forget 
 it, and solemnly proceed to build up their visionary 
 polity on foundations which their own arguments 
 had previously condemned. A curious example of 
 this " inability,'' as Mr. Spencer calls it, " io com- 
 prehend assembled propositions in their totality " is 
 to be found in a remarkable passage by Mr. Sidney 
 Webb. Having observed that "-socialists would 
 nationalise both rent and interest by the State becom- 
 ing the sole landowner and capitalist'' he goes on to 
 acknowledge that great fundamental fact which it is 
 the main object of the present work to elucidate. 
 " Such an arrangement, however^' he says, " would 
 leave untotiched the third monopoly, — the largest of 
 them all, — the monopoly of bzisiness ability." In 
 these last words he appears to be like a Daniel
 
 RECKONING WITHOUT THE HOST 281 
 come to iudsfinent He recognises in the fact that Bookiv 
 
 1 r 1 .1 1 r r 1 . i Chapter I 
 
 the few have a natural monopoly of faculties, the 
 exercise of which is required for the progressive and they 
 well-being of all, a genuine and a formidable diffi- equalise ° 
 culty in the way of the realisation of socialism; but Xing gLaf 
 now comes the passaere for the sake of which these ""en any ex- 
 
 ••■ '-' ceptional 
 
 others have been quoted. Great as this difficulty reward, 
 is, he tells us, " the more recent socialists " have 
 devised a way for getting over it. And what does 
 the reader think this way is } It has at all events 
 the merit of being very simple. " The more recent 
 socialists,'' says Mr. Webb, " attack this third monop- 
 oly also by allotting to every worker an equal wage, 
 whatever may be the nature of his work'' 
 
 It has been thought worth while to quote Mr. They forget to 
 Sidney Webb because he is an exceptionally favour- under these' 
 able specimen of the modern socialistic theoriser. It g/eal m'ln"''"' 
 is therefore interestins: to notice the hiatus that here ^°"'^ exercise 
 
 '--' or reveal 
 
 yawns in his argument. The entire question which their excep- 
 is really at issue is begged by him. His allies, hcataii. 
 tells us, though they cannot destroy the monopoly 
 which the few possess of exceptional business 
 powers, will destroy the effects of this monopoly by 
 taking away from the few nearly all the wealth that 
 their exceptional powers produce. It never seems to 
 occur to him to ask whether, under these circum- 
 stances, the few would develop or exercise their 
 exceptional powers at all. And yet the whole 
 problem for him, as a socialist, lies here, and lies 
 nowhere else. For from the very fact that these 
 powers are admittedly a monopoly of the few, it is
 
 282 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter i 
 
 Exceptional 
 rewards are 
 essential to 
 exceptional 
 action. 
 
 evident that their existence cannot be assumed in 
 anybody unless he exerts himself to give some sign 
 of their presence. External authority, therefore, can 
 compel nobody to use them who does not put himself 
 at the mercy of the authorities by letting them know 
 he has them ; and thus " the more recent socialists,''' 
 in attacking " the third and greatest monopoly'' are 
 really themselves at the mercy of the very monopo- 
 lists whom they propose to attack. It is true that if a 
 socialistic revolution could be brought about suddenly, 
 existing great men known to have certain talents, 
 which had been already developed and exercised 
 under conditions which the revolution destroyed, 
 might be seized on by the State, in its capacity of 
 universal employer, and forced to continue some- 
 thing of their former voluntary activity by threats of 
 torture or some similar method of coercion. But 
 even granting this to be possible, it would only solve 
 the problem for a moment ; for as these men died — 
 and some of them would be dying daily — new talent 
 would be wanted to take the place of the old ; and 
 though the State might coerce such talent as was 
 already developed, it could not by coercion secure 
 the services of the new, because threats of coercion 
 would never tempt new talent to discover itself, but 
 would, on the contrary, drive it yet deeper beneath 
 the surface. 
 
 Exceptional potentialities can be called out and 
 realised only by a kind of action which is the very 
 antithesis of coercion, and which is analogous to 
 that of sunshine on buds, or flowers or fruits
 
 WHAT THE GREAT MAN ASKS FOR 283 
 
 — namely, the penetrating, the warming, the stimu- ^°°^ '^ 
 lating action of the hope of certain personal advan- 
 tages on the mind of the exceptional man, which 
 advantages he will not only covet as advanta- 
 geous, but will recognise as the natural result of 
 the exercise of his exceptional faculties, and as a 
 result attainable by the exercise of these faculties we must in- 
 
 1 iTTi 1 11 1 quire what the 
 
 only. What these personal advantages are, the required 
 desire of which, coupled with their attainability, is rewSare. 
 necessary to stimulate men who have more than 
 ordinary potentialities, to do greater things by 
 developing them than are done by ordinary men, 
 must be determined by reference to the actual facts 
 of life, the records of which are ample, and the 
 details of which, though numerous, can by careful 
 analysis be easily reduced to order.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MOTIVES OF THE EXCEPTIONAL WEALTH- 
 PRODUCER 
 
 Socialists, 
 though often 
 forgetting the 
 necessity of 
 exceptional 
 motive, often 
 remember it. 
 
 and endeavour 
 to show that 
 socialistic 
 society would 
 have sufficient 
 rewards to 
 offer to its 
 great men, 
 
 In spite of their frequent forgetfulness of the fact 
 just insisted on, that the development and exer- 
 cise of exceptional faculties can be secured only 
 through the influence of some exceptional motive, 
 this is not a fact which socialists theoretically 
 deny. On the contrary, often as they forget it, with 
 curious consequences to their reasoning, yet just as 
 often, when they happen to be directly confronted 
 with it, they are loud in declaring that they recognise 
 it quite as clearly as their opponents; and a consider- 
 able portion of their more modern writings consists 
 of a setting forth of the various exceptional rewards 
 which will, according to them, in the socialistic State, 
 elicit from exceptional men the exercise of their 
 utmost powers. Moreover, the rewards on which 
 the socialists principally insist are rewards, the desire 
 of which is admitted by all parties to be an actual 
 force in society as at present constituted, and in fact 
 to have been, ever since the dawn of history, the 
 motive to which much activity of the highest kind 
 
 a84
 
 SOCIALISTS ON MOTIVE 285 
 
 has been due. These rewards have been defined in boouiv 
 
 Chapter 2 
 
 a recent Handbook of Socialism as the pleasure of 
 
 " excelling'''' " the joy in creative work''' the satisfac- such as the 
 
 . , , . ... pleasure of 
 
 tion which work for others brings to ""the instincts excelling, of 
 of benevolence',' and, lastly, " social approval'' or the and"of^receiv- 
 homage which is called " honour': ing honour. 
 
 If the socialists, however, confined themselves to 
 maintaining that the desire of such rewards as these 
 constitutes a sufBcient motive to exceptional activity 
 of certain kinds, they would not only be asserting 
 what nobody else would deny, but they would be 
 putting forward nothing which, as socialists, it is 
 their interest to assert. The ultimate proposition 
 which, as socialists, they aim at establishing is not 
 that certain kinds of exceptional men do certain 
 kinds of exceptional things, in obedience to the 
 motives in question ; but that because some excep- The funda- 
 
 . , . mental ques- 
 
 tional men, endowed with certain temperaments, tion is, win 
 
 are motived by them to activities of certain specific ^^the'sT^"^ ' 
 
 kinds, other exceptional men will be motived by ^'^^'^^^ 
 
 ' J- -' great men to 
 
 them with equal certainty to other activities of a weaith-pro- 
 
 . duction? 
 
 kind totally different — and more especially to the 
 activities which result in the production of wealth. 
 
 Here is the fundamental point on which the 
 socialists join issues with their opponents. Their 
 opponents, they say, assume that the sole reward 
 or advantage, the desire of which will stimulate the 
 monopolists of " business ability " to exert that 
 ability in the production and augmentation of 
 wealth, is a share of wealth for themselves propor- 
 tionate to the amount produced by them — an
 
 286 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV amount which will separate their lot from that of 
 
 Chapter 2 , , . ^ 
 
 the majority of their fellows. Now if this should 
 be really the case, as the socialists are coming to 
 perceive, the fact would be fatal to the entire ideal 
 of socialism. They are consequently now directing 
 the best of their ingenuity to showing that the 
 Is the enjoy- desirc of DOSsessinsT exceptional wealth is altosrether 
 
 ment of excep- ^ . . . 
 
 tionai wealth supcrfluous as a motive for producing it, and that 
 as a motive to the great producers of it, when all chance of possess- 
 producingit? '^^g -^ j^ taken from them, will find in the pleasures 
 
 of the strain which the productive process neces- 
 sitates — especially if these are supplemented by 
 the inexpensive thanks of the community — a more 
 powerful inducement to exertion than is the pros- 
 pect of the largest fortune. 
 If it is so, it is Now in endeavouring to make this peculiar 
 
 for the social- .. !•• • ^ ^ ^ ^ i r r 
 
 ists to prove position good, it IS cvident that the burden of proof 
 '°' lies with the socialists themselves; for although the 
 doctrine that all exceptional exertions in wealth- 
 production are motived solely by an avidity for 
 exceptional wealth as such — and this is the doctrine 
 which the socialists set themselves to controvert — is 
 a very imperfect rendering of what their opponents 
 actually maintain, it embodies an assertion which 
 the socialists themselves declare to have been true of 
 all exceptional exertion in wealth-production hitherto. 
 No one declares this more passionately and more 
 persistently than they. For what, as political 
 agitators, has been their chief moral indictment 
 against the typical great men of industry — the 
 organisers of labour, the introducers of new
 
 PR OD UCTION AND DESIRE OF THE PRODUCT 287 
 machinery, the pioneers of commerce ? Their chief ^^0°^ ^^ 
 
 1 • 1 • 1 1 1 • 1 1 Chapter 2 
 
 moral indictment has been this : that these men, 
 
 instead of labourino^ for their fellows, or for the ^°y ^^^^ !^^.'"' 
 
 o ' selves admit 
 
 sake of any of those rewards which the socialists that u has not 
 
 . f . . , . , been so in the 
 
 declare to be so satisfying, have been motived past, and is not 
 solely by the passion of selfish "greed." Its hideous nowf ^^° 
 influence, they say, is as old as civilisation itself, and 
 the *' monopolists of business ability " in Tyre and 
 Sidon were as much its creatures as are their 
 modern representatives in Chicago. And this asser- 
 tion, unlike many made by the socialists, has the 
 merit of being, so far as it goes, true. Greed, of 
 course, is a word which, in addition to its direct 
 meaning, carries with it an accretion of moral in- 
 sult ; but putting aside this, it means in the present 
 connection merely a desire on the part of the great 
 wealth-producer to enjoy an amount of wealth pro- 
 portionate to the amount produced by him: and 
 from the dawn of civilisation up to the present time 
 all great wealth-producers, whether merchants, manu- 
 facturers, or inventors, have had the desire of enjoy- 
 ing such wealth as their motive. The desire has 
 been connected with the activity just as universally 
 and closely as the desire of water is connected with 
 the act of drinking it, or the desire of winning a 
 woman with the act of making love to her. If the 
 socialists, then, would persuade us that a motive so 
 universal as this can be now superseded by others of 
 an entirely opposite character, they can do so only 
 by adducing the clearest evidence that, on the one 
 hand, this motive itself is losing its old power, and
 
 288 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 2 
 
 Are there any 
 signs, then, 
 that the desire 
 for exceptional 
 wealth is 
 beginning to 
 lose its power ? 
 
 We shall find 
 that the 
 socialists 
 themselves 
 maintain just 
 the contrary ; 
 
 that other motives, on the other hand, are actually 
 acquiring and exercising it. 
 
 Let us first, then, consider the passion of greed 
 itself, and ask whether there is anything in its con- 
 nection with wealth-production hitherto which may 
 lead us to think that in spite of its universality in 
 the past, it is merely a transitory propensity from 
 which exceptional men will free themselves, instead 
 of being a propensity rooted in the very constitution 
 of human nature. 
 
 And here again the socialists will be amongst 
 our most important witnesses; for just as they, 
 of all writers and thinkers, have done most to call 
 attention to the fact that up to the present time 
 greed has been the main motive by which the 
 exceptional wealth-producers have been actuated, so 
 they, of all writers and thinkers, have done most to 
 call attention to another fact as well, which shows 
 the motive in question to be as permanent as it 
 is universal. For that very desire of the producer to 
 possess what he himself produces, which, when found 
 in the exceptional man, they denounce as greed, 
 and which they tell us that the exceptional man will 
 get rid of in the course of a year or two, is the very 
 desire which, as existing in the common man, they 
 have assumed to be the foundation of his whole 
 industrial character ; and to it have all their most 
 fervid and powerful appeals been made. The 
 socialists, in their attempts to excite the masses 
 against the existing order, have relied less on 
 rhetorical declarations that the labouring man gets
 
 THE PRODUCER'S RIGHT TO HIS PRODUCTS 289 
 
 very little, than on the quasi-scientific assertion that ^^°\l^^ 
 
 he gets less than he produces, and that consequently 
 
 the wealth of his employers is merely his own f°^ ^^^y appeal 
 
 . ^ 7 7 • 7 *° ^^^ desire of 
 
 wealth stolen from him. '^ All wealth is due /(? each producer 
 labour; therefore to the labourer all wealth is due " h°e prod"ce^s as 
 has formed from the first, and still forms, the text JJ'^^jJ^^'Jj ^^^ 
 from which the socialists always preach when permanent 
 
 •' *■ desire in man; 
 
 addressing the labouring classes ; and the use of 
 this text as the watchword of popular agitation is 
 obviously an admission that, as a producing agent, 
 man is motived so exclusively by the desire to 
 possess what he produces, or else its fair equivalent, 
 that he naturally resents the idea of producing any- 
 thing merely in order that others may take it away 
 from him. Indeed, this doctrine that the desire for 
 the product, and the producer's sense that he has 
 a right to it, form the only motive for production 
 possible for a free man, formed the unquestioned 
 basis of the entire socialistic psychology so long as 
 the theory of Marx was held by the socialists to be 
 unassailable, according to which wealth was the 
 product of average labour, and the common or 
 average labourer was the sole true producer. It 
 was only as time went on, and the socialists were and never 
 
 •' • 1 f 1 questioned 
 
 slowly compelled to recognise the few to be pro- this so long as 
 ducers of wealth just as truly as the many, that Iha? the Toie 
 the socialists began their attempts to get rid of the PhetSur"^" 
 doctrine which a very little while ago they regarded 
 as axiomatic — the doctrine that each producer has 
 a right to his own products, and that his hope of 
 possessing it is his principal motive for its produc- 
 19
 
 290 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 2 
 
 They ques- 
 tioned the doc- 
 trine only when 
 they came to 
 see that the 
 great man is a 
 producer also ; 
 and they con- 
 fine their 
 questioning to 
 his case. 
 
 But if the 
 labourer 
 desires to 
 possess what 
 he produces, 
 much more 
 will the great 
 man do so ; 
 
 tlon. In making these attempts, however, they 
 have, with a judicious eclecticism, been content to 
 apply them to the exceptional man only ; and the 
 common man and his motives they leave undis- 
 turbed, except when they venture on the doctrine 
 that the common man's motive for production will 
 in the future be the desire of possessing, not only 
 all that he produces, but all that he produces and a 
 great deal else besides. 
 
 If, then, it is unlikely that this desire to possess 
 the product will cease to be operative as the motive 
 to production amongst the masses, that it will cease 
 to be operative amongst the few is more unlikely 
 still ; for the man who is possessed of average 
 powers only cannot hope to produce more than the 
 average man requires, and his object in producing 
 tends to represent itself to his mind in terms of 
 the comfort which he hopes to experience, rather 
 than in terms of the value of products which he 
 hopes to possess. But the exceptional man, 
 whose peculiarity as a producer is this, that he 
 produces not only as much as the average man 
 requires, but an indefinite amount in addition to 
 it, is constantly balancing his products not with 
 his immediate wants, but with the amount of 
 intellectual effort which he has expended in the 
 process of production. Indeed, the more closely we 
 consider the matter, the more strongly we shall be 
 convinced that the desire of possessing wealth pro- 
 portionate to the amount produced by them becomes 
 as a motive to production stronger in men, not
 
 MUNIFICENCE AND DESIRE OF WEALTH 291 
 
 weaker, in exact proportion as their productive ^^^^ 
 powers are great, and the amount produced by them 
 appeals to their intellects rather than to their 
 necessities. 
 
 So far, then, as a study of this motive itself can 
 inform us, the socialistic idea that it will ever cease to 
 be paramount has no foundation whatever, and is con- 
 tradicted even by the socialists themselves. The only 
 fact connected with this motive directly which wears 
 so much as a semblance of serious evidence in their 
 favour is the fact often dwelt on by emotional writers 
 like Mr. Kidd, that many men who have made enor- 
 mous fortunes have given away a large part of them 
 for what he calls " altruistic " purposes ; and writers 
 of the kind in question take this fact for evidence ^o"" even if he 
 
 , , , . , . II' • Sives away 
 
 that the desire of possessmg great wealth is ceasing what he pro- 
 to be the motive for producing it. But those who desTres to 
 allow themselves to argue thus, show a curious p°^^"* '* *^"^ 
 carelessness in their examination of human action ; 
 for the fact referred to, so far as it proves anything, 
 negatives rather than supports the conclusion they 
 seek to draw from it. It is perfectly true that 
 many men of great industrial ability have produced 
 large fortunes and given them away afterwards. 
 But in order to give, a man must first possess ; and 
 it is in the act of giving magnificently for some 
 specified purpose that many men most fully realise 
 the power with which wealth endows them. Thus the 
 fact that many men will produce in order that they 
 may have the delight of giving is no more a proof 
 that they would produce under the regime of social-
 
 292 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV ism, which would aim at depriving them of anythino: 
 
 Chapter a ' • i i r i 
 
 that they might possibly give, than the fact that a 
 man would with pleasure give five shillings to a 
 beggar is a proof that he would be equally pleased if 
 the beggar were to pick his pocket. Even the men 
 who produce wealth — and no doubt there are such 
 — without any conscious sense that they produce it 
 because of their desire to possess it, would show 
 that such was their motive by their instinctive and 
 indignant refusal to go on producing it, if they knew 
 that it would be forcibly taken from them. 
 There is no And now, siucc wc have seen that "greed" as a 
 
 sign, therefore, . i i i • i • i 
 
 that the desire motivc to wcaitli-production shows no mternal ten- 
 weahMs^iosilig dcncy to lose its old efficiency, let us turn to those 
 force as a other motivcs which the socialists tell us are to 
 
 motive. 
 
 supersede it, and ask whether there is anything in 
 their known operations hitherto which indicates that 
 in the domain of wealth-production they will acquire 
 an efficiency similar to it. This is not an inquiry 
 which is very difficult to pursue, for the motives in 
 question are of a very familiar kind, and the kinds 
 of activity which they have produced hitherto are 
 notorious. 
 Are, then. What thcse motivcs are has been sufficiently 
 
 other desires , ^ ■' 
 
 acquiring new sliown already in language borrowed from the social- 
 motfvesto istic wHtcrs themselves — the pleasure of ''excelling,'' 
 duction"^?"" the ''joy in crealive work'' the pleasure of doing good 
 to others, and, lastly, the enjoyment of the approba- 
 tion of others, or of the yet more flattering tribute 
 commonly called " honour." Now these motives, it 
 will be seen, are of two distinct kinds, the first three
 
 SCOPE OF THE LOFTIER MOTIVES 293 
 beins: based exclusively on some pleasurable con- ^°°^ ^^ 
 
 . . . ... Chapter 2 
 
 dition of mind, which is mdependent of anybody 
 
 except the individual who actually experiences it ; Are the joys of 
 
 , , , . , , , , , ... excelling, or of 
 
 the two last bemg based on a pleasurable condition benefiting 
 of mind, which is directly dependent on the actions bling\on° 
 * or the attitude of other people. We may therefore o^j-^d by others 
 
 ^ ^ J doing so ? 
 
 reduce these motives to two — namely, self-realisa- 
 tion, in the first place, and recognition by others, in 
 the second. This classification will be not only 
 shorter, but more comprehensive than the other; 
 for self-realisation will include not only the joys of 
 self-improvement and artistic creation, but those of 
 the pursuit of truth and the performance of religious 
 duty, and will distinguish the pleasure of doing 
 good to others from the pleasure of being thanked 
 or praised for it. 
 
 And now let us consider what those kinds of The desire of 
 
 , . . . , . . f. . . . these joys is a 
 
 exceptional activity are, in the production oi which motive to 
 one or other of these motives, or both of them, orexreptTonli 
 have played, hitherto, any considerable part. We «=o"'^"=^ 
 shall find them to be as follows: heroic conduct 
 in battle, or in the face of any exceptional danger ; 
 artistic creation ; the pursuit of speculative truth ; 
 what theologians call works of mercy; and, lastly, 
 the propagation of religion. This list, if understood 
 in its full sense, is exhaustive. 
 
 Now of these five kinds of action we may dismiss it >s a motive 
 
 , , . ... . . , to benevolent 
 
 the last rrom our consideration, not because it has action and 
 not a most important influence on civilisation, but ''^^'e'ouswor ; 
 because it has no direct connection with any of the 
 processes of wealth-production, except in so far as it
 
 294 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 
 Chapter 2 
 
 but neither of 
 these are the 
 same thing as 
 wealth-produc- 
 tion. 
 
 It is a motive 
 to artistic pro- 
 duction, 
 certainly, 
 
 tends to divert men's attention from them. And with 
 regard to the works of mercy something similar 
 must be said also; for though they undoubtedly 
 have a close connection with wealth, they do not 
 aid at its production, still less at its increase, but 
 merely at the distribution of portions of it, which have 
 been produced already, amongst persons whom it 
 would otherwise not reach. The love for others, for 
 example, by which works of mercy are motived, may 
 prompt a man to send London children for a holiday 
 into the country by train, but it would never have 
 prompted him to invent the locomotive engine. It 
 may prompt him to secure for a youth an education in 
 modern science, but it would never have prompted 
 him to write the treatises of Professor Huxley. All 
 activity of this kind, then, whatever form it may take, 
 is, in a sociological sense, essentially parasitic. It 
 implies the previous exercise of another set of 
 faculties totally distinct from those directly implied 
 in itself, and, together with other faculties, other 
 motives belonging to them. It has, then, with the 
 actual process of wealth production as little to do 
 as has religious propagandism itself ; and, like relig- 
 ious propagandism, we may dismiss it from our con- 
 sideration here. The only forms of activity with 
 which we are called on to deal with here will thus 
 be artistic creation, the pursuit of speculative truth, 
 and military or quasi-military feats of heroism. 
 
 As to artistic creation, it is, no doubt, perfectly 
 true, as is proved by the efforts of countless de- 
 voted amateurs, that men with artistic powers will
 
 MOTIVE OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY 295 
 
 often do their utmost to develop them, merely for ^^°\l^ 
 the sake of the pleasure which the exercise of these 
 powers brings with it; whilst literature is even 
 more obviously than painting cultivated by men 
 who devote themselves to it solely as a means of self- 
 expression. Indeed, it might reasonably be contended 
 that finer books and paintings would be produced if 
 it were impossible for painters and writers to make 
 money by producing them, than are now produced 
 with a view to captivating the public purchaser. 
 
 So, too, the pursuit of scientific and philosophic and also to 
 
 ,, ... . ,1 , " scientific dis- 
 
 truth — arduous though it is — is generally under- covery; 
 taken by men whose principal motive is the pleasure 
 their work brings them. 
 
 A watcher of the skies, 
 When some new planet swims into his ken, 
 
 may well be supposed to find in that thrilling 
 moment a reward sufficient to compensate him for 
 all his pains in arriving at it ; and most branches of 
 science would yield us similar illustrations. Indeed, 
 the career characteristic of scientists and philoso- 
 phers generally is a conclusive proof that the prin- 
 cipal motive of their activity is not the desire of any 
 extrinsic reward, the amount of which they will bal- 
 ance against the amount or the quality of their 
 efforts, but a passion for truth as truth, which they 
 indulge in for its own sake only. 
 
 Now granting all this, what will its bearing be on 
 the question of whether the pleasures of pure self- 
 realisation will suffice to stimulate those exceptional
 
 296 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 2 
 
 and works of 
 art are wealth ; 
 and scientific 
 discovery is the 
 basis of 
 industrial 
 progress ; 
 
 but great 
 works of art 
 form but a 
 small part of 
 wealth ; 
 
 faculties whose function it is to maintain and 
 increase the production of wealth ? With regard 
 to artistic creation, we are certainly bound to 
 admit that great works of art are wealth of a highly 
 important kind, and when a good picture is pro- 
 duced, as it often is, solely in obedience to the 
 painter's artistic impulse, we have a genuine exam- 
 ple of wealth produced in obedience to that kind of 
 motive whose efficiency the socialists desire to 
 establish. Further, with regard to the pursuit of 
 truth, as Mill points out in a passage that has been 
 already quoted, progress in speculative knowledge 
 is the basis of all other progress, and notably of 
 progress in the arts and processes of wealth-pro- 
 duction. It must, accordingly, be admitted that in a 
 certain sense all progress in wealth-production has 
 for its basis a kind of disinterested activity with 
 which the desire of possessing wealth has nothing 
 at all to do. And yet in spite of this, neither the 
 case of the artist nor of the philosopher warrants 
 the inference that the motives which are sufficient 
 for them will ever have a similar effect on the fac- 
 ulties of the great wealth-producers. The evi- 
 dence, in fact, as soon as we have fully examined 
 it, will be found to point in a direction precisely 
 opposite. 
 
 For, to begin with the case of the artist, it must 
 be remembered, in the first place, that works of art, 
 such as pictures painted by the artist's hand, form 
 a very small, though an important part of wealth, 
 and that they are hardly wealth at all from the
 
 MOTIVES OF THE ARTIST 297 
 
 point of view of the many, unless they are repro- ^°°^ '^' 
 duced and multipHed by adequate mechanical 
 processes. Now, though it is quite conceivable 
 that a painter might paint a Madonna solely 
 because the realisation of his own ideas delighted 
 him, it is hardly to be expected that other men will 
 rack their brains to devise blocks, presses, and prep- 
 arations by which copies of it may be made and 
 multiplied, solely for the pleasure of reproducing 
 ideas which are not their own. It must further be 
 added that delight in creation for its own sake can 
 be attributed as a sufficient motive to the highest 
 class of artists only. As for the men whose artistic and artistic 
 powers are true, but qualify them only for decorative, than the 
 not for creative work, — the men, for example, who motived by the 
 design beautiful stuffs and furniture, — though the f!!"^^°l 
 
 o ' o pecuniary 
 
 exercise of their power may be doubtless itself a'^^^^'^'i: 
 pleasure to them, they are certainly as a class not 
 given to exercising them without the expectation of 
 some proportionate pecuniary reward. Indeed, in 
 exact proportion as artistic creation assimilates itself 
 to the processes by which wealth in general is pro- 
 duced, the mere pleasure of the work itself ceases 
 to be a sufficient motive for it. 
 
 Next, with regard to the pursuit of speculative wwist scientific 
 knowledge, though this, and more especially pure though made 
 scientific discovery, may form the basis of all pro- fh" detire^for"' 
 ductive effort, it is very far from being a form of *'■"'^ ^J^ 
 
 ^ ^ •' '-' apphed to 
 
 productive effort itself. It has, on the contrary, no weaith-produc- 
 
 ... ^ , tion because 
 
 necessary connection with it. It does not even the men who 
 belong to the region in which such effort operates. dSrVteaith.
 
 298 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV Scientific truths, as apprehended by the mere seeker 
 
 Chapter 2 '^^ -^ .... 
 
 after speculative knowledge, are like powerful spirits 
 secluded in some distant star ; and, for any effect 
 which they have on the processes of economic pro- 
 duction, they might just as well have never been 
 discovered at all. Before they can be applied to 
 practical purposes they have to be mastered and 
 digested by a new class of men altogether, who 
 value them not for themselves, but solely for the 
 use they can be put to. Thus, in order that 
 speculative truths may be connected with produc- 
 tive effort, they must pass out of the hands of the 
 men who first discovered them, and be made over 
 to men whose motive in acquiring them will em- 
 phatically not be desire of the mere pleasure of 
 intellectual acquisition, but the desire of some 
 marketable products with a calculable pecuniary 
 value, in the production of which a knowledge of 
 the truths in question will help them. Thus specu- 
 lative activity, just like artistic creation, in exact 
 proportion as it connects itself with the ordinary 
 processes of wealth-production, ceases to find its 
 motive in the desire of self-realisation, and claims 
 to be rewarded by the possession of the objective 
 results produced by it. 
 What, how- And now let us turn from the motives which con- 
 facTth°atthe sist in the desire of self-realisation to those which 
 honour°makes consist in the dcsirc of the approbation or the 
 the soldier homaQjc of othcrs. This desire, which exercises a 
 
 work harder . 1 • i 
 
 than any great mflucnce on the artist, and often also on the 
 ^ ^"'^^'^ seeker after speculative truth, concurrently with the
 
 THE SOLDIER'S MOTIVE IN BATTLE 299 
 
 desire of pure self-realisation, exhibits its force most ^^o'' '^ 
 signally when it is the motive of military heroism ; 
 and the readiness with which a soldier will risk his 
 life for honour — honour which brings with it noth- 
 ing besides itself, excepting perhaps a medal and a why, the 
 scrap of ribbon — has been said by socialistic writers should not the 
 to afford a conclusive proof that any practical work, ^^g the great 
 no matter how laborious, and more particularly the ^^^"^"P''°' 
 
 ^^ J Queer work ? 
 
 work of the great wealth-producer, will be willingly 
 undertaken for the sake of the same reward. 
 " The soldier s subsistence is certain^'' writes a 
 well-known contemporary enthusiast. " It does not 
 depend upon his exertioiis. At once he becomes 
 susceptible to appeals to his patriotism. He will 
 dare anything for glory, and value a bit of bronze 
 which is ' the reward of valour ' far more than a 
 hu7tdred times its weight in gold!'' The implication, 
 of course, is that what men will do in war they will 
 do in peaceful industry ; and the writer adds, in 
 order to point this moral, ^'^ yet many of the private 
 soldiers come from the worst of the population^ 
 This passage is quoted with rapture by another 
 socialistic theorist, who exclaims, " Let those es- 
 pecially notice this last point who fancy we must 
 wait till men are angels before socialism, be practical!' 
 And even so well-trained a thinker as Mr. Frederic Mr. Frederic 
 Harrison has argued, from the readiness with which urged a similar 
 men die in battle for their country, that they will be ^'"g"'"^"'- 
 equally willing to deny themselves or suffer martyr- 
 dom for universal humanity. 
 
 To all these ideas and arguments there is one
 
 300 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV answer to be made. They are all founded on a 
 
 Chapter 2 , , ... . . 
 
 failure to perceive the fact that military activity is 
 The answer to in many respects a thin^ apart, and depends on 
 
 this is that the 1 1 • i ^ • ^ i 1 • 1 • 1 
 
 work of the psychological, and indeed on physiological processes 
 exceptional; which havc uo Counterpart in the domain of ordinary 
 effort. That such is the case can be seen very easily 
 by following out the train of argument suggested by 
 Mr. Harrison. Mr. Harrison sees that in ordinary 
 life a man will not deliberately run the risk of being 
 killed except for the sake of a cause or person to which 
 or whom he is profoundly and indescribably attached. 
 Indeed his attachment is presumably in proportion 
 to the risk he is prepared to run. And such being 
 the case in the field of ordinary life, Mr. Harrison 
 assumes it must be the case on the field of battle 
 also, and that the soldier's willingness to risk death 
 in fighting for a cause or country proves that this 
 cause or country is inexpressibly dear to him. 
 And in certain cases — when a country is in desperate 
 straits, and everything hangs on the issue of a single 
 battle — this inference would be doubtless just; but 
 that it is not so generally is shown by the notorious 
 fact that some of the bravest and most reckless 
 soldiers ever known to history have been mercenaries 
 who would fight as willingly for one country as for 
 another. Thus until Mr. Harrison can show us that 
 men in ordinary life will wear themselves out for 
 either of two opposed objects indifferently, or that 
 they will risk death as willingly for a plain woman 
 as for a pretty one, it is obvious that men's willing- 
 ness to risk death in war implies no corresponding
 
 THE SOLDIER'S CASE EXCEPTIONAL 301 
 willino^ness to risk it cuttine: trousers, and is for Bookiv 
 
 • 1 T , • ir Chapters 
 
 certain reasons a phenomenon standing by itself. 
 
 That this is so is shown even more strikingly 
 by the fact to which the two other writers just ^"'^^■^"""o* 
 
 ... , . argue from it 
 
 quoted point with so much complacency. This fact to the work of 
 is the soldier's undoubted willingness to pursue "^^ '"^"^^ 
 his calling for pay which seems strikingly incom- 
 mensurate with his risks. His conduct in this 
 respect is, no doubt, remarkable, especially when 
 compared with that of men in the domain of peace- 
 ful industry. When any industrial occupation is 
 in question a workman will expect special wages 
 if it is one which presents a likelihood of his often 
 hurting his thumb ; but soldiers will risk the prob- 
 ability of being tortured and blown to pieces for 
 wages which would hardly induce a peasant to hoe a 
 turnip-field. This is no indication of any abnormal 
 poverty amongst the classes from whom the army is 
 mainly recruited, for the same phenomenon is con- 
 stantly observable amongst men who are not under 
 the necessity of working for their living at all. 
 Amongst such men are numbers who in time of 
 actual war will eagerly give up a life of leisure and 
 luxury for the certainty of hardships and the prob- 
 ability of death — men who for the sake of anything 
 else but fighting would hardly, without a struggle, 
 run the risk of a bad dinner. But what these facts 
 really suggest to us is not the insane conclusion 
 that because soldiers act differently from other men, 
 other men may be counted on to act like soldiers. 
 On the contrary, what they suggest is the question
 
 302 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV ^i^y rnen will do as soldiers what no one will do in 
 
 Chapters •' , 
 
 any other capacity, and what soldiers themselves 
 will cease to do as soon as they become commis- 
 sionaires. 
 The fighting Yox this peculiarity in the soldier's conduct there 
 
 instinct is ^ /-->v • i • 
 
 inherent in the are three Separate reasons. One is the strictness of 
 x^^^^^ military discipline, which socialistic reformers would 
 hardly find popular if they tried to introduce it into 
 factories and contractors' yards. A second is the 
 peculiar character of the circumstances in which the 
 soldier is placed when his courage is most severely 
 taxed — circumstances which render the attempt to 
 evade peril almost as difficult, and often more 
 perilous, than facing it, and which in ordinary life 
 would be intolerable if they did not happen to be 
 impossible. But the most important reason is this 
 
 — and the others without it would be non-existent 
 
 — that the instinct of fighting is inherent in the very 
 nature of the dominant races, and it will always 
 prompt numbers to do for the smallest reward what 
 they could hardly, in its absence, be induced to do 
 for the largest. This immemorial instinct has been 
 wrought into our blood and nerves by the innumer- 
 able thousands of years that have made us what we 
 are ; and all the battles of their fathers are pulsing in 
 men's veins to-day. These instincts, no doubt, are 
 more controlled than formerly, and not so frequently 
 roused; but they are still there. They are ready 
 to quicken at the mere sound of military music ; 
 and the sight of a regiment marching draws cheers 
 from the most democratic crowd. Here is the
 
 MOTIVES OF THE GREAT CONQUEROR 303 
 reason why the soldier, thou2:h he submits himself J?°°'' ^^ 
 
 -^ . . . . Chapter a 
 
 to the most direct coercion, never considers himself, 
 and never is considered, a slave ; and military 
 activity will always be a thino: apart, and fori" a way in 
 
 ^ ^ ^11 which the 
 
 purposes or argument will never be comparable to industrial 
 industrial, till human nature undergoes so radical '"^ '"*^ '^ ""^ ' 
 a change that men will as eagerly risk being killed 
 by unfenced machinery in a cotton-mill as they will 
 being killed by a bullet or a bayonet on the field 
 of battle. Here again the facts for which the 
 socialists reason are indubitable ; but the inference 
 which the socialists draw from them is altogether 
 illusory. 
 
 It remains, however, to add that the desire of And even in 
 
 . war those who 
 
 mere honour — of honour unaccompanied by any make the pro- 
 extrinsic advantages — has an efficiency which is lectuai efforts 
 strictly limited in the domain even of military [o^otlfet'Te-'' 
 activity itself. It may move men, in the act of ^^^''^^ besides 
 
 -,. ii'i 1 1 • • mere honour. 
 
 fighting, to the highest and most heroic actions ; 
 but history shows us that it has not been found 
 sufficient to elicit the sustained intellectual efforts 
 of the General, bent on achieving some great and 
 monumental conquest — efforts in which all the 
 excitement of the actual fighter is wanting, and in 
 which the coolest calculation plays as large a part as 
 courage. The Caesars and Napoleons of the world 
 have certainly not, as a rule, been content, when 
 they have crushed their enemies and augmented 
 the magnificence of their country, with the gift of a 
 medal or two, and the privilege of ending their days 
 in the modest uniform of commissionaires opening
 
 304 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV shop doors. If, then, the mere honour of being 
 
 Chapters ^ . . ^-. . , ° 
 
 a great conqueror is insufncient to stimulate the 
 
 Still more will activitics by which great conquests are achieved, a 
 
 wealth-pro- man is hardly likely to consecrate his entire faculties 
 
 o so. ^^ wealth-production merely that he may enjoy the 
 
 honour of being known as the proud producer of so 
 
 many miles of calico, or millions of pots of jam. 
 
 There is there- Thcrc is, therefore, in the present operations of 
 
 fore nothing . . i • i i • i • 
 
 to show that those motives, for which the socialists attempt to 
 
 motives win claim a universal efficiency, as little to suggest that as 
 
 desi>e o1^ *^^ motives to exceptional wealth-production they will 
 
 wealth. ever supersede the desire of exceptional possession, 
 
 as there is in the present operations of the desire of 
 
 exceptional wealth-possession to show that it is 
 
 losing its power, or is at all likely to be superseded. 
 
 The final demonstration of this truth, however, yet 
 
 remains to be given. 
 
 What they Thc socialists, in dealinsr with this question of 
 
 really do, and . i i • i • i 
 
 what socialists motive, havc been led into the curious blunders 
 
 fail to see, istoi-ii .. ■, ii,i«< 
 
 mix with the which havc just now been exposed by their singu- 
 vteauh^and ^^^^Y childish conccption of what men's actual 
 add to its motives are. They divide motives into various well- 
 
 cmciency; •' , ^ 
 
 known classes, and, so far as it goes, their procedure 
 is here correct. Their error is that they conceive of 
 man as a being on whom these motives, as a rule, 
 act separately ; whereas in reality the very reverse is 
 the case. Acts which are due to any single motive 
 are not the rule, but the exception. For instance, 
 even though artistic creation and the pursuit of truth 
 are motived in the case of many men by the pleasure 
 which the work brings them, some of the greatest
 
 WEALTH FOR ITS OWN SAKE 305 
 
 artists and thinkers, with whom this motive was Bookiv 
 
 Chapter 2 
 
 certainly powerful, have been motived by the desire 
 
 of pecuniarv reward also. It is enousfh to mention as the desire of 
 
 y c^^ ^ -n, ^ wealth has 
 
 the names of Bacon and Shakespeare, Rubens, mixed with 
 Turner, and Scott. And with the desire of honour °nmen"ke" 
 the desire of pecuniary reward is found to mix itself ^Xn's etc, 
 yet more often and readily than it does with the 
 mere passion for artistic or for speculative work 
 itself. The psychological fact, however, which we 
 must here notice is this — that the pecuniary reward, 
 though it seems theoretically to be in contrast to any 
 genuine desire for other men's approbation, or for 
 the pleasure brought to the worker by the work 
 itself, instead of destroying the force of those other 
 motives, increases it, just as the admixture of a cer- 
 tain amount of alloy makes gold and silver more 
 valuable for artistic purposes. And now, having 
 observed this, let us turn back to the consideration 
 of the desire of pecuniary reward as the principal 
 motive of wealth-production, and endeavour to make 
 our analysis of it more complete. 
 
 As the reader will recollect, the doctrine that all For in saying 
 
 . that the desire 
 
 exceptional exertions m wealth-production are of wealth is 
 motived solely by the desire of exceptional wealth motilrMo''^ * 
 as such, although it is the doctrine imputed by the ducUonTe"do 
 socialists to their opponents, has been said already "o'^^^n the 
 
 ^ ^ , , •' desire of wealth 
 
 to be a very imperfect rendering of any doctnne as for its own 
 to the subject which their opponents would actually 
 maintain; and the reason why it is imperfect is simply 
 that wealth as such is not the object for which wealth 
 is really sought by most of those men whom the
 
 3o6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV desire of it most powerfully influences. For wealth 
 
 Chapter 2 . '^ . r 1 1 
 
 as such, in the ordinary sense of the phrase, is wealth 
 or for the sake rcofardcd as a means of personal self-induleence. It 
 
 of physical " ^ . . '-' 
 
 gratification, stands for the finest wines, the richest food, the 
 softest beds, the most luxurious furniture — for every- 
 thing that can caress the senses and enervate the 
 mind and body. And no doubt its power of securing 
 all these things to its possessors is one of the qualities 
 which render it an object of desire. But it is only 
 one ; and though it is the most obvious of them, 
 it is not the chief. The subordinate place which it 
 occupies is conclusively shown by the fact that a 
 very few thousands a year would suffice to provide 
 
 This forms a a man with every pleasure or luxury that his own 
 
 small part of 1 1 • 
 
 its desirability, scuscs could appreciate ; and yet men are often more 
 eager, after these few thousands have been secured 
 by them, to pass this point of opulence than they 
 ever were in reaching it. Many men, moreover, 
 who have surrounded themselves with pomp and 
 splendour are indifferent to the gratification of their 
 own senses altogether. Though their luncheon 
 tables may groan under every imaginable delicacy, 
 they will themselves eat a slice or two of cold ham, 
 no better or worse than would have been secured 
 them for a shilling in a cheap restaurant. Their 
 own beds will be no softer than those of prosperous 
 clerks; and, surrounded by cushioned sofas, they 
 will sit upon straight-backed chairs. 
 
 The principal reasons for which wealth is sought 
 are not pleasures of the senses, but pleasures of the 
 mind and the imagination ; and of these pleasures
 
 social- 
 sr in- 
 stead of it. 
 
 WEALTH DESIRED AS A MEANS 307 
 
 there are three principal kinds. One of them is the ^0°'' ^^ 
 
 . . . ... Chapter 2 
 
 pleasure of power, which in their analysis of human 
 motives the socialists conveniently overlook; and ^* '! •?"'''«*^ 
 
 •' mainly as a 
 
 the two others happen to be the very pleasures means to 
 by the desire of which the socialists themselves de- those very 
 clare the exceptional wealth-producers are to be J'hkh To< 
 principally marked in the future — namely, the pleas- 'sts offer in 
 ures of self-realisation and the pleasures of social 
 honour. Wealth is coveted by all really great 
 wealth-producers, not in preference to these, but 
 as a means to all or one of them. To many of our 
 great wealth-producers, with their strong practical 
 faculties, wealth would be nothing if it brought to 
 them no accession of influence ; to many it would 
 be nothing if it did not bring them the means of 
 indulging their tastes, as distinct from their physical 
 appetites ; to nearly all it would be nothing if they 
 did not, or if they did not hope it would, secure for 
 them the approbation and the respectful homage of 
 others. 
 
 The only alternatives, then, which we have before 
 us are as follows : — If the great wealth-producer is a 
 man of such coarse fibre that none of those desires 
 just mentioned are really his — neither the desire of 
 power, nor the desire of social honour, nor the de- 
 sire for that larger development of taste and moral 
 activities which is rendered possible by the posses- 
 sion of exceptional wealth — then it is obvious that 
 the sole motive left to him will be the gross or 
 unreasoning desire for the possession of wealth 
 as such ; and we are brought back to the original
 
 3o8 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 2 
 
 The great 
 wealth-pro- 
 ducers suscep- 
 tible to the 
 motives on 
 which the 
 socialists 
 dwell will 
 desire excep- 
 tional wealth 
 all the more 
 because of 
 them. 
 
 proposition which the sociaHsts set themselves to 
 annihilate. But if, on the other hand, the great 
 wealth-producer is really capable of those higher 
 desires which the socialists assure us will shortly 
 become so strong in him, the desire of exceptional 
 wealth, instead of being superseded by these, will 
 be stronger beyond calculation than it ever could 
 be without them. 
 
 And it is, as a rule, the latter of these two 
 suppositions which practically represents the truth. 
 Exceptional wealth is desired by the men who 
 produce it not for itself, but for its results ; and in 
 proportion as the man who desires it possesses a 
 lofty character, his desire for it, being merged in the 
 thought of the uses to which he desires to put it, 
 will itself become equally lofty also. But none the 
 less will the desire of the material wealth form the 
 physical basis in which his loftier desires inhere, just 
 as the impulse of sex remains the physical basis of 
 the deepest and tenderest love which a man feels for 
 a woman, or as the brain is the physical basis of every 
 thought that a man can think. Thus the arguments 
 of the socialists recoil upon their own heads ; and 
 instead of tending to show that the desire of pos- 
 sessing exceptional wealth will ever cease to be in- 
 dispensable as a motive to exceptional production of 
 it, they have merely succeeded in calling attention 
 to the facts on which the indispensable character of 
 this motive depends. 
 
 We have not, however, finished with this ques- 
 tion yet. There is a further set of objections still
 
 EARNED AND TRANSMITTED WEALTH 309 
 remaininsf to be considered which, whilst based on ^^^'^ ^^ 
 
 ... ... Chapter a 
 
 an admission that wealth-production is motived by the 
 desire of wealth, aims at showing that this fact does 
 not necessarily result in more than a fraction of the 
 consequences which have up to this time flowed from 
 it, but merely shows in reality that those consequences 
 are unalterable, and adds new force to the arguments 
 that have just been urged with regard to them. 
 
 The objections referred to are those embodied in n is argued. 
 
 however bv 
 
 the well-known contention that though the posses- semi-sodaiists 
 sion of exceptional wealth must be allowed to the proVucermay 
 exceptional men who are actually eng^ao^ed in pro- ^"^ snowed the 
 
 ^ J <j o 1 income he pro- 
 
 ducing it, and the exercise of whose business ability duces, but that 
 
 ... , . this must end 
 
 IS just as essential to the country s prosperity as to with his life, 
 their own, yet this possession of wealth should be pLsed on^o 
 limited to themselves personally, and should not be !"'! ^^"1''-^ ^^ 
 
 ■i^ J ' mterest on 
 
 allowed to distribute itself amongst their idle and bequeathed 
 inefficient families. In other words, it is urged that 
 whilst the founders and conductors of businesses are 
 entitled to the incomes, no matter how large, that 
 are due to the exercise of their own powers, these 
 incomes should cease with the cessation of the 
 powers that caused them, and should not be allowed 
 to perpetuate themselves, as they do now, in the 
 shape of interest paid to the passive owners of 
 capital. Such an arrangement, it is maintained by 
 those who advocate it, would at once coincide with the 
 dictates of abstract justice, and whilst securing to the 
 exceptional wealth-producer, whose services society 
 requires, the full reward and motive necessary to 
 ensure his activity, would enrich the community at
 
 3IO ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV large by distributing amongst it an enormous income, 
 
 Chapter 2 , ? , -^ . ^ . ^, . . . , , 
 
 which at present, mstead of stimulatmg anybody to 
 any useful exertion, merely keeps a number of men 
 in idleness. And this contention at first sight does 
 It is claimed not lack plausIbility either in respect of the question 
 arrangement of abstract justicc vvhich it raiscs, or of the practical 
 with abs'tJacf^ consequences which, according to it, the arrange- 
 justice; ment in question would produce. When we ex- 
 
 amine it closely, however, the plausibility vanishes, 
 and abstract justice and practical reason alike con- 
 demn the appeals thus made to them as founded 
 entirely on misconception. 
 
 Let us deal with the question of abstract justice 
 
 first. Those who denounce interest or unearned 
 
 income as unjust, invariably state their case in the 
 
 following simple form. There are only two ways, 
 
 for it is argued ^hcv sav, in which a man can become possessed of 
 
 that all wealth . . . 
 
 which is not wcaltli — either by producmg such and such an 
 must be stolen, amount himsclf, or by appropriating such and such 
 an amount that has been produced by another 
 person ; or, as they frequently put it, with an air of 
 solemn sententiousness, ''A mmi can get an income 
 only by working or by stealing: there is no third 
 way/'' Now one conclusive answer to this puerile, 
 though popular, sophism has, strangely enough, 
 been given by Mr. Henry George, who, though 
 eager to adopt any argument that could be used to 
 assail the rich, was, nevertheless, not taken in by 
 this. Mr. George pointed out that one kind of 
 wealth, at all events, — and we may add that in this 
 we have wealth in its oldest form, — consists of
 
 CAPITAL AS A WEALTH-PRODUCER 311 
 possessions which have been neither made by the "^"^^^ ^^ 
 
 , Chapter 2 
 
 possessors nor yet stolen by them. That is to say, 
 it consists of flocks and herds. Mr. George pointed 
 out also that whole classes of possessions besides 
 are, for by far the larger part of their value, equally 
 independent of either work or theft. Such posses- This is utterly 
 
 1 T j^ • • , 1 , • untrue, as the 
 
 sions are wmes, whose quality improves with time, case of flocks 
 and whose value, consequently, whether in exchange show^g^u? 
 or use, is increased from year to year by the secret 
 operations of nature. But Mr. George, though his 
 arguments were true so far as they went, did little 
 more than touch the hem of the question ; for 
 flocks and herds, and commodities that grow valu- 
 able as they mature themselves, form but a small, 
 though they do form a typical, portion of wealth that 
 may come to a man without his having produced it 
 himself, and without his stealing it from any other 
 human producer. And this is the wealth which is 
 actually produced by capital. 
 
 In order to show the reader that capital is an but the chief 
 
 . ^ 1 • , , , . producer of 
 
 actual producer, in as true a sense as labour is, or wealth that is 
 the ability by which labour is directed, let us begin "s°capit2,^^ ^°' 
 by considerinor fixed capital as distinct from wasre ^'^''r^ '^ p^^^ 
 
 J O IT o productive 
 
 capital, and by considering it in its simplest forms, ability stored 
 By fixed capital is meant any tools, machines, or externalised. 
 materials by which man's efficiency as a producer 
 of wealth is increased ; and we will take as examples 
 of these the three following things — a dart or missile 
 by which game may be killed ; a heap of manure 
 by which a peasant's field may be fertilised ; and a 
 horse which a peasant uses for ploughing and
 
 312 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter a 
 
 The dart of a 
 savage hunter, 
 
 the manure 
 heap or cart 
 horse of a 
 peasant, 
 
 kindred purposes. Now let us imagine a race of 
 savages who use no missiles at all, but catch their 
 game merely by sleight of hand. If a man is 
 entitled to such game as he catches, the excep- 
 tionally dexterous hunter who catches most will be 
 necessarily the rightful possessor of more game 
 than his fellows. This will be granted by those 
 who admit that work constitutes a true, and the 
 only true title to possession. 
 
 Such being the case, then, let us alter our sup- 
 position somewhat, and suppose that the hunters, 
 instead of catching the game with their hands, kill 
 it with wooden darts ; and that the amount of game 
 which each hunter will secure in a day depends not 
 on the skill with which the darts are thrown, but 
 on the skill with which the darts are made. Under 
 these circumstances, the hunter who secures most 
 will not be the man who is quickest in seizing the 
 quarry with his hands, but the man who makes the 
 darts that will reach their mark most certainly ; and 
 yet no one would say that he was less entitled to 
 what he took, because his exceptional skill, before 
 it could become effectual, was obliged to become 
 embodied in some object external to himself. 
 
 In the same way, if two peasants are cultivating 
 similar fields, and one, by sheer hard work, raises 
 a larger crop than the other, his right to his larger 
 crop would not be denied by anybody. Let us 
 suppose, then, that instead of working harder than 
 his neighbour he works more intelligently, that he 
 saves and stores up as manure materials which his
 
 MACHINES AS ARTIFICIAL SLAVES 313 
 nei2:hbour wastes; and that every year, through Bookiv 
 
 1 , 1 • , • ,1 Chapter 2 
 
 the powers accumulated in his manure heap, he can 
 raise a larger crop than his neighbour, though he are forms of 
 actually works less. Would any one affirm that the are actual 
 man lost his right to his extra produce because he She product^ 
 produced it indirectly by the external agency of belongs to 
 
 i J J o J those who own 
 
 his manure, and not directly by overstraining his them, 
 muscles } Or again, if one of the peasants raised 
 a larger crop than his neighbour because, whilst his 
 neighbour spent all his money in drinking, he him- 
 self saved it and bought a horse, would any one main- 
 tain that the extra crop due to the work which the 
 horse performed for its owner did not belong to the 
 owner, but was stolen by him from the other man } 
 
 No one would put forward an argument so absurd The same is 
 
 '■ *-' the case with 
 
 as this. And yet the wooden darts of the savage such capital as 
 and the manure heap and the horse of the peasant are mfnufactory 
 neither more nor less than portions of fixed capital, ^^^^^' 
 just as a steam engine is, or a cotton mill with* all its 
 plant. Fixed capital is merely productive ability 
 which, instead of acting directly in the production of 
 goods for the consumer, stores itself up in externalised 
 means of production, so that it may, with accumu- 
 lated force, produce such goods indirectly ; and the 
 additional wealth which a man produces by a new 
 machine is just as much produced by himself as is 
 the additional crop which he raises from a patch of 
 land by the employment of a horse which he has 
 bought, or manure which he has himself concocted. 
 Indeed, fixed capital may be compared to a breed 
 of artificial horses, or if we like the simile better, to
 
 314 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV a race of iron slaves. The amount of wealth which 
 
 Chapter 2 1 • i i 1 
 
 the employment of a machme adds to the amount 
 
 that would be produced without it by a given 
 
 These impie- numbcr of labourcrs, is produced by the machine 
 
 ments are like .,.. , . -,,.., ,. 
 
 a race of iron itseli just as truly as it would be 11 the machine, 
 arfpTo^du^ers instcad of a structure of wheels and framework, 
 as truly as live ^qq"^ ^hc form of a gang of artificial negroes, who 
 
 negroes would 00 o ' 
 
 be. only betrayed the fact that they were not human 
 
 by the heat of their breath, an occasional unearthly 
 whistle, and the different language in which they 
 required to have their orders given them. The 
 machine produces this increment, but certain men 
 produced the machine ; and therefore the increment 
 is in reality produced by the men, just as truly 
 as when a murdered man has been killed by a 
 bullet from a rifle, his death has been caused 
 by the murderer who aimed and discharged the 
 weapon. 
 
 Indirectly, And what is truc of fixed capital is true of wage 
 
 wage capital is , ^ '■ ^ '-' 
 
 also a producer capital also ; for fixed capital, such as machines, 
 way. buildings, or railways, is the result of wage capital, 
 
 as employed to direct labour, and is therefore wage- 
 capital externalised in the objective results of its em- 
 ployment. But fixed capital, or a man's productive 
 power externalised, differs from his productive power 
 when exercised by himself through wage capital. It 
 is a part of his power which he can separate from 
 his own personality, and which he can make over 
 to others, just as a slave-owner might make over 
 a body of slaves ; only these are slaves whose 
 enslavement does them no wrong, and who belong
 
 CAPITAL IS FOSSILISED ABILITY 315 
 
 by rio^ht to the men whose enterprise and whose ^^^'^ '^ 
 
 . -' ^ ^ Chapter 2 
 
 intellect created them. 
 
 Capital, then, as such, is as true a producer of ''^"'^, '"^^^^ 
 
 ^ ' ' ' , ^ , till they saw 
 
 wealth as the men were who in the first instance that this argu- 
 
 , , . , , f ,1 ment could be 
 
 produced it; and when one of them passes a turned against 
 portion of it on to his son, and with it the income ^asTtrongV' 
 that results from it, this income is nothing: that is "^e.^'d by the 
 
 o socialists. 
 
 stolen from other men, but is simply a part of the 
 product produced by the artificial slaves, the use of 
 whom other men for their own advantage borrow, 
 and who rightly belong to the lender because he has 
 received them from his fathers, who created them. 
 And should any socialist quarrel with this reason- 
 ing, it will be sufficient to point out to him that it 
 is neither more nor less than the reasoning which, 
 till only a few years ago, the leaders of socialism 
 themselves were never weary of employing. Capital, 
 said Lassalle, is merely labour fossilised : and so 
 long as labour was held to be the only wealth- 
 producer, the socialists urged that capital belonged 
 to the labourers, because it represented the labour 
 of their fathers, whose heirs they were. But with 
 the gradual disappearance of the doctrine that 
 labour is the sole producer, it is becoming more 
 and more evident that capital is not what Lassalle 
 thought it was — that it is not fossilised labour, but 
 fossilised business ability. In other words, it does 
 not, except in its earliest stages, represent on the 
 part of producers a process of exceptional saving. 
 What it does represent is a process of exceptional 
 production. Since then the labourers, as labourers,
 
 3i6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV would have been the rightful heirs to all capital, 
 
 Chapter 2 ° r ' 
 
 if all capital had been produced by the common 
 labour of their parents, those who have actually 
 inherited it must be its rightful owners in fact, 
 because in fact it has been produced by the ability 
 of the exceptional men who left it to them. 
 Practically, g^t the wholc of this argument, based on the 
 
 however, the . . . '-' !• i 
 
 justification of claims of abstract justice, would avail very little to 
 capital defend the income of the mere owner of capital if 
 
 his position rested upon its abstract justice only, 
 and if his right to his income did not form a part 
 of the very conditions that render the production of 
 wealth possible. The part which the right to income 
 from capital plays when the ownership of the capital 
 is divorced from any active employment of it, de- 
 pends on the fact that the right to income of this 
 kind is what gives to wealth the larger part of its 
 value, and renders the desire of it efficient as a social 
 motive. 
 
 The ways in which it does this are many and 
 various; and because it is impossible to indicate 
 them in any simple or single formula, certain people 
 may imagine that they have no importance. Such 
 people might as well argue that no complicated 
 process is an important process, or that no results 
 are necessary when many causes combine to produce 
 them. 
 rests on the The most obvious of the reasons why the right 
 
 fact that the . . - . • i f 1 
 
 power of to income from capital forms in the eyes oi the 
 
 Sme*° ^'^^"^ exceptional wealth-producer a principal element in 
 
 the desirability of the wealth produced by him has
 
 INCOME-YIELDING CAPITAL 317 
 
 its root in the facts of family affection. In spite of Bookiv 
 
 "' ^ '■ Chapter 2 
 
 the selfishness which distinguishes so much of human 
 
 action, a man's desire to secure for his family such is what mainly 
 
 . . makes men 
 
 wealth as he can is one of the strongest motives of anxious to pro- 
 human activity known ; and the fact that it operates "*^^"' 
 in the case of many who are otherwise selfish shows 
 how deeply it is engrained in the human character. 
 It may, indeed, be regarded as a kind of selfishness 
 itself; and the vigorous and practical men who 
 have exceptional faculties for wealth-production are 
 precisely those in whom it is strongest and most 
 persistent. Men like these would never for a 
 moment tolerate an arrangement which permitted 
 the head of the family to keep his wife and children since if in- 
 
 "^ , ^ come-yieldmg 
 
 in luxury so long as he lived, but would condemn capital could 
 all of them, the moment he happened to die, to be "nd be-""^'" 
 turned by the butler and footmen into the street as Shy"^' 
 
 men 
 
 hpCTcarS could make no 
 
 &o * ... provision for 
 
 It has been said that this family feeling on the their families, 
 part of the great wealth-producer may be regarded 
 as a species of selfishness ; and there is nothing very 
 recondite in the process by which it comes to be so. 
 Such a man, no matter how selfish, values his family 
 because it happens to be his own. His own im- 
 portance is enhanced by the success and brilliancy 
 of its members ; and the possession of a fashion- 
 able wife, and a popular and well-bred son, reflects 
 almost as much credit on him as the possession of a 
 gentleman for his grandfather. For this reason, if 
 for no others, he will do for them everything that 
 exceptional wealth will enable him to do. Wealth,
 
 3i8 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 2 
 
 nor would 
 wealth give 
 pleasure to 
 those who 
 might at any 
 moment be 
 beggars. 
 
 however, depends for its effects on those who enjoy 
 it, not merely on its present enjoyment, but on the 
 prospect of its continued possession ; and unless the 
 man who is making a fortune by his ability may 
 bequeath to one of his children, at all events, a 
 position similar to his own, and something excep- 
 tional in the way of wealth to all, the money which 
 he spends on them during his own lifetime will 
 be wasted. The whole social importance which 
 wealth might have given them would be gone. The 
 tastes and the peculiar cultivation which wealth is 
 capable of securing for those who are from their 
 earliest years surrounded with it, they would under 
 such circumstances neglect to acquire at all ; or, if 
 they did acquire them, they would be living in a fool's 
 paradise, for when their father died, and their wealth 
 consequently vanished, they would be infinitely worse 
 off than those who had never possessed it. They 
 would resemble nothing so much as plants that had 
 been grown in a conservatory, merely that, when on 
 the point of flowering, they might be bedded out. in 
 the frost. 
 
 If, then, for the selfish, or even the heartless 
 parent, wealth would in most cases lose the larger 
 part of its attractions unless it could be accumulated 
 and bequeathed to others in the shape of income- 
 yielding property, for the normally affectionate parent 
 its attractions would be reduced yet further. 
 
 But the full part which heritable incomes play, in 
 rendering wealth desirable in the eyes of exceptional 
 men, is not to be understood by considering such a
 
 SOCIALISTS ON INVESTMENT 319 
 
 man and his family singly. For the life and the Bookiv 
 
 . ° -^ . Chapter 2 
 
 ambitions of a family are not self-contamed. They 
 imply and depend upon relations with other families ; 
 and these other families will be valued, and inter- 
 course with them will be rendered possible, not by the Moreover, if 
 
 , . , . incomes were 
 
 bare fact that they are the possessors of so much not heritable, 
 money, but by the fact that they have the habits and producrn"one 
 interests which result, and result only, in the social °^ '^f^^ ^°f"*' 
 
 ' J ' results, such as 
 
 atmosphere created by a number of assured incomes, continuous 
 
 , culture, etc., 
 
 wholly independent of any daily struggle to make which make it 
 them. It is easy to see that no rich society would be ^^"* 
 endurable if the only men in it were men who had 
 just made their fortunes, and if, on their deaths, their 
 families disappeared from it in the gulfs of destitu- 
 tion. Anything more exquisitely ludicrous than the 
 socialistic proposal that great wealth-producers should 
 be allowed large incomes to spend, but that they must 
 not on any account be allowed to invest any part 
 of them, or use it in a way by which more income 
 may result from it — anything more ludicrous than 
 this it is not possible to conceive. It is — to recur 
 to an illustration used already — like proposing that 
 a peasant who is more industrious than his neigh- 
 bours shall be allowed all the money which the sale 
 of his extra produce brinp:s him, provided only that The wealth 
 
 that ceased 
 
 he spends it on brandy, or beer, or absinthe; but with the men 
 that if he saves it up and buys a useful horse with madriMvouid 
 it, his purchase shall be confiscated by the State, sodt^o? 
 because a horse is productive capital. This pro- ^^^^^s. 
 posal, however, is not only ludicrous in theory, but 
 it would, if put into practice, result in a sort of
 
 320 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV society more vile and bestial than anythino^ which 
 
 Chapter a J 11 
 
 the world has ever known. For the sole advantage 
 which in that case wealth would bring to its pro- 
 ducer would consist in the meat and drink and other 
 means of physical pleasure which he and his family 
 could consume or enjoy during his lifetime — before 
 he retired to the grave, and his wife and children 
 to the workhouse. 
 Wealth is Xhc main value of wealth in the eyes of the 
 
 desirable . . , . . 
 
 because it is great wealth-produccr does not consist m its mmis- 
 brsiso7anen- tering to brief spasms of self-indulgence, but in the 
 largedhfe; £^^^ ^£ -^^ being thc foundatiou of an equable and 
 
 sustained life, in which the physical pleasures are 
 refined rather than intensified, and the time em- 
 ployed by the majority in producing the necessaries 
 of existence is given not to sloth, but to other 
 kinds of exertion. A life of this kind is impossible 
 except in a society of which a large section not only 
 and there must possesscs Wealth, but is accustomcd to its possession, 
 
 thus be con- i . 1 • i 1 1-1 
 
 tinuityinthe and IS characterised by accomplishments, tastes, 
 weaiS!'°"° principles, and kinds of knowledge, which can be 
 developed and acquired only when the continuance 
 of its possession is assured. In other words, those 
 men on whose exceptional business ability the pro- 
 ductive processes of the entire community depend, 
 and who are the cause of growth in the incomes of 
 the mass of the community, just as truly as they 
 are the producers of their own fortunes, are motived 
 to activity less by the desire of the wealth which 
 comes to them day by day through their own 
 direct exertions, and which would cease instantly
 
 / 
 
 INTEREST AS THE DESIRED PRODUCT 321 
 when these exertions were suspended, than they boouiv 
 
 ■^ •' Chapter 2 
 
 are by the desire of wealth that shall come to them 
 indirectly, not as the product of their exceptional 
 exertions in the present, but as the product of the 
 accumulated product of their exceptional exertions 
 in the past — the product of those stored-up forces 
 with which they have enriched the world, and which, 
 whilst rendering help to thousands of men besides, "eat^^lauh- 
 will continue to render a tribute to their creators pro^^ucer 
 
 demands the 
 
 and their creators' children. possession not 
 
 ,_,, , . . , f 1 r M* only of what 
 
 1 hus, to express the matter m briei and ramiliar he produces 
 language, the sustained development and exercise ^hath^epro-° 
 of exceptional ability in wealth-production implies fg"j,^^f^^hrl!u h 
 the possession by those who monopolise this ability, ws past 
 
 iri • ri 1 i'i products. 
 
 not merely of that portion or those products which 
 are called the wages of superintendence, but also 
 to that portion which is called interest on capital. 
 For just as the control of capital affords the only 
 means by which, under free institutions, the great 
 man can apply his faculties so as to increase the 
 production of wealth, so does the right to interest, 
 or to the products of the capital accumulated by 
 him, constitute the chief reward by the desire of 
 which the exercise of his faculties is stimulated. 
 
 There is a further point, however, which now 
 remains to be noticed. When it is said that the 
 great wealth-producer is motived mainly by the 
 desire to enjoy an amount of wealth proportionate 
 to what is produced by him, it is not asserted that 
 in order to gratify this desire it is necessary that 
 he should be able to appropriate the whole of what
 
 322 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV is produced by him. On the contrary, of that con- 
 stantly growing product which is added by the 
 The majority great mau's facultics to the product of ordinary 
 
 not only may, r i • i i • r i 
 
 but do acquire labour, and out 01 which the income oi the great 
 
 a share of the , • • i i ft,' 
 
 increment pro- TCidLVi comcs, 3. portion IS Capable OI being appro- 
 
 ducedbythe plated bv the ordinary labourers themselves. In- 
 great man \ ^ -^ •' 
 
 deed, the masses of the community are partakers in 
 material progress, and have an interest in material 
 progress solely because, as an actual fact, a consider- 
 able percentage of this added product goes to them; 
 and though few of our so-called " labour leaders " 
 recognise this truth, all the hopes of enrichment 
 which they hold out to their followers imply nothing 
 whatever beyond the securing a larger amount of 
 an increment which is produced not by themselves 
 but others. An important question, therefore, 
 arises in this way as to how far the product of the 
 great men can be taxed and handed over as a 
 bonus to average labour without weakening the 
 but whatever motivcs which prompt the great men to produce it. 
 
 this share may . . . i. • r. i v , • • 
 
 be. it can never 1 his IS a qucstion to which, by u pviori reasoning, 
 rend'e^r^socil'i ^^ is absolutcly impossiblc to give any definite 
 conditions auswcr. It is a question that can be solved only 
 
 equal. ... 
 
 by cautious practical experiment ; and the answer 
 will vary constantly with times, places, and circum- 
 stances. All that can be asserted here, and it is all 
 that requires to be insisted on, is that the amount of 
 wealth which the exceptional wealth-producer can 
 secure must be proportionate to what is produced 
 by him, however far short of the whole of it ; and 
 that it must not be diminished to such an extent as
 
 SOCIAL INEQUALITIES PERMANENT 323 
 will render it less exceptional as the obiect of an Bookiv 
 
 , . . , > 1 • Chapter 2 
 
 ambitious and strenuous man s desire. 
 
 In other words, that graduation of social circum- 
 stances, those differences in ways of living, in habits, 
 manners, accomplishments, and social functions, 
 which have their physical basis in varying degrees 
 of wealth, and give to civilised society what is its 
 present, as it has been its past character — these 
 graduations of social circumstances, which it is the 
 cherished dream of the socialists to do away with, 
 are indestructible so long as civilisation lasts. If 
 they perish, civilisation will perish also; when 
 civilisation is restored they will reappear along with 
 it; and however they may be modified or adjusted, 
 they can never be even approximately effaced. 
 
 It is the facts briefly indicated in the present 
 chapter which the socialists of to-day are principally 
 distinguished by ignoring; and it is these facts 
 which render socialism for ever impossible. 
 
 This truth, when once generally recognised, will 
 lead to many practical consequences, of which the 
 most immediately important will be dealt with in 
 the following chapter.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 EQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY 
 
 The two great facts, then, that have been elucidated 
 
 by our inquiry thus far, are these: in the first place, 
 
 all progress and civilisation, and more especially all 
 
 production of wealth, results from a complicated 
 
 process in which, man for man, a minority plays a 
 
 part incalculably greater than the majority ; and 
 
 consequently, in the second place, the minority, 
 
 man for man, possess wealth that is correspondingly 
 
 greater than the wealth of the majority, likewise. 
 
 In addition to these facts a third has been elucidated 
 
 also, to which it is desirable that we should give 
 
 renewed attention. Since great men not only pro- 
 
 The wealthy ducc wcalth dircctly, but produce it indirectly by 
 
 inheritance, is produciug wcalth which produccs it, and which they 
 
 moren^met ^rc cuablcd to hand on to their children, the 
 
 ous than the wcalthv class is at any particular moment always 
 
 great men actu- ' •' ■•■ -' 
 
 ally engaged at morc uumcrous than those members of it who are 
 
 any given time n • i • t y— -n • • 
 
 in production, engaged actually m production. In Great Britam, 
 for example, it has been estimated that two-thirds of 
 the aggregate income that pays income tax is rent 
 or interest on capital, and that one-third represents 
 
 324
 
 CHANGES IN OWNERSHIP OF WEALTH 325 
 the direct products of work. We may therefore boouiv 
 
 ■*■ , ■' Chapter 3 
 
 here adopt the rough hypothesis that out of each 
 generation of our wealthy class a third part is en- 
 riching itself by the process of direct production, 
 and two-thirds are living on the products produced 
 for them indirectly by the capital or the means of 
 production which were created by their fathers and 
 their grandfathers. Now such being the case, what 
 we have to notice is as follows. Thous^h the mem- But though 
 
 *-" _ inheritance 
 
 bers of the wealthy class are not always changing, gives a certain 
 
 - Ill • r '-I • permanence to 
 
 as they would be were no savmg or capital, no in- the wealthy 
 terest, and no bequest allowed, they are still chang- feSlsbe- 
 inff gradually from generation to o:eneration, so that io"g'"g *« i* 
 
 oci J Q o are constantly, 
 
 whilst the class, as a class, always possesses a nucleus if siowiy. 
 of families with whom wealth and the traditions of 
 wealth are hereditary, a number of individuals born 
 in it are constantly disappearing over its borders, 
 and a number of other individuals are constantly 
 passing into it.^ 
 
 ^The most permanent form of hereditary wealth is land; but 
 only a small minority of our existing landed families existed as 
 landed families at the time of the last Heralds' visitation. Thus, 
 though the estates of this country are as old as the country itself, the 
 actual possession of a large proportion of them by their owners, at 
 any given time, represents their purchase by wealth recently created, 
 and is, in fact, recent wealth converted into another form. 
 
 And if there is a change like this in the possession of landed 
 wealth, there is a still more rapid change in the possession of 
 commercial capital. One of the many childish assumptions of Karl 
 Marx was the assumption on which a good deal of his reasoning 
 rests — that the English middle classes of the present century owed 
 their capital and positions to social opportunities which had come to 
 them as the heirs and descendants of the merchants and wealthier
 
 way into it. 
 
 326 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV Thus in spite of the permanence which interest 
 
 Chapter 3 . .... 
 
 gives to wealth, the famihes that live merely on 
 interest are constantly tending to disappear, and 
 their places are being taken by the men whose ex- 
 ceptional faculties, whose business ability, whose 
 and new men enterprise and strenuous will, actually contribute 
 
 are constantly ... 
 
 forcing their most to the productivc forccs of the country. It 
 was observed by J. S. Mill with regard to political 
 government that this " is always in, or is passing 
 into^ the hands " of the men who are at the time 
 the true repositories of power. In the same way 
 the wealth of any progressive country is always in, 
 or is passing into, the hands of the men who by 
 their own abilities are engaged actively in pro- 
 ducing it. 
 
 sheep-farmers who began to make fortunes four hundred years ago. 
 As a matter of fact by far the larger part of the great commercial 
 businesses and commercial fortunes now existing in this country have 
 been founded during the past hundred, and many within the past 
 fifty years, by men who were the sons of ordinary wage-paid labourers, 
 and who were no more heirs to the men who formed the middle class 
 under the Tudors than they were to the merchants who are cele- 
 brated in the Arabian Nights. That such is the case is shown with 
 sufficient clearness by the following figures, which refer to commercial 
 incomes during the thirty years which followed the first Great 
 Exhibition. During these years, whilst the population increased by 
 about thirty per cent, fortunes of over ten thousand a year were 
 multiplied by 100 per cent, fortunes of from five to ten thousand by 
 96 per cent, and fortunes of from five to six hundred by 308 per 
 cent. It is obvious, then, that when a class is augmented in one 
 generation by a number of new members from three to ten times as 
 great as its natural increase would account for, most of its new 
 members must have come to it from some class outside, and have 
 gained their place in it solely by their own exertions.
 
 THE ACTUALISING OF POTENTIAL TALENT 327 
 Such beins: the case, then, the material civiHsa- ^"o^ ^^ 
 
 Chapter 3 
 
 tion of a country — the wealth of the few or the pro- 
 gressive comfort of the many — depends on the ex- indeed the 
 
 wealth of the 
 
 tent to which its potentially great wealth-producers, country de- 
 
 as they come into the world, generation after genera- ^"rfpo^tent^riiy 
 tion, are induced by circumstances to develop their 5''^^' ^^ p'°', 
 
 ' -' ^ ducers actu;\U 
 
 exceptional talents, and devote them to the main- 'sing their 
 
 . talents and 
 
 tenance and improvement of the productive process, producing the 
 For those, therefore, who regard the material wel- ^Ises them, 
 fare of a community as the test and basis of its 
 welfare in all other ways, the abiding social problem 
 is always this : how to adjust circumstances in such 
 a way that the smallest possible number of these 
 potentially great wealth-producers may be wasted, 
 and the largest possible number may be induced to 
 exert themselves to the utmost. 
 
 One set of conditions essential to this result has it is therefore 
 been described already — those, that is to say, by wealth win 
 which the possession of wealth is secured to the ponfonas"the°e 
 producers of it, and the persons to whom they leave grearmenhave 
 it. But to these must be added another set of an the opportunity 
 
 ..... , . . . of actualising 
 
 entirely distinct character — that is to say, the con- their produc- 
 ditions which, the motive to exertion being given, '^^p^^^""^* 
 shall render exertion of the kind required possible for 
 the largest number who happen to be theoretically 
 capable of it. Now modern democratic thinkers 
 have supplied the world with a formula by which, 
 in their judgment, these conditions are sufficiently 
 indicated. This formula is " equality of oppor- 
 tunity," and we cannot begin our consideration of 
 the question better than by taking this as a starting-
 
 328 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV point, and asklno^ what truth is contained in it. We 
 
 Chapters ^ ' » ^ ... 
 
 may at once admit, then, that if it is taken in an 
 abstract sense, it sums up a truth which is, beyond 
 doubt, indisputable ; for if each individual having 
 exceptional potentialities as a wealth-producer, 
 which require nothing but the favour of circum- 
 stances to ensure their being turned into actualities, 
 could be provided with circumstances so nicely 
 adapted to his idiosyncrasies that these potentialities 
 might be developed to the utmost extent possible, 
 the productive powers of the community, it is almost 
 needless to observe, would be raised in that case 
 to their utmost possible efficiency. Such an ideal 
 condition of things as this, however, is impossible 
 for the following, if for no other reason. Successful 
 parents as a rule will employ part of their wealth — 
 at all events they will employ the positions which 
 they have won by their own ability — to provide 
 opportunities of a special kind for their sons ; 
 therefore, whatever the State might do for its youths 
 and young men in general, exceptional parents for 
 their sons would be able to do something more. 
 Equality of opportunity, therefore, represents an 
 The question is ideal coudition which we never can reach, but to 
 
 how near we - . - , . 111 
 
 can approach which wc Can ouly approximate ; and the only 
 to equahty. pj-actical qucstions for us are accordingly these : 
 
 how far towards this ideal can political action carry 
 
 us, and what results are to be anticipated from our 
 
 nearest possible approach to it } 
 
 Now the answer to both these questions will very 
 
 largely depend on the existing conditions of the 
 
 It is impossi- 
 ble, however, 
 to make 
 opportunities 
 absolutely 
 equal.
 
 REMOVABLE INEQUALITIES 329 
 
 community with reference to which they are asked. ^^^'^ 'v 
 
 T^ 1 1 r 1 • • • • Chapter 3 
 
 For though men s powers of equahsmg opportunities 
 
 are Hmited, their powers of making them unequaP"a<=ou"*'"y 
 
 ,.,-., ,, where oppor- 
 
 may be said to be indefinitely great ; and the more tunities have 
 unequal they have been made at the time when we aSfidany* 
 ask our questions, the greater will the progress be lt"n bTioom^ 
 which there will be room for us to make towards ^°/ ^ g""^^* ^^""^ 
 
 of equahsation. 
 
 equalising them, and the greater will be the social 
 advantages which we may hope to secure by making 
 it. In France, for example, before the first Revolu- 
 tion, the laws affecting industry had almost ruined 
 the nation, not because by unduly favouring one class 
 they led to wealth being concentrated, but because 
 by unduly hampering other classes they prevented 
 its being produced ; and the sweeping away by the 
 Revolution of the old feudal inequalities, though it 
 had none of the millennial effects which the Revo- 
 lutionists themselves hoped for, has had others 
 equally striking, though of a very different kind. 
 It has not made men equal in point of wealth, but 
 it has increased to an astonishing extent the wealth 
 of all classes alike. And the way in which it has 
 done this has been by removing artificial impedi- 
 ments to the development and free exercise of 
 exceptional productive talent; or in other words, 
 by an equalisation of economic opportunities. 
 
 But the kind of equality that has thus been But removing 
 
 1 T -1 1 1 • f • artificial im- 
 
 reached may be described as being of a negative pediments is 
 rather than a positive kind. It depends on the khido"^^^"'^ 
 absence of artificial impediments to production, ^i^^i's^^'o"- 
 rather than on the supply of any artificial helps to
 
 330 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV it . which means that it depends on the absence of 
 
 Chapters ' ^ 
 
 everything that might obstruct the strong, rather than 
 on measures or institutions that should artificially 
 lend strength to the weak. Now, so far as industrial 
 ability of the highest kind is concerned, it is probable 
 that this negative condition of things, which is 
 merely the complete embodiment of a policy of 
 laisser-faire, represents the utmost that, in any 
 civilised country, can be done by the process of 
 equalisation with any beneficial result. For in 
 wealth-production the men whose capacities are 
 It is probable, really of the first order will, when not positively 
 
 however thst 
 
 forthe develop- impeded, make their own opportunities for them- 
 ^fThe°highesr selves ; and the genius who is born with every 
 thft^s^nledfu" opportunity waiting for him has but a few years' 
 start of the genius who is born with none. That 
 such is the case is abundantly illustrated by history. 
 If we consider the most famous of the men whose 
 originality of mind and extraordinary spirit of enter- 
 prise have been chief amongst the forces which 
 have enriched the civilised world, we shall find that 
 those whose names most readily occur to us have had 
 no opportunities save such as their own genius made 
 for them. Arkwright, Cartwright, Watt, Stephen- 
 son, the intrepid and enduring adventurers who, in 
 the teeth of prolonged opposition, laid the founda- 
 tions of the modern manufacture of iron; Columbus, 
 who gave to Europe a new hemisphere — all these 
 have been men born amongst social circumstances 
 which conspired to deny them rather than to provide 
 them with opportunities. And if we turn from
 
 FACULTIES OF THE FIRST ORDER 331 
 
 Europe to new countries like America, and consider b^^'' ^^ 
 
 ^ , . Chapter 3 
 
 the leaders of economic production there, we shall 
 find that the histories of these men have been similar. 
 Nor, indeed, in this fact is there anything to be 
 wondered at. In the sphere of industry, just as in 
 the sphere of art, the greatest men will never be 
 suppressed. They are always sure to assert them- 
 selves, and the struggle with adverse circumstances 
 will, instead of crushing, strengthen them. 
 I It may therefore be safely said that no equalisation 
 of opportunity which goes beyond the abolition of arbi- 
 trary and unequal impediments would tend to increase 
 the number of those exceptional men whose produc- and win secure 
 
 ,,. ,, -,_ , All- ^^ develop- 
 
 tive faculties are really of the first order. And this mentofaiithe 
 
 •f • i_iii iri' genius of the 
 
 inference is supported by a large number or analogies highest kind 
 drawn from domains of activity other than economic, t'^^texisu. 
 Any workman's boy, for example, who has any 
 taste for books has now in England, before he is 
 fifteen, more educational opportunities than Shake- 
 speare had in all his lifetime. But the number of 
 Shakespeares has not appreciably increased. Again, 
 popular education has given to the whole French 
 army advantages confined to a few at the time of 
 Napoleon's boyhood. Every private carries the 
 marshal's baton in his knapsack. And yet demo- 
 cratic France, with all its equalisation of opportunity, 
 has not produced a series of new Napoleons. On 
 the contrary, the mountain, after years and genera- 
 tions of labour, does nothing at last but give birth 
 to a Boulanger. 
 
 Though faculties of the first order, however, are
 
 332 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV independent of artificial assistance, many of an in- 
 
 Chapter 3 . "^ . . . •' 
 
 ferior, but still of an exceptional kind, are not ; and 
 But genius of {^ cannot be doubted that the supply of these last 
 
 a lesser kind, ^ . 
 
 which would will depend very largely on the degree to which 
 may no doubt faciHties for self-development are given by the State 
 posltivreduca- ^^ thosc who dcsirc to take advantage of them. 
 tionaiheip Tlius, though the Spread of education in this country 
 has not increased the number of Shakespeares, it has 
 enormously increased the number of those who can 
 write good English. And no doubt in the domain 
 of wealth-production it has had an analogous effect. 
 This effect, however, though real, has been enor- 
 mously exaggerated ; and it has been exagger- 
 ated for a particular reason. Social reformers have 
 confused two things together. They have confused 
 talents which are exceptional in their very nature, 
 though the with accomplishmcnts which are exceptional only 
 
 amount of such • 11 1 <-m 1 
 
 genius is over- bccausc thcy are not universally taught. 1 hus read- 
 estimated by • J 'i.' r • i. T 1 
 reformers. i^g ^^d writmg, lor mstaucc, were rare accomplish- 
 
 confus^e tafe^nts "^^^^^ oncc. Of all accomplishmcnts they are the 
 
 rare in them- most uuivcrsal now ; and there is not the least doubt 
 
 accomplish- that there are very many others which, with equal 
 
 ments that are .... 'Ij^i "ii i i_ 11 
 
 only rare opportunitics, might bc acquircd by almost anybody, 
 accidentally. ^^^ which yet, as a matter of fact, are still confined 
 to a minority. In this fact that education may in- 
 crease the accomplishments of a community, social 
 reformers have fancied that they discovered an in- 
 dication of the extent to which education could elicit 
 exceptional talent. But to call into practical activity 
 by means of external help exceptional faculties, of 
 which the supply is necessarily limited, is a very
 
 TALENTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS 333 
 different process from evokino^ by similar means ^^^'^ '^ 
 
 . . . Chapters 
 
 faculties which are potential m everybody, and the 
 
 supply of which can be increased indefinitely ; and 1^^. '^**^'" "" 
 
 i^i: J •' ' be increased 
 
 it is a process, moreover, which produces very '"definitely, the 
 
 iTr 1 T ' ^ ^ ^ • ' formernot. 
 
 dirferent results. Let us consider how this is. 
 
 For productive faculties of the highest order, For real pro- 
 
 ,., . .. .... . ductive genius 
 
 which not only minister to progress, but initiate it, there is always 
 and which make, as if by a conjuring trick, the hands ^°°"'' 
 of the average labourer produce new commodities 
 of which he never would have dreamed himself — for 
 faculties such as these, the demand is always un- 
 limited. There are productive faculties also, excep- 
 tional although they are inferior, the demand for 
 which is usually greater than the supply. But with 
 regard to those faculties or accomplishments which 
 are only exceptional accidentally, and which might 
 be, like reading, conceivably made universal, the 
 case is precisely opposite, and it is so for two reasons. 
 In the first place, these accomplishments, which any- 
 body might conceivably acquire — knowledge of 
 French, for instance, or of book-keeping — though 
 they may minister to the business of wealth-produc- but the 
 
 ,1 I'll 1 economic 
 
 tion, yet have no tendency in themselves to make utility of mere 
 the business grow. The number of persons, then, mentTi^ifmited 
 possessing these accomplishments who at any given J]^^^^ f °"'^'" 
 time can put them to a productive use is limited by duction at the 
 the condition in which production at that time is. 
 Thus the number of clerks which a mercantile firm 
 can employ is limited by the business which the 
 firm happens to be doing ; and though this business 
 might be enlarged by the enterprise of one new
 
 334 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV partner, it would not be enlarged, when there were 
 
 Chapters r ' *. 
 
 no letters to copy, by the accession of ten young men 
 who could copy letters beautifully. In the second 
 place, even at times when the national business is 
 growing, and the demand for these accomplishments 
 is for the moment greater than the supply, any 
 attempt by the State to make their development 
 general would produce a supply indefinitely greater 
 than the demand. Thus to multiply the number of 
 labourers' sons possessing accomplishments that 
 Thus to pro- would fit them for the work of clerks would not be 
 
 duce more . i i r i i i 
 
 possible clerks to mcrcasc the number of young men who would 
 wanteTmereiy wcar black coats, and sit on stools in oflfices, instead 
 wr^"? of those ^^ working in factories, or laying bricks, or plough- 
 empioyed. Jnor. Instcad of raisinsf the position of the plou^rh- 
 
 without in- o i i o 
 
 creasing the boy to thc samc levcl as the clerk's, it would lower 
 whoaren'ot°^^ thc clcrk's Salary to the level of the plough-boy's 
 employed. vvagcs j and clerk and plough-boy would be alike 
 sufferers by the process. 
 
 The beneficial effects, then, to be looked for from 
 an equalisation of opportunity have been exaggerated 
 by democratic thinkers because they have failed to 
 perceive those facts. They have confounded the de- 
 velopment of accomplishments which might conceiv- 
 ably be acquired by all with the development of 
 faculties which, even potentially, are possessed by 
 a few only. They see that education can increase 
 the number of possible clerks, and they have there- 
 fore imagined that it can, with similar ease and 
 certainty, increase the number of efficient men of 
 genius. It must, however, be distinctly stated that
 
 DANGERS OF EQUALISED EDUCATION 335 
 the error in their conclusion is one of exasfCfe ration J?°°^ ^^ 
 
 °° . Chapters 
 
 only. There is much exceptional talent which, 
 thouo^h not of the hio^hest order, will, when oppor- pt>i'. within 
 
 , . , . . " limits, educa- 
 
 tunity is given it, increase the wealth of the com- tionai help 
 munity, but which will, without the educational does much to 
 help of the State, be lost ; and it may frankly be i"pp,y of ^ 
 admitted that, within certain limits, the equalisino; exceptional, 
 
 ' ^ . though not 
 
 of educational opportunity plays a very important great, taiem. 
 part in supplying the community with exceptionally 
 efficient citizens. 
 
 But the main difificulties involved in the artificial But the main 
 
 . . 1 • 1 difficulty in- 
 
 equalisation of opportunity are not concerned with voived in the 
 the problem of how to produce good results by it. educauonai* 
 They are connected with the problem of how to noMhl^pro-'^ 
 avoid producinor bad results. Let us consider what Auction of 
 
 , Mill 1 r • good results, 
 
 the possible bad results of it are. but the avoid 
 
 In a general way they are indicated, or indirectly 
 implied, in the saying so dear to the sterner and 
 more thoughtless of the Conservatives — that popu- 
 lar education does nothing but promote discontent. 
 Sweeping statements of this kind, however, though 
 they may have an element of truth in them, are 
 valueless till they have been carefully qualified ; for 
 what we have to ask about them is not whether 
 they are true, but how far they are true, and in 
 what precise senses. Thus, though it is true that 
 the danger of diffusing education lies in the dis- 
 content that may thereby be promoted, some kinds 
 of discontent are not dangerous — they are beneficial ; 
 therefore the danger of diffusing education lies in its 
 tendency to promote not discontent generally, but
 
 336 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 3 
 
 The bad 
 results are the 
 stimulating of 
 discontent, not 
 in average 
 men, but in 
 men who are 
 really excep- 
 tional ; 
 
 discontent of certain special kinds ; and it is 
 necessary to discriminate carefully what these kinds 
 are. 
 
 Now the kind of discontent which Conservatives 
 generally have in view, when they denounce educa- 
 tion because they think it tends to promote it, is 
 by no means that from which danger really arises. 
 What they generally have in view is a discontent 
 with his circumstances which they think education 
 will produce in the average working man. In 
 reality, however, the primary danger of education is 
 not to be looked for in its effects upon average men 
 at all. It is to be looked for in its effects upon men 
 who are distinctly exceptional. 
 
 In order to understand how this is, let the reader 
 reflect once more on one of the main truths that have 
 been insisted on in the present volume — namely, that 
 though all progress is the work of great or exceptional 
 men, all great or exceptional men do not promote 
 progress equally, and some of them indeed do not 
 promote it at all. Progress results from the victory 
 of the fittest of these over the less fit in the struggle 
 to gain dominion over the thoughts and actions of 
 others. Let the reader reflect also on the analysis 
 that was given of the various qualities which go to 
 make up greatness — that is to say, the qualities by 
 which dominion over others is obtained. It was 
 pointed out that greatness is a highly composite 
 thing ; that it need not necessarily imply any moral, 
 nor indeed any intellectual superiority ; and as an 
 illustration of this it was mentioned that many most
 
 EDUCATION AND IMPERFECT TALENTS 337 
 important political movements have been produced e°o'« ^v 
 
 . , , . , . Chapter 3 
 
 by men whose greatness consisted merely m ordmary 
 sense joined to, and made efficient by, an extraor- 
 dinary strength of will. It is necessary now to but whose 
 follow this line of observation farther, and to point gmrarTnl 
 out that if extraordinary strength of will can pro- halTsome' 
 duce beneficial effects when allied with ordinary *^^* >° ^^^'°- 
 sense, it is equally capable of producing effects that 
 are mischievous when allied with stupidity, or with 
 that kind of imperfect intellect which is as quick in 
 defending and popularising, as it is in being duped 
 by fallacies. And with these latter qualities it is 
 allied as often as with the former. It is a great 
 mistake to suppose that even the most false and 
 foolish opinions which have influenced multitudes 
 to their own detriment have been originated and 
 promulgated by men who were altogether weak and 
 inferior. On the contrary, most of the follies which 
 have disturbed or retarded civilisation have been 
 due to the influence of men who, though morally or 
 intellectually contemptible, have possessed a vigour 
 of character far beyond what is ordinary. 
 
 Now, if education has the effect attributed to it For if educa- 
 of liberating the will and developing the intellectual and stimulates 
 powers of men in whom the intellect is really acute J°cmfi 'powers 
 and sound, there is an obvious danger of its having 
 the same effect on men whose intellect is unbalanced 
 and imperfect. To some of such intellects, no doubt, 
 it may give clearness and equilibrium; but there are '*^'" similarly 
 
 1 f 1 • 1 • 1 1 • • stimulate 
 
 others for which it does nothing, except to increase intellects that 
 
 , 1 • t • 111 are not sound, 
 
 their powers of reasoning wrongly; and when an
 
 338 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV intellect of this kind is allied with a naturally strong 
 
 Chapters . . . . 
 
 will, the effect of education is to let loose a wild 
 horse, merely in order that it may run away with a 
 lunatic. 
 or will that has \\ must be remembered that the strength of a 
 
 no intellect to ^ . • i • 
 
 match, and man's wiU, though depending as a potentiality on 
 
 TdefireTr^ the character with which he happens to be born, 
 
 who^are"n^t^" dcpcuds as an actual force on his desire for certain 
 
 capable of obiccts or rcsults, coupled with the belief that he 
 
 creating it, ■' . * , 
 
 can attain these by action. Now, when a man's 
 powers of action are capable of realising his desires 
 — as when a man who desires to be wealthy has the 
 talents that produce wealth, or when the man who 
 desires to be Prime Minister has the talents of a 
 great statesman — his career satisfies himself, and is 
 presumably serviceable to his country. In many 
 cases, however, desire is exceptionally great, and 
 generates also a strong impulse to act, but the 
 capacity for that kind of action by which the desired 
 object might be obtained is small. Thus many men 
 desire exceptional wealth, but find themselves in- 
 capable of the peculiar kind of action that produces 
 it. Their will, accordingly, if it makes them act at 
 all, is like a steam-engine which merely puts useless 
 machinery into motion ; or if it fails to make them 
 act, as it very often does, it shakes them to pieces 
 with a kind of intellectual retching. These unhappy 
 persons owe the condition in which they find them- 
 and thus will selvcs mainly to an over-estimate of their own 
 
 merely pro- i i • • • 11 i 
 
 duce needless powcrs ; and this ovcr-cstimatc IS generally the 
 mSef." direct result of education, which, by making them
 
 WILL, DESIRE, AND FACULTY 339 
 
 falsely imagine themselves capable of attaining Bookiv 
 wealth, actualises a fruitless desire for it, which 
 might otherwise have remained latent. When 
 education has this effect on a man it is an un- 
 mitigated evil for himself, and very frequently for 
 others. 
 
 Again, education, besides actualising exceptional Education, 
 desires which are wholly unaccompanied by any ex- lates faculties 
 ceptional faculties that correspond to them, actualises produce excep- 
 desires accompanied by faculties which are really bu"not""'2is 
 exceptional, and which produce results undo ubt- '^a* are 
 edly more than ordinary, but are nevertheless inca- 
 pable of complete development. Many men, for 
 instance, have gifts for music and poetry which, 
 though genuine so far as they go, have yet some 
 fatal defect in them, and will never produce, however 
 devotedly they are exercised, any results possessing 
 artistic value. Now the fact that progress is caused 
 by a struggle between exceptional men of course 
 implies that some of them shall be less efficient 
 than the others. It is by struggling with the less 
 efficient that the superiority of the most efficient is 
 realised ; and in order that it may be found who the 
 most efficient are, the inferior as well as the superior 
 must put their capacities to the test. It is therefore 
 unavoidably one object of education to stimulate 
 the activity of some exceptional men whose own 
 efforts are foredoomed to ultimate failure. Failures, 
 however, differ in degree and kind. Some men fail 
 because they can accomplish nothing of what they The progres- 
 
 sivc struETcrlc 
 
 attempt, like the dreamers who have wasted their requires that
 
 340 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 3 
 
 the intellects 
 of some should 
 be stimulated 
 whose efforts 
 fail. 
 
 But those 
 failures that 
 promote prog- 
 ress are fail- 
 ures that 
 partially 
 succeed. 
 
 lives in trying to make perpetual motions. Some fail 
 because, though they accomplish something, others 
 accomplish more ; and the production of what is the 
 best makes the second best valueless. Thus nine 
 inventors might produce nine motor-cars, each of 
 which worked well enough to command a consider- 
 able sale ; but if a tenth inventor was to produce 
 another which was faster, simpler, more durable, and 
 cheaper than any of these, all the rest would drop 
 out of use altogether, and be practically as valueless 
 as the mad aggregation of wheels by which the 
 seeker for the perpetual motion endeavoured to 
 accomplish the impossible. Between the men 
 who fail, however, because they succeed less than 
 others, and the men who fail because they do not 
 succeed at all, there is a great practical difference. 
 The men who fail only because others succeed better 
 than they do, contribute to the very success of the 
 men by whom they are defeated ; for they raise the 
 standard of achievement which these men have to 
 overpass. But the men who fail because they ac- 
 complish nothing waste their own lives without 
 benefiting anybody. In the domain of economic 
 production the truth of this is obvious. It is not 
 less so in the domain of speculative thought. Scien- 
 tific theories are constantly put forward which, though 
 not true, are sufficiently near the truth to have some 
 definite relation to it; and those who actually reach it 
 find in errors of this kind an indispensable assistance. 
 Nothing gives to truth so keen and clear an outline 
 as the refuted errors of really powerful thinkers. But
 
 USEFUL AND USELESS FAILURE 341 
 
 there are errors, on the other hand, which, though ^°°V^ 
 
 ' ' ' o Chapter 3 
 
 it may be necessary to refute them because they 
 have imposed themselves on a number of ignorant 
 people, do nothing to advance the discovery of truth 
 whatever, and the activity of those who originate 
 them is altofrether mischievous. Thus whilst the 
 
 O 
 
 reasonings of heretical thinkers like Arius, by the 
 controversy they provoked, were very largely in- 
 strumental in advancing orthodox theology to really 
 logical completeness, the philosophy of religion owes 
 absolutely nothing to Joanna Southcote or the 
 American prophet Harris. Accordingly, whilst it is But there are 
 
 ^ '^ , , , o y ' ^ ^ abortive talents 
 
 impossible to say with precision where the line is which produce 
 to be drawn between the exceptional talents which, have no 
 if developed, would be of use in the progressive success. '° 
 struggle and those which are so defective that These talents 
 
 «->o ^ ^ ^ ^ are purely 
 
 their influences would be merely mischievous, it is mischievous; 
 obvious that talent of this latter kind is sufficiently 
 plentiful to render its development dangerous. 
 
 History teems with examples of this fact, and so ^o"" example, 
 
 • 1 r 1 • 1 T r *^* failures of 
 
 do the unwritten annals of the social life around us. the wouidbe 
 Henri Murger in his studies of Bohemian Paris ^^ '^ ' 
 bears eloquent witness to the tragic absurdity of the 
 results caused by the development of imperfect 
 artistic talent, and the miserable endings of men 
 who, if they had not tried to be artists, might have 
 lived and thriven as honest and healthy ouvriers ; 
 whilst, according as we hold vaccination to be a 
 blessing to the world or a curse, we must necessarily 
 hold that it would have been far better for everybody or that of the 
 if the talents of the men who invented it, or else popularises
 
 342 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV those of the men who now oppose it, had been 
 . . killed by the frosts of ignorance, and never allowed 
 
 wrong medical ■^ *-' 
 
 treatment. tO bloSSOm. 
 
 But the But the commonest examples of talent that is 
 
 commonest in •!• rr iii "i 
 
 example of this wholly mischievous are afiorded by certain classes 
 
 kind of man is r t.» • i • i •, , t^i 
 
 the socialistic 01 politicians and social agitators. Ihere is a 
 agitator, large number of men whose potential activity is 
 considerable, and whose intellect has a natural 
 nimbleness which will enable them, when stimulated 
 by education, to seize on plausible fallacies and 
 impose them both on themselves and others. 
 Politicians of this class are familiar figures enough. 
 The social agitator, whose mental equipment is 
 similar, is more familiar still. Many attempts 
 have been made to give a scientific explanation 
 of those constant attacks on the existing organi- 
 sation of society which are common to all civil- 
 ised countries, and go by the name of socialism. 
 Socialism is said by some to be the protest of in- 
 creasing poverty against increasing wealth ; by 
 some to be the natural voice of highly organised 
 labour, which has come at last to be capable of self- 
 government ; and by some to be an embodiment of 
 the esoteric philosophy of Hegel. In reality it is 
 the embodiment of the results of indiscriminate 
 education on talents which are exceptional, but at 
 the same time inefficient. The avowed object of 
 socialism is a redistribution of wealth; but the most 
 striking characteristic of all the socialistic leaders 
 has been an incapacity to produce the thing which 
 \ they are so anxious to distribute. The wish to re-
 
 SOCIALISTS AND PRODUCTIVE IMPORTANCE 343 
 
 distribute it in some of them arises from sentiments ^^^^^ >v 
 
 f r 1 1 • • Chapter 3 
 
 of benevolence ; m some from fallacious reasonmg ; 
 and in some from personal envy ; but in none has it 
 been accompanied by those particular faculties on 
 which the actual production of wealth in large quan- 
 
 tities depends. (Socialism, therefore, so far as it is ^^^° demands 
 
 . . the re-distribu- 
 
 a serious theory, is essentially an attempt on the tion of wealth 
 part of men who are themselves economically im-^oiuteiy power- 
 potent to prove that they, and others like them, have ducJ°t^^°" 
 some reasonable right to possess and divide amongst 
 themselves what they are constitutionally powerless 
 to make for themselves.) The result has been the 
 elaboration of a theory of production which some- 
 times declares that wealth is produced by " aggre- 
 gates of conditions," or " social inheritances " or 
 " environments," as Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bellamy, and 
 Mr. Sidney Webb tells us; and sometimes that it^ndwhocon- 
 
 -' _ sequently 
 
 is produced by "average labour measured by time," invents false 
 as Karl Marx tells us, — the one doctrine being that its production 
 wealth is produced by nobody, and that one man Tng but'^de'J^or- 
 has thus as good a ri2:ht to it as another; the other ^''^^,^^°^f?;^^° 
 
 . , ^ , are duped by 
 
 being that it is produced in equal quantities by them 
 everybody, and that everybody on that ground has 
 a right to an equal quantity of it. Both doctrines 
 agree in this, that they altogether miss and divert 
 the attention of the mind from the forces and condi- 
 tions on which wealth-production depends in reality. 
 Now if the elaboration of these fallacies had been 
 confined to men who were capable of presenting 
 them in a really arguable form, and if they had been (though even 
 
 1,11 ,1 1 . , these theories 
 
 promulgated only amongst classes who were capable can be dis-
 
 344 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV of passing a scientific judgment on them, they 
 might have played — and within limits they have 
 cussed with played — a valuable part in eliciting the truth 
 certain circum- opposed to them. But they have become wholly 
 stances). mischievous when, through the agency of indis- 
 criminate education, they have influenced men who, 
 whilst wanting in intellectual judgment, are never- 
 theless endowed with a potential activity of charac- 
 ter, and who, when this is developed, at once become 
 powerful agents in disseminating fallacies amongst 
 others even less capable of criticising them than 
 themselves. Thus many of the leaders of the " new 
 unionism " in England are to be credited with 
 energy of a really remarkable kind; but unfortu- 
 nately the energy is united to such defective 
 intellectual powers, that the more vigorously these 
 are employed, the more mischievous and absurd is 
 the result. The general resolutions that have been 
 passed at Trade Union conferences declaring that 
 no progress is possible till all the means of produc- 
 tion shall have been nationalised, or the doctrine 
 of the "new unionists" that wages control prices, 
 are all results of the exercise of faculties which, 
 though in some respects doubtless superior to 
 those of the average man, had far better have never 
 been developed at all. 
 Men like these It is mcn Hkc thcsc — the men with ill-balanced 
 two^cwef^^ or abortive talents — the men with strong wills and 
 dangers of the defcctivc intellccts, thc mcn whose ambition is 
 
 artificial equal- 
 isation of developed by the smallest educational stimulus, but 
 
 educational . , , . .... 
 
 opportunity, who have no talents proportionate to it which any
 
 USELESS WANTS AND TALENTS 
 
 345 
 
 education could develop — it is men like these who ^°°^ ^v 
 
 . 1 . . . , , , T • r Chapter 3 
 
 invest With its principal dangers the equalisation of 
 educational opportunity ; and if education, as so many 
 Conservatives say, really does nothing but promote 
 popular discontent, it promotes discontent amongst 
 the great masses of the population less from the 
 manner in which it affects the average man directly, 
 than from the manner in which it affects men who 
 are inefficiently exceptional, and who, not having 
 the gifts that would enable them to rise in any 
 society, endeavour to persuade the masses that 
 society, as at present constituted, is an organised 
 conspiracy of the few to keep everybody else down. 
 
 The equalisation of educational opportunity has, 
 therefore, two dangers — the danger of developing 
 wants in the average man which could never be 
 generally satisfied under any social arrangements, 
 and the danger of developing the talents of a certain 
 class of exceptional men which are naturally incom- 
 plete, and which the more fully they were developed, 
 would only become more mischievous both to their 
 possessors and to society. y^ 
 
 And these dangers correspond with the two objects namely, the 
 for the sake of which the equalisation of educational average man 
 opportunity is advocated. One of these objects is he cannor 
 the raisino^ the condition of the averasre man ; the ^T^^\ ^^^ *^^ 
 
 o o ' stimuiatmg of 
 
 other is the securins^, alike for himself and for ^^'ents that are 
 
 1 r 11 1 /- r 1 'IT r 1 constitutionally 
 
 society, the full benefit of the potential gifts of the imperfect 
 exceptional man. The average man, however, is 
 not made better or happier by being filled in early 
 life with importunate wants and propensities which
 
 346 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 3 
 
 The latter of 
 these dangers 
 is the source 
 of the former. 
 
 It cannot be 
 conjpletely 
 avoided, but 
 present 
 theories of 
 education tend 
 to heighten, not 
 to minimise it. 
 
 The current 
 theory that all 
 talents should 
 be developed 
 is false ; 
 
 he will, when he comes to maturity, be unable to 
 gratify ; nor is any one made better or happier by the 
 development of gifts which, however exceptional, 
 can, by reason of their incompleteness, do nothing 
 but give currency to error, or initiate abortive action. 
 
 It is the latter of these dangers that is practically 
 the source of the former. The average man would, 
 as has been said already, probably suffer little from 
 over-development under existing systems of edu- 
 cation if it were not for the effects of these systems 
 on inefficiently exceptional men whose superiorities 
 ought never to be developed at all. It is doubtless 
 impossible to avoid this danger completely. If 
 educational opportunities are to be of a kind that 
 will enable the efficiently exceptional to work their 
 way to the top, and advance or maintain civilisation 
 by their influence or domination over others, it is in- 
 evitable that a certain proportion of the inefficiently 
 exceptional will be induced to develop their unhappy 
 capabilities also ; but the number of these may, at 
 all events, be reduced to a minimum. The funda- 
 mental fault of contemporary educational theories is, 
 that in proportion to the completeness with which 
 they were carried out, they would tend to raise 
 the number of these men to a maximum. And the 
 reason why they would have this tendency is that 
 they are founded on two absolutely false principles. 
 
 The first of these principles is, that whatever 
 potential talents any man may possess, it is desirable 
 to assist and encourage him to develop them to 
 the utmost. The second is that the type of educa-
 
 RELATIVITY OF EDUCATION 347 
 
 tlon and culture to which education generally should, J?°°^ ^^ 
 
 . . Chapters 
 
 so far as is possible, be assimilated, is the kind of 
 education and culture that is actually prevalent 
 amongst the rich. 
 
 It is impossible to meet these principles with too 
 emphatic a negative. 
 
 The first of them is false because, as has just 
 been shown, there is a large amount of really 
 exceptional talent which, if developed, would work 
 nothing but mischief, and which ought, conse- 
 quently, for the sake of everybody, not to be 
 developed, but suppressed. The second is false so is the theory 
 
 , , , , , 111 ^^^^ ^^' tastes 
 
 because all tastes and talents are good or bad, shouM be 
 
 fir 1 T i. i.1 cultivated in 
 
 useful tor a man or useless, accordmg to the con- an aiike. The 
 ditions under which his life will be passed ; and ^d""=^"°" 
 
 i ' proper for the 
 
 the conditions of the rich are altogether exceptional, rich is not a 
 Societies have existed in which they have been exception. 
 enjoyed by nobody. It would be impossible to con- 
 struct a society in which they should be enjoyed by 
 more than a few. The attempt, therefore, to give 
 to everybody a rich man's education is like includ- 
 ing skating in the curriculum, and fur coats in the 
 wardrobe, of a thousand boys, when nine hundred 
 of them are to spend their lives in the tropics. 
 
 Both these false principles rest on that radically These false 
 
 ., , , . ,.,.., ..,,. theories rest on 
 
 false theory of society which it is the principal object the false belief 
 of the present volume to expose — the theory that Iducl^ion 
 civilisation is the product of men approximately ^^^l^l^^^^^^ 
 equal In capacities, and that In proportion as these s°ciai condi- 
 equal capacities have equal opportunities of develop- 
 ment, there will naturally be an approximation to an
 
 348 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 3 
 
 The majority 
 of each class 
 will remain in 
 the class in 
 which they 
 were born. 
 
 Only the 
 efficiently ex- 
 ceptional can 
 rise out of their 
 own class ; 
 
 equality of social conditions. The facts of the case 
 are precisely the reverse of these. Civilisation 
 originated in, and is still maintained by, men whose 
 capacities are unequal to those of the majority ; and 
 just as there is no tendency towards equality in 
 capacity, so, for reasons which have been explained 
 in the last chapter, there is no tendency towards 
 equality in social conditions. Inequalities of con- 
 dition may at some times be greater than at others, 
 but the fact that at times they show a tendency to 
 become less is no more a sign that they have any 
 tendency to disappear than the fact that an economy 
 has been effected in the consumption of coal on board 
 a steamship is a sign that steam has a tendency to be 
 generated without fire. It is therefore a scientific 
 certainty that of each generation of children in 
 every civilised country the majority will, throughout 
 their subsequent lives, occupy positions very different 
 from those of the few. Most of the members of 
 each class will remain in the position in which they 
 were born; but there will be a gradual descent from 
 the upper classes of their weaker members into the 
 lower, and amongst the stronger members of the 
 lower classes there will be a constant potential desire 
 to push their way into the upper. Some of these last 
 are strong in potential desire only. With others the 
 strength of desire is accompanied by corresponding 
 talent, by means of which, if developed, the position 
 which they desire will be obtained. It will be 
 obtained by the talent of these men, because the 
 talent of such men is creative ; and when it is
 
 RELATIVITY OF OPPORTUNITY 349 
 
 developed it renders those who possess it actual ^°'''^ ^'^ 
 
 . . .... . Chapter 3 
 
 additions to the civilising forces of the community. 
 With regard, then, to exceptional men, the object 
 of education should be to stimulate the ambitions of ^"l!!.'^'^*. 
 
 ambition of the 
 
 those of them whose talents are efficient, whilst dis- efficiently 
 couraging the ambitions of those whose talents are only that it is 
 inherently defective. The stronger the ambitions of [rstfmuiatT. 
 the former are, the better for themselves and for the 
 community. Men like these are the true gold-mines 
 of their country. The stronger the ambitions and 
 the larger the opportunities of the latter, the more 
 will the health and strength of the social organism 
 be interfered with. 
 
 With reo:ard to the averasfe man, the obiect q{'^^ ^-^^^^^zj 
 
 '-> . . m2.v\. should be 
 
 education should be to develop in him such tastes or taught to aim 
 
 ... ... ..... , , at embellishing 
 
 accomplishments as will assist him in the work by his position, 
 which he is to live, and enable him to make the most fJom i"^^^*"^ 
 of such means of enjoyment as are within his reach, 
 whilst leaving him untormented with a desire for 
 enjoyments that are beyond it ; and the crucial fact 
 on which it is necessary to insist is that the circum- 
 stances of different classes are permanently and 
 necessarily different, and that for the average man 
 of each class the education that will make the most 
 of his life is necessarily different also. 
 
 In other words, the only true equality of educa- 
 tional opportunity is an equal opportunity for each, 
 not of acquiring the same knowledge or developing 
 the same faculties, but of acquiring the knowledge 
 and of developing the faculties which, given his 
 circumstances and given his natural ca^Dacities, will
 
 350 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV (Jq most to make him a useful, a contented, and a 
 
 Chapter 3 
 
 happy man. 
 
 Unfortunately these conclusions, simple and ob- 
 vious as they seem, run directly counter to that 
 entire theory of society which, with more or less con- 
 sciousness, and with more or less precision, is held by 
 the school of writers, reformers and politicians, who 
 suppose themselves, in some exclusive sense, to have 
 social progress at heart; and also to that mass of 
 diffused sentiment which, though not expressing 
 itself formally in any theoretical propositions, has 
 that theory as its foundation, and bears to it, as a 
 political force, the same relation that vapour bears to 
 water. These conclusions, therefore, which imply 
 inequality in capacity as the cause of social progress, 
 and inequality in social circumstances as the neces- 
 sary and permanent conditions of it, are, like most of 
 the other conclusions put forward in this work, certain 
 to be met with objections of the most vehement kind, 
 which it will now be necessary for us fairly and 
 carefully to consider. We shall find that, as we do 
 so, the entire arguments of the present work are 
 summed up and brought together before us ; and 
 however incompatible they may be with the false 
 conception of progress, of class relationships, and 
 of the structure of society generally, which are at 
 present mischievously popular, they form the founda- 
 tion of hopes, for all classes, far more solid than 
 those, the fallacy of which they aim at demonstrating.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 INEQUALITY, HAPPINESS, AND PROGRESS 
 
 Man does not live by wealth alone, and progress is 
 not concerned solely with the production and the 
 distribution of it. But the processes involved in 
 the production and distribution of wealth, though 
 far from being coextensive with all social progress, 
 are typical of it. They form, moreover, the sub- 
 ject with regard to which contending politicians The radical 
 
 1 r j'ii-*' 1-1* politician will 
 
 and reiormers practically jom issue ; and it is object to the 
 mainly because inequality in the possession of c°usfo°ns1n°"' 
 wealth is affirmed to be a permanent and necessary ^^^""^ ^ith 
 
 ... . "^ which we are 
 
 feature of civilisation, that the conclusions here put familiar. 
 forward will be attacked. 
 
 The objections that will be brought against thern 
 will take two forms : one being the form which will 
 be given them by the radical or socialistic politician ; 
 the other the form which will be given to them by 
 the radical or socialistic theorist. 
 
 The radical or socialistic politician, whether he 
 is journalist or popular orator, will express them by 
 asserting, in a tone of contemptuous irony, that 
 these conclusions, whilst highly satisfactory to 
 
 351
 
 352 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 chT^ter^ ^^^ fortunately placed minority, bring but cold 
 comfort to the majority ; that they represent an 
 attempt " to put the clock of progress back," and 
 that the masses of mankind are not very likely to 
 accept them. He will probably go on to say that 
 they are merely a prose rendering of the well-known 
 lines which the sarcastic radical loves — 
 
 God bless the squire and his relations, 
 Teach us to know our proper stations ; 
 
 which last request to the radical seems to be the 
 very height of absurdity ; and he will end his attack 
 by appealing to our electioneering instincts, asking 
 us, if we take away the hopes to which at present 
 the masses cling, what new hopes or promises we 
 propose to put in the place of them ? 
 
 The radical or socialistic theorist, as distinct from 
 the militant politician, will express these same objec- 
 tions in a more logical form, thus : He will remind us 
 The radical that in our analysis of social action we represent 
 p^utThesrsame ^^^ attainment of an exceptional position, and more 
 objections especiallv of an exceptional amount of wealth, as 
 
 more logically. . 
 
 If the desire thc solc motivc that can be counted on to induce' 
 
 of exceptional . , , , , , . 
 
 wealth is really cxceptional mcu to dcvelop and use their powers. 
 motfve^h^wiii Now this, he will urge, is tantamount to declaring 
 foiiowfthat ^^^^ exceptional wealth is naturally regarded by men 
 most men, as thc main condition of happiness ; and since it is 
 
 since they can- . , • i i i i 11 
 
 not all be obvious that exceptional wealth can be possessed by 
 ric" must^ ^ the few only, we are, he will say, convicted of teach- 
 mSabie""^'" iug that social progress involves a denial of happi-
 
 EQUALITY AND GENERAL PROGRESS 353 
 
 ness to the vast majority of those amongst whom ^°°^'^ 
 social progress takes place ; which, the critic will go 
 on to say, is absurd. 
 
 Now even if the conclusions we are discussing 
 did involve in reality all those consequences which 
 would be so depressing to the majority of mankind, 
 yet to prove the conclusions depressing would not 
 be to prove them false ; and few enthusiasts will 
 deny that the object of sociological inquiry is not 
 to reach conclusions which are inspiriting, but to 
 reach conclusions which are true. As a matter of 
 fact, however, the conclusions now in question have 
 by no means that depressing tendency which the 
 radical and the socialist will impute to them. 
 
 For, in the first place, none of the arguments Now the first 
 contained in the present work have been invoked fs^Tauhe 
 to prove, or have any tendency to prove, that the ^en'trntlver 
 many, as distinct from the few, in any pro2:ressive ^"^ equally 
 
 -' '^10 wealthy does 
 
 country, may not reasonably look forward to a not prevent 
 
 . , . ... the conditions 
 
 contmuous improvement m their condition — to aofaiimen 
 greater command of the comforts and luxuries of [ng'^SXi'y. 
 life, together with a lightening or a lessening of the 
 labour necessary to procure them. On the conr 
 trary, the majority may look forward to an improve- 
 ment in their circumstances which it is as impossible 
 for us to imagine distinctly at the present time as 
 it would have been for our grandfathers to imagine 
 the telephone or the phonograph. All that has 
 been urged in this work is as follows : That 
 whatever may be the new advantages which the 
 majority of mankind attain, they will attain them 
 23
 
 354 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 4 
 
 Another 
 answer is that 
 if ineqaality in 
 the possession 
 of the most 
 coveted prizes 
 of life implies 
 misery 
 amongst the 
 majority, this 
 evil would be 
 intensified 
 rather than 
 mitigated by 
 socialists, who 
 would substi- 
 tute unequal 
 honour for 
 unequal 
 wealth. 
 
 not by any development in their own productive 
 powers, but solely by the talents and activity of an 
 exceptionally gifted minority, who will enable the 
 ordinary man to earn more whilst labouring for 
 fewer hours, because they will, by directing his 
 labour to more and more advantage, secure from 
 equal labour an ever-increasing product. The 
 conclusion, therefore, is not that the majority in any 
 progressive community may not look forward to 
 indefinitely better conditions, but merely that their 
 condition will not depend on themselves, and that, 
 though the conditions of all may be bettered, they 
 will never be even approximately equal. 
 
 What, then, of the argument that, however condi- 
 tions may be bettered, yet if exceptional conditions 
 are still objects of exceptional desire, the want of 
 these objects of desire will cause a sense of privation 
 amongst the majority .? 
 
 To this really important question there are two 
 answers. 
 
 The first is, that the conclusion now before us 
 — the conclusion that certain of the most coveted 
 prizes of life will always be for the few only — t^ 
 whatever may be its consequences, true ; and that 
 its truth is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in 
 the ideal State, as presented to us by the extremest 
 socialists. For we shall find that whatever in the 
 way of equalised incomes these statesmen of cloud- 
 land promise to their imaginary citizens, they do 
 not even suggest that the most coveted social prizes 
 shall be distributed more equally than they are at
 
 HONOUR AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR WEALTH 355 
 the present moment. They, as has been said ^°°^ ^^ 
 
 , , Chapter 4 
 
 already, though they consider themselves the apos- 
 tles of equality, recognise that the prosperity, and, 
 above all, the wealth of the community, will depend 
 on their securing the very ablest of their citizens 
 as members of the bureaucracy by whom all 
 labour will be directed; and they recognise that 
 these able men, like the present race of employers, 
 will not develop their ability without some special 
 inducement. They accordingly propose to reward 
 them, not by allowing them to retain any ex- 
 ceptional portion of the wealth which they are 
 instrumental in producing, but by investing them 
 with exceptional honour; and the desire for such 
 honour, say the socialists, as a motive to exceptional 
 effort, " will be incalculably more efficacious " than 
 the desire for wealth. Now if those who make this 
 assertion attribute to it any serious meaning, they 
 must mean that men like honour much better than 
 they like wealth — that they covet it more keenly, 
 that they will struggle more desperately to win it, 
 and are more exasperated at not possessing it. If, 
 however, great wealth is possible for the few only, 
 and if the majority of mankind are for ever destined 
 to be without it, such, with regard to honour, is the 
 case even more evidently. For honour is more essen- 
 tially confined to the few than wealth is. We can, at 
 all events, conceive a community composed wholly 
 of millionaires, supported in luxury by battalions of 
 labouring automata ; but it is impossible to conceive 
 a community wholly composed of men on whom
 
 356 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV honour is conferred as the choicest prize of life, and 
 
 Chapter 4 . ^ . 
 
 all of whom — the exceptional and the ordinary — 
 enjoy it to the same degree. The essence of 
 honour is distinction or differentiation ; and it forms 
 a motive for the exceptional actions of the few only 
 because it is withheld from the many whose action 
 is not exceptional. Either, then, in the socialistic 
 State the honour that is to form the reward of 
 exceptionally able men will fail to stimulate their 
 abilities and attract them into the ranks of the 
 bureaucracy because it is not of itself so keenly 
 desired as wealth is ; or if, as the socialists say, it is 
 desired even more keenly, and if it consequently 
 does stimulate exceptional men to struggle for it, the 
 socialistic bureaucracy, with its honours, will excite 
 amongst the mass of the citizens incalculably more 
 envy than the rich excite amongst the poor; and 
 the millions of average men will be rendered by 
 the want of honour incalculably more miserable 
 than they could be by want of wealth. If, therefore, 
 inequality in the possession of external goods, for 
 which many men struggle, and which only a minority 
 can secure, necessarily means unhappiness for the 
 larger part of the community, this evil at all events 
 is not due to the existing structure of society, but is, 
 on the contrary, so rooted in the constitution of 
 human nature, that even the wildest and completest 
 schemes of social reform are unable to offer us so 
 much as a mitigation of it. 
 
 The second answer to the objection, however, is 
 of quite a different, and of a far more reassuring.
 
 EQUALITY OF DESIRE 357 
 
 character. It is that the entire supposition on which ^'^°^ ^^ 
 
 . . --r-i 1 • Chapter 4 
 
 the objection rests is untrue. The external prizes of 
 
 life, of which exceptional wealth is the type, thoucfh '^^^ ''"=^' 
 
 . '' '-' answer is that 
 
 struggled for by many with every faculty they the unequal 
 possess, though valued by those who achieve them, weahh"h!^"no 
 and though recognised by men in general as some- Sen"? toTause 
 thing of which everybody would choose to be the ""^^pp'""^ • 
 possessor if he could be, do nevertheless amongst 
 average human beings not cause any unhappiness 
 by their absence at all corresponding to the satisfac- 
 tion which they cause notoriously by their presence. 
 Such an assertion will to many people probably 
 seem self-contradictory. But if it does so, this will 
 simply be owing to the fact that the whole science 
 of the subjective conditions of happiness has been 
 utterly neglected by sociological writers hitherto. 
 The assertion here made, however paradoxical it 
 may sound, embodies one of the most important 
 truths which can claim the sociologist's attention; 
 and though it cannot be called self-evident, every 
 student of social science should be familiar with it. 
 It forms, indeed, the pons asinorum of all social 
 psychology. A brief elucidation of it will be enough 
 for our present purpose. 
 
 There is a certain minimum of external goods, the for men's 
 
 , . . desires vary. 
 
 desire for which has a physiological basis, and causes There is 
 when unsatisfied, misery, disease, or death. Chief desire for the 
 amongst such goods are food and, in most climates, Jfe^'onTyTfor*^ 
 clothes and shelter. So far as this minimum is con- ti^'^ desire 
 
 rests on men s 
 
 cerned, the desires of all are practically equal ; and physical 
 they are equal because they arise out of that physical are similar;
 
 358 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV constitution which we cannot alter, and in respect of 
 
 Chapter 4 , . . '■ 
 
 which we are all similar. But for external goods 
 but the desire ^]^at are bcvond this minimum men's desires vary 
 
 for superflui- ._.,,, , ,, , 
 
 ties depends on indefinitely; and they vary because they depend on 
 powere. which the action of the imagination and the intellect, which 
 var>-. varies in different men, and in the same men under 
 
 different circumstances. 
 
 In civilised countries the minimum of goods 
 desired is practically not limited to the bare neces- 
 saries of existence, and it is difficult to define it with 
 anything like absolute precision. But without any 
 formal definition of it, it is at all events sufficiently 
 The special distiuct to enable us to place in contrast with it those 
 luxury is obviously unnecessary goods which make up wealth 
 UJfnd and the ^^^ luxury. Now luxury is very commonly supposed, 
 imagination— '^^ coutradiction to what has just been asserted, 
 to represent materialism in its most exaggerated 
 form, and thus to offer a contrast to competence 
 or modest comfort. And it does, no doubt, rest 
 on a material basis ; but competence and modest 
 comfort do so likewise. An arm-chair which costs 
 perhaps thirty shillings is as material as one which, 
 on account of its artistic workmanship, costs four or 
 five times that number of pounds. But so far as 
 wealth and luxury transcend comfort and competence, 
 and possess those peculiar qualities which are held 
 to render them enviable, what they appeal to, and 
 what they are measured by, is not their effect upon 
 the senses, but their appeal to the imagination and 
 the mind. We can easily see this by considering 
 very simple examples, which will show us that the
 
 THE RELATIVITY OF LUXURY 359 
 
 same external thino^s are luxuries or not luxuries Bookiv 
 
 . 1*11 'I Chapter 4 
 
 according to the way in which the mind regards 
 them. Thus a man will be called luxurious if his 
 house is of palatial proportions, if he lives under «he luxury, for 
 
 , . ... , , 1 • • n T~> instance, of a 
 
 lofty ceilings and treads upon shining floors. But large house, 
 the luxury which the owner finds in existing amongst 
 these surroundings consists not in any physical effect 
 which they produce upon his senses as he moves 
 amongst them, but in a great variety of complicated 
 relations which exist between them and his own 
 life, past and future, and of which the senses take 
 no account at all. Were this not so the poorest 
 and most destitute might daily enjoy a luxury 
 superior to that of the millionaire by strolling 
 through the halls and corridors of our great public 
 institutions, of which many are far finer than the 
 most maafnificent private houses. A man, aq-ain, ^'^'^^P'^e 
 will be thought, and will think himself, luxurious if dationina 
 he travels from Paris to Monte Carlo in a sleeping 
 compartment with sheets and pillows ; and passen- 
 gers who have ordinary places, if they are sensitive 
 to social contrasts, will glare through the windows 
 enviously at the occupant of this paradise, who has 
 probably had to pay a hundred francs to enter it. 
 But let us only imagine that the sleeping compart- 
 ment is taken off its wheels and is permanently 
 planted by the side of some street or road. It will 
 then form a bedroom which the owner of the petti- 
 est villa would hardly venture to assign to a maid- 
 of-all-work ; whilst if three workmen had to sleep in 
 it instead of three first-class passengers, the agitator
 
 36o 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 4 
 
 Consequently 
 the desire for 
 luxury and 
 wealth, like 
 the pleasure 
 they give, 
 depends on 
 peculiar mental 
 powers or 
 peculiar 
 mental states. 
 
 would point to It as an example of the horrors of 
 overcrowding. When, therefore, the sleeping com- 
 partment is admitted — as it is admitted — to be a 
 luxury, it is admitted to be so because it is regarded 
 in relation to a variety of circumstances to which the 
 senses are quite blind, and which are realised by acts 
 of the mind and the imagination only. And with all 
 wealth and luxury the case is just the same. Like 
 comfort and competence, they have material things 
 for their foundation ; and the material foundation 
 that supports them is no doubt necessarily larger. 
 But what renders them more desirable is not the 
 additional material in itself, but the qualities with 
 which it is invested by the subtle craftsmanship of 
 the mind. 
 
 Just, then, as wealth and luxury depend on the 
 intellect and the imagination for the larger part of 
 the pleasure which they give to those who possess 
 them, so does the desire for them amongst men in 
 general depend on the action of the intellect and the 
 imagination also. Hence, though a desire for wealth 
 is popularly supposed to be universal, and in a cer- 
 tain sense is so, it is a desire the non-satisfaction of 
 which causes a sense of privation only when the im- 
 agination and the intellect work in an exceptional 
 way. Let us take, for example, some community on 
 the outskirts of civilisation which continues to main- 
 tain itself in rude plenty and comfort, but to which 
 wealth and luxury are merely remote ideas. If a 
 stranger suddenly came within its borders carrying a 
 bag which had in it a hundred thousand pounds, and if
 
 SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL DESIRE 361 
 he placed this bag on the summit of a neighbouring 2°°'' ^^ 
 
 • 1 •i*»ir* 1 Uhapter 4 
 
 mountam and promised to give it to the first man who 
 should get hold of it, every member of this simple 
 community who was not lame or bed-ridden would 
 start for the mountain as fast as his legs could carry 
 him, and the slopes would soon be the scene of a mad 
 and breathless scramble. But if no such stranger 
 came bringing the image of wealth close to them, 
 or if instead of placing his bag on the summit of a 
 neighbouring mountain he showed it to them through 
 a telescope hung up in the moon, not a single heart 
 amongst them would beat quicker at the thought of 
 it or suffer a single pang from the knowledge that 
 it was unattainable. 
 
 The reason of this is as follows : Amongst the Amongst most 
 
 f 1*11 ^ ' f 11" '"^^ ^^ desire 
 
 great masses oi mankind the desire for wealth is a for wealth is 
 speculative desire only. They give, if we may specSi'twe 
 borrow an expression from Cardinal Newman, only ^"""^ °"^y- 
 a " notional assent " to the fact that it is desirable. 
 Wealth means for them no special pleasure which 
 they have experienced, or can represent to them- 
 selves, and the repetition of which they crave for; 
 nor does it mean the satisfaction of any importunate 
 wants. It does not mean for them what a shilling 
 would mean for a starving man. For him the 
 shilling would mean the food for which his stom- 
 ach clamoured ; and he would feel the want of ^* 'mpi'" no 
 
 . . P^'i* caused by 
 
 it as keenly as he would value its possession. So, the want of 
 too, a poor youth separated from his family may *^^ 
 crave for a five-pound note, and be miserable at not 
 possessing it, because this will represent the possi-
 
 362 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 4 
 
 The desire 
 ceases to be 
 speculative 
 and becomes a 
 practical crav- 
 ing only when 
 the imagina- 
 tion is excep- 
 tionally strong, 
 and a strong 
 belief is present 
 that the attain- 
 ment of wealth 
 is possible. 
 
 bility of spending Christmas with them. But no 
 ordinary man, unless he has Hved amongst the very 
 rich, and his entire view of life has been practically 
 identified with theirs, has any similar craving for a 
 hundred thousand pounds, or for a million ; for he 
 has no personal experience and no detailed know- 
 ledge of the peculiar conditions of life which require 
 such sums to purchase them. Wealth is to him 
 little more than a name for a power which would 
 secure for him, if he possessed it, an indefinite 
 number of indefinite things, if he wanted them ; but 
 he is under ordinary circumstances no more troubled 
 by its absence than he is by the fact that he has 
 not a fairy for his godmother, or that he does not 
 happen to be the owner of Aladdin's lamp. 
 
 How, then, does it come to be the object of that 
 keen hunger which is the strongest motive to 
 activity amongst the men who are the chief pro- 
 ducers of it.? What are the exceptional circum- 
 stances which convert it from a remote something, 
 held in a passionless and speculative way to be 
 desirable, into a near something, craved for, and 
 eagerly struggled for with the painful industry of a 
 lifetime } 
 
 The speculative desire for wealth, common to all 
 human beings, is converted into this practical crav- 
 ing by two causes, which act and re-act upon each 
 other. One of them is an exceptionally powerful 
 imagination ; the other is the belief on the part of 
 any given individual that wealth is a thing which 
 he actually may acquire if he will only make certain
 
 INEQUALITIES IN DESIRE FOR WEALTH 363 
 
 efforts, of which he beheves himself to be capable. ^°°^ '^ 
 In cases where the necessary efforts are recognised 
 as long and arduous, and the coveted reward as 
 being consequently far distant, the belief of the 
 individual that it is really possible for him to attain 
 it will require the aid of an exceptionally powerful 
 imagination to rouse it into activity, and to keep it 
 alive when roused. In cases where the necessary 
 efforts are obviously extremely slight, and the 
 individual believes that wealth is almost in his 
 hands already, the belief will stimulate his imagina- 
 tion, however feeble it may be naturally, instead of 
 requiring that his imagination should sustain or 
 stimulate it. Thus the attainment of wealth being 
 under ordinary circumstances difficult, and requiring 
 intense, anxious, and prolonged effort, a keen desire 
 for it is not ordinarily felt except by men whose 
 strength of imagination amounts almost to genius, 
 and in whom a belief, whether true or false, is 
 developed, that they are capable of creating for 
 themselves this prize which they see so clearly. 
 Warren Hastings, for instance, if his imagination 
 had not been exceptional, would never have had 
 that vision of the past glories of his family which 
 made the desire of restoring them the main motive 
 of his career; and again, on the other hand, if some 
 sudden and exceptional circumstance, such as the 
 advent of an imaginary stranger with his bag and 
 his hundred thousand pounds, should present every 
 member of a community with a chance of acquiring 
 wealth instantly, the feeblest imaginations would be
 
 364 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV stimulated to such a degree, that all would find 
 
 Chapter4 r i m i 
 
 themselves craving for the possible prize equally. 
 The desire for j^ convertinsT, then, a mere notional assent to 
 
 wealth, in fact, ... ... i-ii 
 
 is in proportion the propositiou that wealth is desirable into an 
 
 to each man's ,11 r •, i*i' ' c ^ 't j_ 
 
 belief that by actual hungcr tor it, which is paintul it not 
 hiTaSTie!' satisfied, the essential cause is a belief that the 
 desired wealth is attainable; and the intensity of 
 the hunger is in proportion to the vitality of the 
 belief. This important psychological truth is very 
 easily demonstrable by a kind of experience suf- 
 ficiently familiar to most people. If a man who 
 has perfect taste, and a few thousands a year, is 
 buying furniture for his house, and is anxious that 
 every room shall be as beautiful as it is in his power 
 to make it, we all of us know with what eagerness 
 day after day he will stare into the windows of the 
 dealers in old furniture and bric-a-brac, and how 
 quickly he will take note of any object that his taste 
 approves. Now if such a man, having admired a 
 cabinet or a piece of tapestry, finds that the price 
 of it is a hundred or a hundred and fifty pounds, he 
 will feel perhaps that it is a little beyond his 
 means; but he will dream of it, long for it, and 
 will never know a moment's peace till he has so 
 arranged his expenditure as to enable him to com- 
 plete the purchase. But if the price of the cabinet 
 or the tapestry, instead of being a hundred or a 
 hundred and fifty pounds, had been a thousand or 
 fifteen hundred, he would have recognised that the 
 objects were totally beyond his reach, and though 
 they still excited admiration in him, they would
 
 THE LAW OF EXPANDING DESIRE 365 
 excite no desire. Here is the ^reat difference b°°'' '^ 
 
 . Chapter 4 
 
 between the necessaries of life and the luxuries. 
 Men crave for the former, whether they are able to 
 procure them or no. They crave for the latter only 
 in proportion as they feel them to be procurable. 
 A starving boy does not want a bun the less because 
 he has not a penny to buy it with. A man of taste, 
 with only a hundred pounds to spend, does not 
 crave for a piece of tapestry at all, if he knows that 
 the lowest price for it would be not less than a 
 thousand. 
 
 Now under normal conditions the belief that 
 exceptional wealth is procurable by them is confined 
 to men with exceptionally vivid imaginations and 
 with certain exceptional talents and energies that This belief is 
 
 1 , .1 nni t 111 • naturally con- 
 
 correspond to them, ihey crave for wealth, m fined to men 
 
 fact, because they believe themselves capable of JlonaUmagina- 
 creating it, and their cravino^ keeps pace with their t'o"^ and 
 belief in the range of their capabilities. The more productive 
 wealth they can create, the more they desire to p°^^"' 
 create. Their desire for wealth, in fact, unlike 
 their desire for necessaries, is proportionate not to 
 their natural wants, but to the extent of their 
 natural powers. It follows what may be called the 
 law of expanding desire. Here, then, is the ex- 
 planation of the fact which is at first sight so 
 paradoxical — that whilst the desire of wealth is 
 the strongest of all motives amongst a minority, the 
 absence of wealth is not felt as any privation by the 
 majority ; and so long as the normal conditions that 
 have just been indicated prevail, and the men who
 
 366 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 4 
 
 It only be- 
 comes general 
 by the popu- 
 larising of 
 false theories 
 which repre- 
 sent weahh as 
 attainable by 
 all, without 
 exceptional 
 talent or 
 exceptional 
 exertion. 
 
 It is roused, 
 for instance, 
 in a man who 
 
 suddenly is 
 told that he 
 has a legal 
 right to an 
 estate which 
 previously he 
 never thought 
 of coveting. 
 
 can really produce exceptional wealth are the only 
 men who believe it to be a thing attainable by 
 them, and are consequently the only men who feel 
 any actual craving for it, all goes well and healthily, 
 and the desire of all classes may be at least approxi- 
 mately satisfied. Unfortunately, however, the belief 
 that wealth is attainable, though it is naturally con- 
 fined to men who have exceptional powers of creat- 
 ing it, is capable of being implanted under certain 
 circumstances artificially in men who possess no 
 exceptional powers at all. 
 
 A familiar case like the followinof will show how 
 this is effected. A man, we will say, occupies an 
 ornamental cottage, which is beautiful in itself, 
 is embowered in beautiful gardens, and also com- 
 mands views of a picturesque and magnificent park, 
 into the glades of which one of the gates of his 
 garden opens, and which the owner allows him 
 to use precisely as if it were his own. All his 
 friends tell him, and tell him truly, that there is 
 no such place of its size within fifty miles of Lon- 
 don. They envy him his dainty drawing-room, his 
 verandah festooned with roses, his prospect of the 
 timbered park, and his free access to its solitudes. 
 His friends envy him, and he feels himself that he 
 is enviable. One morning, however, he receives a 
 lawyer's letter, which gives him to understand that 
 he is really the legal owner, not of his cottage only, 
 but of the park and property adjoining, and that with 
 adequate legal assistance he could certainly substan- 
 tiate his claim to them. In an instant his whole
 
 THE ARTIFICIAL CRAVING FOR WEALTH 367 
 temper of mind with reQ:ard to his surroundincrs is ^^o^^ ^^ 
 
 .... . . Chapter4 
 
 changed. His pride m his cottage is gone, and its 
 place is taken by indignation at having been kept 
 out of possession of the park, and by a feverish 
 craving to acquire it. He goes to law. The case is 
 long and difficult. He lives for months distracted by 
 fear and hope ; and when the case is finally given 
 against him, he comes back to his cottage with his 
 mind unhinged by the shock, contemptuous of the 
 dwelling which was once a source of pride to him, 
 and cursing the prospects which once were his daily 
 pleasure. 
 
 Now this craving for wealth, by which the man's 
 Hfe is blighted, has been produced, precisely as such a 
 craving normally is, by the belief on his part that 
 certain wealth is attainable ; but the belief here does 
 not rest on a consciousness that he is able by his 
 own abilities to create or earn it for himself ; it rests 
 on his intellectual assent to a delusive proposition 
 that he has a legal right to it, or, in other words. The socialistic 
 that the law will make him the possessor of it day creates a 
 without any exceptional productive effort of his for^weamfby"^ 
 own. And here we have a counterpart to the '«s doctrines 
 
 ^ _ of impossible 
 
 socialistic teaching of to-day. It excites, or aims at rights to it. 
 exciting, an artificial craving for wealth in men who 
 would not naturally trouble their heads about it, by 
 teaching them that they have a right to it, which is 
 wholly independent of any exceptional productive 
 power in themselves, or in any ancestors from 
 whom they might claim to inherit. The only 
 difference between men who are thus deluded, and
 
 368 
 
 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 4 
 
 The practical 
 craving for 
 wealth is 
 naturally con- 
 fined to those 
 who have 
 some talent for 
 creating it, 
 and the pain 
 caused by its 
 absence is 
 naturally con- 
 fined to such 
 men. 
 
 The socialistic 
 theories merely 
 cause a barren 
 and artificial 
 discontent, 
 
 the claimant to the park and estate whose case we 
 have been just imagining, is that whilst the latter is 
 deceived into expecting that he individually can 
 be made rich by a law-suit, the latter are deceived 
 into expecting that they all can be made rich by 
 legislation. 
 
 The desire for wealth, as something distinct 
 from competence, is a desire which normally affects 
 men only in proportion as they believe themselves 
 to be possessed of power by which they may 
 individually earn it ; and so long as men recognise 
 the truth that, apart from rare chances, the powers 
 that earn wealth are the exceptional powers that 
 create it, the craving for wealth which makes the 
 non-possession of it a pain is confined to a minority 
 composed of exceptionally constituted individuals. 
 The absence of wealth amongst the majority causes 
 unhappiness only when false theories with regard to 
 its attainability and men's natural rights to it have 
 produced in the average man an artificial and — 
 diseased sensitiveness. There is no surer means of 
 exaggerating inequalities in happiness than the false 
 and pestilent teachings which encourage equality of 
 expectations. 
 
 And not only do these teachings, so far as they 
 have any effect at all, create private unhappiness and 
 multiply private disappointments, but they give rise 
 amongst masses of men to an impracticable temper, 
 which is the source of many of the difficulties con- 
 fronting us in the domain of politics, and most of 
 those confronting us in the domain of industry.
 
 THE MISCHIEF OF FALSE THEORIES 369 
 The crude and childish philosophy which socialists ^"^'^ ^'^ 
 
 >■ ^ •' ^ Chapter 4 
 
 and so-called labour-leaders endeavour to diffuse 
 amongst the great masses of the population rests, 
 so far as the masses of the population understand it, 
 on the theory that society is composed of " approxi- 
 mately equal units," and that whatever is produced 
 within a community is produced by that community 
 as a whole. Hence the members argue, and the 
 socialists distinctly tell them, that property and 
 capital are merely accidental possessions, which give 
 to those who possess them a purely adventitious 
 power. These teachers add that such possessions, in 
 abstract justice, should be taken from their present 
 possessors and divided amongst the community at which inter- 
 
 , , f ,..-,, , 111* 1 ^^^res with that 
 
 large ; and from this it lollows that all claims to the harmonious 
 profits of capital, as put forward by it« present which"he°" 
 possessors, are, in an abstract sense, unjust, xhe ^^"^^"^^^"^ ^'^^ 
 
 ^ ' ' •' many depends, 
 
 consequence is that the employed, when stimulated 
 into conflict with the employers, enter on the conflict 
 in a temper which forbids them to be satisfied with 
 any immediate result of it, however favourable to 
 themselves. Whatever advance in wages, or reduc- 
 tion in hours, the employers may have conceded, 
 the employed — so far as they are influenced by the 
 socialistic fallacies of the day — consider themselves 
 still wronged almost as much as ever, so long as 
 the employers continue to exist at all ; and thus any 
 cordial understanding between the two classes is 
 made impossible. When the employed strike or 
 agitate for higher wages, they may be compared to 
 a man who maintains that his tailor's bill is ex- 
 24
 
 370 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV orbitant, and desires to have a certain portion of 
 ^^"^ the total deducted. Now if the tailor is reasonable 
 and agrees to take off something, the matter may be 
 easily adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties; 
 for though the customer may think that the tailor 
 has claimed too much, he admits that to a certain 
 sum the tailor has an undoubted right. But if the 
 customer were a madman, who believed when he 
 ordered his clothes that in abstract justice he ought to , 
 be charged nothing for them, and that any claim on 
 the tailor's part was in reality robbery and oppres- 
 sion, whatever deduction the tailor might consent to 
 make, the customer's grievance against him would 
 remain the same as ever. It is possible for 
 customers and tradesmen to come to some satis- 
 factory understanding, so long as the demand of the 
 former is that their bills shall not be too high. 
 No satisfactory understanding could be arrived at 
 between them possibly — there would be nothingibut 
 friction, constant dunning, and writs — were it known 
 that the customers entertained and meant to act on 
 These theories thc thcory that they ought not, in abstract justice, to 
 ^fVasTes'^ho pay their bills at all. Now such is the labour- 
 wue berimes leader's theory with regard to the employing classes, 
 and the cause Yov 3. time somc part of their bills must unfortu- 
 
 of true social ^ . r i ' d 
 
 reform suffers natcly be paid — that IS, some part of their profits 
 inj'ury" "" ^ bc allowcd them. But to these profits they have no 
 real right, and the employed must never be con- 
 tented until they have absorbed the whole of them. 
 So long as such a theory prevails, no satisfactory 
 progress in the condition of labour is possible,
 
 THE FORCES BEHIND CAPITAL 371 
 
 partly because the employed, whatever advantages '^°o'' ^v 
 
 • •111 1 i-'iiapter 4 
 
 they may gam, will be no nearer to content than 
 they were before, partly because the employers are 
 constantly forced into a position of unwilling 
 antagonism to men whom they would wish to 
 befriend. 
 
 The object of this present work, so far as the '^^ ^^J'^^' ^^ 
 
 . -. ., . , the present 
 
 question of wealth and its distribution is concerned, work is to 
 has been to show how absolutely false to fact are the Lua^y o^f the 
 theories to which this impracticable discontent is due, JJ^eSing^^'^ 
 and how intellectually ludicrous is the position of the socialistic dis- 
 
 1-1 1* • 111 • content and 
 
 school of thinkers who imagine that such theories socialistic 
 represent accurate science J These thinkers, in their ^^^^^^ °'"' 
 dealings with property and capital, in spite of the 
 esoteric admissions of a certain number of them to 
 the contrary, touch the truth in their more popular 
 utterances, only by the process of inverting it, or of 
 putting the cart before the horse. They represent 
 the employing classes as possessing exceptional 
 strength merely because they are accidentally the 
 possessors of capital. The actual truth is that these 
 classes are possessors of capital because they them- 
 selves or their fathers have possessed exceptional 
 strength. The arrows of Ulysses were more for- 
 midable than those of the suitors because Ulysses 
 shot with a stronger bow than they; but he shot 
 with a stronger bow for the very simple reason 
 that he was strong enough to bend it and they 
 were not. The employing classes contribute to the 
 processes of production not less than the employed ; 
 in certain senses they contribute incalculably more,
 
 372 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV and in every sense they contribute as truly; and 
 Chapter 4 ^^^^ contribute not primarily because they possess 
 capital, but because as a class they possess excep- 
 tional faculties, of which the capital possessed by 
 them is at once the creation and the instrument. 
 In other words, the inequalities which sociaUsts 
 regard as accidental are the natural result of the 
 inequalities of human nature, and constitute also the 
 sole social conditions under which men's unequal 
 faculties can co-operate towards a common end. 
 and to show Socialists contcud that the source of all power 
 
 that the many . . , i • i t • • mi 
 
 are not a self- IS HI the multitude. It IS impossiblc to miagme a 
 existent power. gj.g^|-gj. qj. ^lore abjcct crror. The multitude, or the 
 
 mass of average men — the men undistinguished by 
 any exceptional faculties — are the source of certain 
 powers, or rather they possess certain powers. 
 That is true; but what may these powers be.^* 
 Their most striking characteristic is their limita- 
 tion. In the domain of industry the many, if left to 
 themselves, could produce only a very small amount, 
 which would have, moreover, no appreciable tendency 
 to increase. In the domain of government they 
 could initiate the simplest movements only, and carry 
 out only the simplest measures. The powers which 
 they actually possess under existing circumstances are 
 as much greater than these as the man is greater than 
 the child ; but these added powers acquired by the 
 average men, or by the many, do not depend upon 
 average men alone. They are developed only with 
 the development of another set of powers altogether 
 — the powers belonging to the exceptional men or to
 
 THE TWO SOCIAL FACTORS 373 
 
 the few ; and if these latter powers were impaired, the ^°°^ ^^ 
 former would be impaired also. In the domain of 
 production and the domain of government alike, not 
 all, but nearly all, the powers of a democracy pre- 
 suppose the powers of a de facto aristocracy, and 
 although they modify them, they depend upon them, t-^t depend for 
 
 T T 1 r / 1 • ^" *1^^ powers 
 
 Here are the two lactors or forces which we can they possess on 
 never get rid of unless we get rid of civilisation tVon'^^'theTe'w. 
 altogether — the force represented by the mass of 
 ordinary men, and the force represented by those 
 who in various ways are more than ordinary. Let 
 us destroy society a hundred times over, and attempt 
 to reconstruct it in what way we will, these two 
 forces will inevitably reassert themselves, and reveal 
 their existence in the form which society takes, as 
 surely as a man's figure will give its shape to what- 
 ever kind of cloak we hang on it. These two forces 
 at the present time attract our attention principally 
 by their activity in the domain of industry, where 
 they show themselves under the forms of employer 
 and employed. In order that any satisfactory solu- 
 tion of our industrial difficulties may be arrived at 
 it is necessary that employers and employed alike 
 should each recognise the importance of the part 
 played by the other, the nature and the extent of the 
 other's strength, and the permanent need each has 
 of the other's strenuous co-operation. It is hardly 
 to be expected that between these two, serious dis- 
 putes and difficulties will ever completely cease. In 
 the interest of social progress it is not necessary 
 that they should. What is necessary is that what-
 
 Book IV 
 Chapter 4 
 
 374 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 ever disputes between these two parties may arise, 
 and however unreasonable or excessive on any 
 given occasion the claims of the few may seem to the 
 many, or the claims of the many to the few, neither 
 party shall regard the other as its opponent, excepting 
 with reference to the particular points at issue ; that 
 the few shall not deal with the many as though the 
 many, in asserting themselves, were rebels, nor the 
 many attack the few, as though the powers of the few 
 were usurpations. What is necessary is that each 
 should recognise its own position and its own 
 functions, and the position and the functions of the 
 other, as being, in a general sense, all equally 
 unalterable, and although admitting of indefinitely 
 improved adjustment, not admitting of any funda- 
 mental change. 
 
 And what is true of the social forcesJLhat are in- 
 volved in the production of wealth, is true of those 
 that are involved in political government. In 
 political government, just as in the production of 
 wealth, the power of the few has a root in the 
 nature of things as indestructible as has that of the 
 many ; and though the few can produce progress 
 only when the many can co-operate with them, it is 
 not from the many that their power is primarily 
 derived. In the domain of speculative knowledge 
 this is self-evident. The ordinary brains are 
 pensioners of the few brains that are superior to 
 them ; and yet the superior brains are powerless to 
 produce social results, except in so far as the 
 ordinary brains respond to what their superiors
 
 THE RIGHTS OF THE FEW AND THE MANY 375 
 
 teach them. So it is in economic production, so it ^°°^ ^^ 
 is in poHtical government. The power of democracy 
 is not only an actual power; it is a power from 
 which no society can ever wholly escape ; but never 
 — not even when nominally it reaches its extreme 
 development — does it, or can it, or does it ever tend 
 to be, a power which is self-existent. It always 
 implies and rests upon the corresponding power of 
 the few, as one half of an arch implies and rests upon 
 the other. The whole object of the democratic 
 formulas popular to-day is to deny or to obscure this 
 fundamental truth ; and no greater obstacle to 
 general progress exists than the prevalence of the 
 spirit which the acceptance of these formulas en- 
 genders. If there is anything sacred in the rights of 
 the poorest wage-earners, there is something equally 
 sacred in those of the greatest millionaires ; and if whose rights 
 
 , , 1 1 r 1 • 1 • ^"^^ ^^ sacred, 
 
 the latter are capable of abusmg then- power, so also and whose 
 are the former; but nothing will tend to prevent grJ^^'^as Their 
 their abuse of it so much as the recognition that such °^"' 
 an abuse on either side is possible. If there is any 
 wisdom and power in the cumulative opinions of 
 ordinary men, there is another kind of wisdom and 
 another kind of power in the ideas, the insight, the 
 imagination, and strength of will which belong to 
 exceptional men ; and these last, though they may 
 give effect to what the many wish, do so only be- 
 cause they represent what the many do not possess. 
 What is required to bring our political philosophy — 
 and not only our political philosophy but our political 
 temper — into correspondence with facts is not to
 
 376 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV deny the power that has been claimed during this 
 century for the many, but to recognise that this 
 power does not stand alone, and that those other 
 powers represented by the wealthy few are not only 
 essential to the wealth of the few themselves, but 
 also to the prosperity, and most emphatically to the 
 progress, of all. 
 The recogni- f^g progrcss of all, instcad of beinff incompatible 
 
 tion of the fact . r & ' ^ ^ & r 
 
 that the reia- with the fact that the positions of all have no ten- 
 positions of dency to become equal, assumes, on the contrary, a 
 never br" morc and more practicable aspect in proportion to 
 fundamentally ^^ accuracy with wliich this fact is recognised ; and 
 that such is the case shall, in conclusion, be briefly 
 shown by reference to the theory of progress which 
 at present deceives the socialists. This theory, 
 which was formulated by Karl Marx, bases itself on 
 the fact, which is indubitable, that~the industrial 
 systems of the civilised races of the world have 
 undergone great changes in the past, and may there- 
 fore be expected to undergo changes as great in the 
 future. The three most marked stages in the 
 sequence of change referred to are slavery, feudalism, 
 and capitalism ; and the practical conclusion drawn 
 from them by the socialists is that as feudalism arose 
 out of slavery, and capitalism arose out of feudalism, 
 (especially g^ ^jjj socialism ansc out of capitalism. This argu- 
 
 when we con- ^ o 
 
 sider the facts meut is merely another example of those self-con- 
 
 whichKari fusious by wliich the socialists are distinguished as 
 
 attemionT' reasoners. It is an argument which depends for its 
 
 whole apparent point on the defective manner in 
 
 which these various systems — socialism included —
 
 POWER OF THE FEW INDESTRUCTIBLE 377 
 
 have been analysed. For, though slavery, feudalism, ^^^^^ ^^ 
 and capitalism differ from one another in many most 
 important points, they happen not to differ at all in 
 respect of that one particular point in respect of 
 which socialism will have to differ from all three 
 of them. That is to say, in whatever way these three 
 systems differ from one another, they all agree with 
 one another in being systems under which the few, 
 the strongest, the most intellectual, the most ener- 
 getic, not only controlled the actions of the average 
 many, but received for their exceptional action a 
 correspondingly exceptional recompense. The few 
 who occupied this commanding position differed, at 
 different times, in the nature of the powers which gave 
 them the command. Sometimes it was the great 
 fighters who were paramount, sometimes the great 
 legislators, sometimes the great industrialists. But 
 into whatever mould human society has been cast, 
 with whatever circumstances it has been surrounded, 
 and whatever kind of talent or strength has been 
 most essential to it at given periods, the few who 
 have possessed this kind of talent and strength to 
 the highest degree have, as a whole, and with them 
 their families, invariably occupied a position of ex- 
 ceptional wealth and power. We may deplore this 
 fact or no, but the fact still remains, and conse- 
 quently the argument of the socialists from the 
 facts of social evolution, when reduced to its true 
 terms, merely amounts to this — that because many 
 social changes have taken place already, but one 
 particular change in spite of these has never taken
 
 378 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV place, yet this particular change which has refused 
 to take place in the past is perfectly certain to take 
 place in the future. 
 shows us not 'pi^e historical evolution of society, however, and 
 
 only how , 1 i i • i i 
 
 chimerical are thc social changcs that havc taken place, do indeed 
 the sSists. convey to us a very important moral ; but this moral 
 gliSJJids^tSf which the changes convey to us is curiously differ- 
 are for the gj^^ from that which the socialists draw from them. 
 
 hopes of more 
 
 rational They draw from them the moral that because social 
 
 arrangements have been greatly changed, therefore 
 they can be fundamentally changed. The true 
 moral is that, although they may be changed greatly, 
 they can never be changed fundamentally ; and from 
 this there follows another as its yet more important 
 corollary — that although social arrangements can 
 never be changed fundamentally, they can, never- 
 theless, be progressively and indefinitely improved, 
 but that real reforms can be accomplished only by 
 those who abandon altogether every dream of funda- 
 mental revolution. Many reforms which socialists 
 eagerly recommend, and many wishes which socialists 
 entertain, may meet with the approval and sympathy 
 of the most determined conservatives ; but the error 
 of the socialists is sufficiently indicated by the fact, 
 already remarked upon in the course of this work, 
 that the changes which they advocate, and whose 
 advent they delight to prophesy, leave the possible 
 and approach the absolutely impossible, in precise 
 proportion as these visionaries set value upon them. 
 Nowhere is the impossibility of such changes 
 more clearly indicated than in the phrases now most
 
 IMPOSSIBLE FREEDOM 379 
 
 frequently used to indicate their specific nature — Bookiv 
 
 T 1 7 • • n 1 , Chapter 4 
 
 such phrases as " the emancipation and " the 
 economic freedom " of the labourer. These phrases, 
 if they have any meaning at all, can mean one thing 
 only — the emancipation of the average man, 
 endowed with average capacities, from the control, 
 from the guidance, or, in other words, from the help, 
 of any man or men whose capacities are above the 
 average — whose speculative abilities are exception- 
 ally keen, whose inventive abilities are exceptionally 
 great, whose judgments are exceptionally sound, 
 and whose powers of will, enterprise, and initiative 
 are exceptionally strong. ^That is to say, these 
 phrases, if they have any meaning at all, mean the 
 deliberate loss and rejection, by the less efficient 
 majority of mankind, of any advantage that might 
 come to it from the powers of the more efficient 
 minority. " Economic freedom" in fact, would mean 
 economic poverty ; and the " emancipation " of the 
 average man would merely be the emancipation 
 which a blind man achieves when he breaks away 
 from his guide. The human race progresses because 
 and when the strongest human powers and the 
 highest human faculties lead it; such powers and 
 faculties are embodied in and monopolised by a 
 minority of exceptional men ; these men enable the 
 majority to progress, only on condition that the 
 majority submit themselves to their control ; and if 
 all the ruling classes of to-day could be disposed of 
 in a single massacre, and nobody left but those who 
 at present call themselves the workers, these work-
 
 38o ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Book IV ers would be as helpless as a flock of shepherd- 
 chapter 4 '■ . . . 
 
 less sheep, until out of themselves a new minority 
 
 had been evolved, to whose order the majority- 
 would have to submit themselves, precisely as they 
 submit themselves to the orders of the ruling classes 
 now, and whose rule, like the rule of all new 
 masters, would be harder, and more arbitrary, and 
 less humane than the rule of the old.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Accident, social inequality not an, 47 ff. 
 Activity, five domains of, 154. 
 Agent, great man, of progress, 121. 
 Agents, the few not mere passive, 190. 
 Aggregate, Spencer's definition of an, 
 
 52. 
 Agitators, social, 342. 
 Agriculture, Mill's argument concern- 
 ing, 198 ff. 
 Aim of science to-day, 5. 
 Analysis: Kidd's, of social aggregate, 
 23. 
 
 of case against great man, 63 ff. 
 
 of greatness, 120 ff. 
 
 of the democratic theory, 178-180. 
 
 of practical reasoning, 208-211. 
 Ancestors, great man and, 73. 
 Application : of science to society, 5. 
 
 of knowledge, inventor and, 1 38. 
 Aristocrats agree with democrats and 
 socialists as to orderly govern- 
 ment, 43. 
 Aristotle : and intention, 100. 
 
 on the average man, 259. 
 Autocracy: of the inventor, 60-61. 
 
 of great man of business, 61. 
 
 of hotel-keeper, 62. 
 
 competitive element in an, 178. 
 Average men : action in co-operation, 
 215 ff. 
 
 emancipation of, 379. 
 
 Bellamy, Edward, 65, 76, 77, 80, 82. 
 Bessemer, Sir Henry, 87. 
 Bimetallism, used for illustration, 185. 
 Birth-rate and socialistic State, 232. 
 
 38 
 
 Brazil, socialistic colony in, 232, note. 
 Browning, Robert, quoted, 1 24. 
 Bryan, W. J., 186. 
 Buckle, H. T., 10, 
 
 Capacity, degrees of, 113. 
 Capital: fixed and wage, 158. 
 
 as a wealth-producer, 311. 
 
 income-yielding, 317. 
 
 forces behind, 377 ff. 
 Capitalism and progress, 167. 
 Capitalists: the first, 159. 
 
 Marx's conception of, 160. 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 26, 50, 115, 215. 
 Catholicism, average believer and, 
 
 226-227. 
 Children : and socialistic State, 232. 
 
 of the wealthy man, 317-318. 
 Chimeras, hopes of socialists are, 
 
 378. 
 Christianity : how spread, 146, 
 
 cause of general acceptance, 225 ff. 
 Church of Rome a religious democ- 
 racy, 228-229. 
 Civilisation : meaning of, 23S. 
 
 depends on the great man, 276, 
 Classes: Kidd's division, 20-22. 
 
 Spencer's division, 113. 
 
 permanent nature of, 348. 
 Cobden, Richard, 186. 
 Collectivism and individualism, 14. 
 Columbus an example of force of mo- 
 tive, 274. 
 Competition: socialists on, 168-170. 
 
 involved in socialism, 171, 
 Comte, Auguste, 10.
 
 382 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Contract, true social, 274-275. 
 Control, how great man obtains, 157. 
 Co-operation: 163. 
 
 present inequalities necessary to, 
 
 372- 
 of the few, 373. 
 Corvee, 162-163. 
 
 Craftsmanship, progress and, 254-255. 
 " Cut-throat struggle," competition 
 
 termed a, 168. 
 
 Darwin, Charles R., 4, 96. 
 Deity, social change, and Spencer, 25. 
 Demand : dependent on the many, 
 237-238. 
 
 a democratic phenomenon, 239- 
 241. 
 
 for results and for means, 242-243. 
 
 political and economic, 243-244. 
 Democracy : oligarchy compared with, 
 178. ^ 
 
 as master of its rulers, l8l. 
 
 complete, an illusion, 183. 
 
 disguised oligarchy, 187. 
 
 and average faculties, 220 fF. 
 
 religious, a type, 229. 
 
 and the family, 232 ff. 
 Desire : and production, 287. 
 
 equality of, 357. 
 
 law of expanding, 365. 
 Dexterity, not progressive, 135. 
 Discontent : socialistic theories cause, 
 368. 
 
 fallacy of present socialistic, 371. 
 Discovery, great man and, 66-67. 
 Division of labour: cause of, 31. 
 
 Spencer on, 32. 
 Domination, struggle for, 152. 
 
 " Economic freedom " : economic help- 
 lessness, 174. 
 economic poverty, 379. 
 Education : dangers of equalised, 334- 
 
 336. 
 and imperfect talents, 337. 
 Election, of a governor, 177-180. 
 Element, military and industrial, 37. 
 
 Emancipation of average man, 379. 
 Equality: of power non-existent, 189. 
 
 of opportunity impossible, 328. 
 Equalisation of education, 345-346. 
 Errors : fundamental, of modern socio- 
 logical study, I-16. 
 
 of Kidd, 21-23. 
 
 of Spencer, 25. 
 
 of the socialists, 215 flf. 
 Evolution : theory of development 
 termed, 5. 
 
 application of, to social science, 6. 
 
 of marriage, 35. 
 
 and intentional progress, 95. 
 
 the result of intention, 104-105. 
 
 of society, moral of, 378. 
 
 Fabian Essays, quoted, 1 65- 1 66. 
 Factors: Spencer's external and in- 
 ternal, 33-34. 
 
 two social, 373. 
 Faculties: and results, 2I3ff. 
 
 actualised by motive, 273. 
 Failure, useful and useless, 34I. 
 Family, the, 35, 230 ff. 
 Fission, Spencer's process of, 36, 41. 
 Fittest survivor and progress, 90. 
 Formulas, object of popular demo- 
 cratic, 375. 
 Freedom, economic, 174. 
 Free trade : used for illustration, 147, 
 
 185. 
 Froude, James A., 50. 
 
 Genius, definition of, criticised, 152. 
 George Eliot, quoted, 271. 
 George, Henry, 18, 310-31 1. 
 Government : war and evolution of, 37. 
 
 necessary to production and com- 
 merce, 156. 
 Governor, the elected, 177-180. 
 Great Man : autocracy of, in business, 
 6i. 
 
 case against the, 64-65, 
 
 debt of, to the past, 71. 
 
 social inheritance of, 77 ff. 
 
 a true cause of progress, 83.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Z'^l 
 
 Great Man : and rapidity of progress, 
 
 94-95- 
 
 uses unintended materials, 96. 
 
 evolution and, 106-107. 
 
 defined, 11 5-1 16. 
 
 and knowledge, 135. 
 
 as teacher, 136-137. 
 
 influence on others, 141. 
 
 and wealth-production, 151 ff. 
 
 produces the increment, 204-207. 
 Great-man theory : Spencer on, 25, 50. 
 
 Carlyle on, 26. 
 
 reasonably stated, 115. 
 
 fundamental proposition implied in, 
 128. 
 
 involves a competitive struggle, 
 144. 
 Greatness: many degrees of, 117, 
 
 analysis uf, 120-129. 
 
 not equally beneficial, 142. 
 
 skill not a kind of, 253. 
 
 summed up, 272. 
 
 Handbook of Socialism, 285. 
 Happiness: progress and, 351-353. 
 
 speculative and practical, 361. 
 Harrison, Frederic, 299-300. 
 Heroes, great men not necessarily, 116. 
 Home, democracy and the, 233-234. 
 Home Rule, 222, note. 
 Honour, substitute for wealth, 355. 
 
 Illusion, complete democracy an, 183. 
 Imagination, effect of, on desire, 362. 
 Income, 149. 
 
 Increment, great men and the, 206-207. 
 Individualism and collectivism, 14. 
 Industrial civilisation, origin of, 31. 
 Inequality : origin of social, 47. 
 
 in capacity, 48-49. 
 
 various kinds of, 11S-II9. 
 
 social, is permanent, 322-323. 
 Influence : of social science, 7. 
 
 means of great man's, 153. 
 Inheritance : great man's social, 77. 
 
 fact of, irrelevant, 79-So. 
 
 semi-socialists oppose, 309. 
 
 Intellect, compared to will, 125. 
 Intention : and the Walter press, 103. 
 
 evolution result of, 105. 
 Interference of socialists with progress, 
 
 369- 
 Inventions, socialists and, 81. 
 Inventor: autocracy of the, 60-61. 
 
 often helpless by himself, 125. 
 
 applied knowledge and the, 139. 
 
 Julius Caesar as a " proximate initiator," 
 
 56. 
 Jury, trial by, 259-260. 
 
 Kidd, Benjamin: 10, 11, 21-24, 291. 
 
 his Social Evolution, 12, 14, 17-18, 
 90-91. 
 
 on great-man theory, 64-65. 
 Knowledge: basis of progress, 133. 
 
 speculative, 134. 
 
 great man and, 135 ff. 
 
 inventor and applied, 139. 
 
 Labour, and trade unionism, 236. 
 
 Labour-leaders, injure real social re- 
 form, 370 ff. 
 
 Land, and labour, 198-199. 
 
 Lassalle, Ferdinand, 315. 
 
 Lavelaye, Emile de, quoted, 19. 
 
 Law of expanding desire, 365. 
 
 Laws, demand for, 242 ff. 
 
 Localisation of industry: cause, 31. 
 led to road-making, 33. 
 
 Luxury, relativity of, 358. 
 
 Macaulay, anticipates Spencer, 69. 
 Machines, as artificial slaves, 313-314. 
 Maine, Sir Henry, 259-260. 
 Man: sociologists and, 17. 
 
 Kidd on, i8ff. 
 
 de Lavelaye on, 20. 
 
 natural character and progress, t,^. 
 Marriage, evolution of, 34-35. 
 Marshall, Professor : 11,54. 
 
 his Principles of Social Science, 1 2. 
 Marx, Karl, 53, 160, 209, 262, 263, 
 325 note, 343, 376.
 
 384 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Mill, J. S., 10, 61, 132-133. 197 ff-. 
 
 296, 326. 
 Millionaires, rights of, sacred, 375. 
 Mind, the supreme, 96-97. 
 Minority, the clever, 115. 
 Mischief of false theories, 368-369. 
 Monogamy, 35, 231. 
 Morley, John, 192. 
 Morris, William, 255. 
 Motive : necessary for progression, 
 152. 
 
 actualises faculties, 273. 
 
 scope of loftier, 293 ff. 
 Motive power of evolutionary process, 
 
 96. 
 Murger, Henri, 341. 
 
 Napoleon, Spencer and, 84-85. 
 Nature and social progress, 29. 
 Needs, human wantsJiegin as, 238. 
 Newman, Cardinal, 361. 
 
 Oligarchy : compared with democracy, 
 178. 
 democracy a disguised, 187. 
 Opinion: popular, requires a nucleus, 
 187. 
 origin of democratic, 222-223. 
 Opportunity, relativity of, 349. 
 Ordinary man, meaning of term, 251. 
 Organisation of labour, 236. 
 
 Past, great man's debt to the, 71 fif. 
 Permanence: of wage-system, 173. 
 
 of present division of men in 
 classes, 348. 
 Poets not great men, 252. 
 Political economy, new position of, 7. 
 Politics: great man's power in, 176- 
 177. 
 
 supply and demand in, 242. 
 Popes and Councils, 227. 
 Poverty, socialism said to be protest 
 
 of, 342. 
 Power: equality of, non-existent, 189. 
 
 extent of, of the many, 190-191. 
 
 limitation of, in the multitude, 372. 
 
 Power of the few indestructible, 377. 
 Powers, inequality in natural, 1 18. 
 Principles, false, concerning education, 
 
 347- 
 Producers, the few are the chief, 1 74- 
 
 175- 
 Production : domain of economic, 
 
 156. 
 
 object of, 238. 
 
 producer's right to his, 289. 
 Progress : of social science, 9. 
 
 great man a true cause of, 83. 
 
 fittest survivor and, 90. 
 
 a double movement, 93. 
 
 must be due to the clever, 115. 
 
 in general, 130 ff. 
 
 inventor an agent of social, 139. 
 
 in knowledge, 219. 
 
 and craftsmanship, 254-256. 
 
 not the whole of life, 260-261. 
 Protestantism, 226. 
 
 " Proximate initiator " : Spencer and 
 the, 27, 63. 
 
 Julius Cffisar as a, 56. 
 
 Reasoning: Henry George and de 
 Lavelaye employ false, 19. 
 analysis of practical, 208-211. 
 Recompounding of family groups, 36- 
 
 37- 
 Relations of classes permanent, 376. 
 Religion and average man, 225. 
 Representative, guide versus the, 179. 
 Results: measure of greatness, 121. 
 
 faculties and, 2 1 3. 
 Reward, great men demand a, 278. 
 Rights: socialists' doctrine of, impos- 
 sible, 367. 
 
 of the few and the many, 375. 
 Rivalry : of existence, 89. 
 
 of great men, 143. 
 
 of employers, 148-149. 
 Road-making, origin of, 33. 
 Rome, Church of, and democracy, 228- 
 
 229. 
 Rossi, Giovanni, 232, note. 
 Rousseau, J. J., 274.
 
 INDEX 
 
 385 
 
 Science is undergoing a change, 2. 
 Sentimentalists oppose productive ma- 
 chines, 254. 
 Shareholding under " co-operative " 
 
 system, 164. 
 Skill not a sign of greatness, 253-254. 
 Slavery: and wage-system, 157. 
 
 re-introduction of, impossible, 172. 
 Slave-system, socialism essentially a, 
 
 165. 
 Smith, Adam, 32. 
 Socialism: a slave-system, 165. 
 
 competition involved in, 171. 
 Socialists : so-called scientific, 53. 
 
 and inventions, 81. 
 
 and capital, 160. 
 
 on the wage-system, 165 ff. 
 
 errors concerning democracy, 215 ff. 
 
 and average man, 262 ff, 
 
 on motive, 285-286, 304. 
 
 on investment, 319. 
 Sociologists and social science, 9 ff. 
 Sociology: success of speculative, 12- 
 14. 
 
 failure of practical, 15-16. 
 Species, Darwinian theory of, 96. 
 Spencer, Herbert : 11, 55 ff., 215, 247, 
 276, 280. 
 
 exponent of a fallacious method, 24. 
 
 his sociological works, 25. 
 
 on great men, 26 ff. 
 
 as a " proximate initiator," 27. 
 
 on division of labour, 32. 
 
 and social aggregate, 40 ff. 
 
 ignores the individual, 45. 
 
 on great-man theory, 50. 
 
 on the military leader, 57. 
 
 as an industrial dictator, 58 ff. 
 
 on social inheritance, 77. 
 
 and Napoleon, 85. 
 
 his Social Statics, 86. 
 
 on Sir H. Bessemer, 87. 
 
 on degrees of capacity, 113. 
 
 and the clever minority, 114-I15. 
 Soldier, work of, exceptional, 300-301. 
 Starting-point of practical sociologist, 
 48. 
 
 State : and advance of knowledge, 
 
 138. 
 to supersede private employers, 165. 
 care of children, 232. 
 and art and science, 275, 
 and education, 334. 
 Strada, Famiano, 104 and note. 
 Strikes, 369. 
 Struggle for existence, the Darwinian, 
 
 92. 
 Struggle, progressive, limits of, 147. 
 " Successfuls and unsuccessfuls," 89. 
 Superiority, extent of great man's, 68- 
 
 69. 
 Supply dependent on the few, 235. 
 Survival of the fittest : monogamy ex- 
 ample of, 35. 
 modern sociology adopts doctrine 
 of, 89. 
 
 Talents: some are abortive, 341-342. 
 
 development of, 346. 
 Tastes, development of needs, 238. 
 Theocratic theory, 25. 
 Trade unionism, 235 ff. 
 Truisms : speculative, 73. 
 
 and absurdities, 75. 
 
 Unanimity of multitudes, 184-185. 
 
 Voltaire, comparison of Frederick the 
 Great to, 121. 
 
 Wage-payers and wage-earners, 169. 
 Wage-system : slavery and, 157. 
 
 permanent nature of, 172-173. 
 Walter press, the, result of unintended 
 
 progress, 102-103. 
 Wants, needs, and tastes, 238. 
 Wealth : means employed in produc- 
 ing, 155-156. 
 
 production of, and greed, 288. 
 
 desired as a means, 306-307. 
 Wealth of Nations^ 32. 
 Webb, Sidney, 65, 73 ff., 263, 280-281. 
 Will, intellect and, 125, 
 World, every class its own, 259. 
 
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 An elementary text-book offeriiig a simple outline of those things which are necessarv' to 
 prepare the student for independent research ; a brief discussion of the leading principles 
 that are generally accepted ; a statement of the unsettled principles, with the grounds of 
 controversy; and sufficient references to enable the student to form some opinion for himself. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
 
 Valuable Collateral Reading 
 
 IN 
 
 ECONOMICS, HISTORY, ETC 
 
 By JAMES BRYCE, M.P., D.CL. 
 The American Commonwealth for Students' Use. 
 
 Crown 8vo, cloth. $1.75, net. 
 
 Revised by Mr. BRYCE, with the assistance of Prof. JESSE MaCY, of Iowa College. 
 This is not a mere condensation of the larger work, but a restatement, briefer 
 and in a form more carefully adapted to use as a text-book, of the valuable 
 material in Mr. Bryce's "American Commonwealth," a knowledge of which is 
 conceded to be indispensable to any one who would acquire a just estimate of 
 American institutions. 
 
 " It is a genuine pleasure to commend to our readers the abridged edition of ' The American 
 Commonwealth' just issued by The Macmillan Company. Mr. Bryce's book, which has 
 heretofore been issued only in two volumes, has no peer as a commentary upon American 
 political institutions." — Public Opinion. 
 
 The American Commonwealth. 
 
 2 vols. Large i2mo. Third edition. Revised throughout. ^^4.00, net. 
 
 " His work rises at once to an eminent place among studies of great nations and their insti- 
 tutions. It is, so far as America goes, a work unique in scope, spirit, and knowledge. There 
 is nothing like it anywhere extant — nothing that approaches it. . . . Without exaggeration, 
 it maybe called the most considerable and gratifying tribute that has yet been bestowed upon 
 us by an Englishman, and perhaps by even England herself. . . . Every thoughtful Ameri- 
 can will read it, and will long hold in grateful remembrance its author's name." — N'ew York 
 Times. 
 
 A Political Primer for New York State and City. 
 
 The City under the Greater New York Charter. By Adele M. Fielde, author of 
 " A Corner of Cathay." With maps. Cloth, 75 cts. Paper, 50 cts. 
 
 Miss Fielde has had frequent occasion during the past two or three years to instruct classes 
 of women studying political questions. Now a larger class seeks her instruction, in the only 
 way open, by the issue of this clear, concise, yet comprehensive book. 
 
 The Study of City Government. 
 
 An Outline of the Problems of Municipal Functions, Control, and Organization. 
 By Delos F. Wilco.x, A.M., Ph.D. i2mo. Cloth. ^1.50, net. 
 
 The author holds that the City Problem is the key to the immediate future of social progress 
 in this country, and he offers for the first tim.e a systematic outline of the whole municipal 
 field, indicating the chief problems of function, of control, and of organization. 
 
 The Finances of New York City. 
 
 By E. Dana Durand. Cloth, i2mo. $2.00. 
 A well-written, clear, straightforward, and interesting history of an important subject. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 
 
 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK.
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped helow 
 
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