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ARISTOCRACY & EVOLUTION

A STUDY OF THE RIGHTS, THE ORIGIN,
AND THE SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF
THE WEALTHIER CLASSES

BY
w ELLOCK

AUTHOR OF ‘IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?’ ‘A HUMAN DOCUMENT,’
‘LABOUR AND THE POPULAR WELFARE,’ ETC.

Toute civilisation est l’ceuvre des aristocrates.
RENAN.

’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 luggage-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.
Byron.

LONDON
ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1898

PREFACE

Tue word arzstocracy 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 treatises
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

vi ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

bearings of an argument are more readily grasped
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
been 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

Science during the middle of this century excited popular interest or

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 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 . r 4
Its characteristic aim now is to deal with the evolution of society 5
Social science itselfis 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

advantages - : ‘ : 8
Men have thus a double reason for fase interested i in social science,

and sociologists a double reason for studying it; . ; : 9
and it has attracted a number of men of genius, who have applied to it

methods learned in the school of physical science . ; . 9
Yet despite their genius and their diligence, all parties complain that

the results of their study are inconclusive . : ‘ ; 10
Professor Marshall and Mr. Kidd, for instance, complain of the fact,

but can suggest no explanation of it ; : : ; $e)

What can the explanation be? . : : : ; : II

—. = iin) ~f » 4 i lt = — as oe fe SS lL el |. ee —a—< a * |

viii 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 ; .
and one set—namely, SS ey oe
success; . . - . .
Bide iced ‘casly Sex athenepting io seamves paluaiics] eucalidiat :
Now the phenomena with which it has dealt successfully are phenomena
of social aggregates, considered as wholes; .- - - 2

but the practical problems of to-day, with which it has dealt unsuccess-
fully, arise out of the conflict between different parts of aggregates

Social science has failed as a practical guide because it has not recog-
nised this distinction ; :

and hence arise most of the errors of the political pilsophy of his

CHAPTER II

THe ATTEMPT TO MERGE THE GREAT MAN IN
THE AGGREGATE

Whatever may be done by some men, or classés of men, sncagiegets

are at present accustomed to attribute to man
' Mr. Kidd’s Social Evolution, for instance, is based cniely on this

procedure . ss . P

He quotes with approval two Pe writers istic have ne guilty of it;

who both attribute to #an 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 saaiondy dine to the fact that, hashes first divided
the social aggregate into two classes, he then obliterates his divi-
sion, and thinks of them both as *‘ man” . ‘ 4 zZ

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, :

as a short summary of his arguments will show ~ E : '

16

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CONTENTS

Mr. Spencer starts with saying that the chief impediment to social
Science is the great-man theory ; ‘ = 3

ie ill demeahiece of the gecat man’ ts iecelcadebic. paogete, 2

depends on him, must be incalculable also ; - ‘
0 = i a
ness to causes outside himself; - :
ia ces wha wells penhace the cicctsof which he is the
proximate initiator :
_ | aa iy Seeente aak te
great man, but to the causes that are behind the great man ?
The true causes, says Mr. Spencer, of all social phenomena are

Physical environment and men’s natural character - :
The first physical cause of progress was am exceptionally fertile soil -
and an exceptionally bracing climate - .

SS Pe :
There were other regions more fertile, but these were enervating ; and
hence the inhabitants of the former enslaved the weaker inhabit-
ants of the latter . : = = 2 = :
Again, division of labour, on which industria] progress depends, was
caused by difference in the products of different localities, :
which led to the localisation of industries : ‘ - :
The localisation of industries in its turn led to road-making; - -
and roads made possible the centralisation of authority and interchange
- ofideas . z ; F =
Riedl pe ksieeaactecsl character, chick ti ican Shenae:
their primitive character did not fit them to progress, -
ee iadet etiasie teaguideedl iy the cvcdetion of imaningeand the
family—especially of monogamy - : : :
eae ac emrvienl off the Sitcat Linn of sciual usin e
It developed the affections and the practice of efficient co-operation .
The family being established, the nation gradually rose from it .
One familyincreased, and gave rise to many families, which were obliged,
in order to get food, to separate into different groups; - .
ee ee & Bee eres, x purposes of defence or
ie ieicineiat Tang ig its origin waitary - ~
But as the arts of life progress, Gacanttineinnen itself from
governmental control, and becomes its own master, and also forms
the basis of political democracy .- . : §

ay? .

8 B88 8

Ye WB BRA FRB BWR

6

“i.

x ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Now, if we consider all these conclusions of Mr. Spencer's, :

we shall find them to be all conclusions about aggregates as wholes,
not about parts of aggregates .

The only differences recognised by him betiiece men are differences
between one homogeneous aggregate and another,

and differences between similar men who happen to be eye
differently . -

But, as has already been said, ihe social Satlenl of totiy 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 «ae

The conflict between the parts of the angicpats arises fest ineqiualition
of position . . :

of which Mr. Spencer’s sociology takes no account

Social problems arise out of the desire of those whose positions are
inferior to have their positions changed ; :

and the practical question is, is the change they desire possible ?

To answer this question we must examine into the causes why such and
such individuals are in inferior, and others in superior positions

Are inequalities in position due to alterable and accidental circum-
stances ? ; = : ‘

Or are they due to Siseheitel inequalities which no one can ever do
away with? - :

Social inequalities are partly due to circumstances ; . :

but most people will admit that congenital inequalities in talent have
much to do with them

Why then insist on this fact ? ;

Because this fact is precisely what our ‘celiac soctologiste’t ignore,

as Mr. Spencer shows us by his distinct admissions and assertions, as

well as by the character of his conclusions : :

His condemnation of the great-man theory is a removal of all con-
genital inequalities from his field of study ;

and he actually defines an aggregate as being composed of alice
mately equal units . “

His failure and that of others, as echical soclalcgiete arises from
their building on this false hypothesis

PAGE

5!

52

CONTENTS

xi
CHAPTER III

GREAT MEN, AS THE TRUE CAUSE OF PROGRESS
PAGE

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

(1) by saying that the great man docs not vail i what he seems
to do; 55
(2) by saying that wiket he seems to do i is not peas hak 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 pees
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 : ° . F 59
The inventor orders the men by whom his inventions are tet 60
The great man of business orders his employees 61
The hotel- keeper orders his staff ‘ ; ; 62

All these men resemble the great military eae 3 and if the
latter is a social cause, so are the former . - 3 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 three popular writers of to-day show us, 64
resolves itself into four arguments : 65
(1) That every first discovery involves all that hae gone before it ; 66

(2) that the discoverer’s ability itself. is the product of past circum-
stances ; ; : ; ; 66
(3) that often the same Baws is noe by several men at once ; 66
(4) that the difference between the great and the ordinary man is 66
slight : , : - : ‘ 66

Simultaneous discovery only oe 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
measured 68

xii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

It may be slight to the speculative philosopher, but to the practical
man it is all-important :

As for the two other arguments, which admit thie aes man’s greatness,
but deny that it is his own, : é s

they are both true speculatively, but are carcticalty untrue, or
irrelevant ; 4 2 : * F

just as statements of averages and clisantGcatten of goods may be true

and relevant for one purpose, and false and irrelevant for another '

Thus the argument that the great man owes his faculties to his
ancestors, and through his ancestors to the society which helped
to develop his ancestors, though a speculative truism,

leads to nothing but absurdities if we apply it to practical life .

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 .

The same argument applies to morals ; and if accepted, we should have
to admit that nobody really did, or was really responsible for, 7
thing ‘ i ; : ,

Finally, let us take the argument dheat most of hat the great man
does depends on past discoveries and past achievements, to which
he does but add a little ; : :

If this argument means anything, it must mean that greatness is com-
moner than it is vulgarly thought

But is this the case? Does Shakespeare’s debt to ‘his antecedents
make Shakespeares more numerous ? 3 j ‘

Shakespeare’s contemporaries had the same national antecedents that
he had ; but they could not do what he did

Men inherit the past only in so far as they can assimilate it

Socialists say that inventions once made become common property

This is absolutely untrue ‘ ; 3 : F

The discoveries and inventions of the past are the property of those
only who can absorb and use them ; F

Thus the introduction of the past into the question leaves the differenies
between the great man and others undiminished ;

If the ordinary man does anything, the great man does a great deal more

and in practical reasoning he is a true cause for the sociologist

And, curiously enough, Mr. Spencer unconsciously admits this

He declares that the Napoleonic wars were entirely due to the malefi-
cent greatness of Napoleon

PAGE

CONTENTS xiil

He defends patents because they represent the very sebstance of the in- ae
ventor’s own mind ; : . 5 . A 4 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
suggested by it : : : : : : ; 88

Cra leR Iv

THE GREAT MAN AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE PHYSIO-
LOGICALLY FitTrEst 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 Re or pie the asi 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 contemporaries 92
The movement of progress is double; . : , : ; 93
one movement being very slow, the other rapid ; ; : 93
The survival of the fittest causes the slow movement . Z : 93
The rapid movement is caused by the great man : : . 95
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 __.. : é P : 100
And yet in each case the intended elements are equal or are greater
than the unintended - A | 100

We see the same thing in the history of the Ti times printing press: IOI
It was the result of many kinds of unintended progress, constantly re-

combined by intention. 5 d . . . 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. : 5 , 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 4

The causality of the great man being established, we must consider

more precisely what greatness is . ; ‘ 5 Ill
Mr. Spencer will help us to a general definition ofit . . 112
He divides the human race into the clever, the ordinary, and the stupid 113
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 ier must be due to the clever, who are, as Mr. Spencer

says, a ‘‘scattered few” . x : 5 : 115
This is the great-man theory reasonably ask A : 115
For great men are not necessarily heroes, as Carlyle angi. : 116
nor divided absolutely from all other men : ; é : 116
Greatness is various in kind and degree, ! ; be 117
but, at all events, there is a certain minority oF men who sect

each other in being more efficient than the majority ‘ ; 117
We see this in poetry . - ; ; ; : > 118

in singers, ; , ; : : ; ; ; 118

CONTENTS

same way .

CHAPTER Tl

xv
‘ PAGE
in the scholarship of boys at the same school, 119
and similarly in practical life 2 : 119
Enough men, as it is, have equal opportunities, to ‘hoes how unequal
men are in their powers of using them . 3 120
No doubt a man may be ordinary in one respect and great in another ; 120
but the majority are not great in any : . ‘ 121
The measure of a man’s greatness as an agent of social progress is the
overt results actually produced by him : 12I
A selfish doctor, if successful, is greater than a devoted datee if
unsuccessful : , = : 122
The fact that many men who produce no social results seem better Me
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
A lofty imagination is often the enemy to practical efficiency ; 124
and great efficiency is often independent of exceptional intellect 125
Intellect zs required for progress, e.g. in invention ; 125
but the inventor by himself is often helpless, : 125
and has to ally himself with men whose exceptional eifts are unimpres-
sive and even vulgar 126
Greatness is not one quality, but various combinations of many 127
Greatness, then, is merely those qualities which, in any domain of pro-
gress, make the few more efficient than the many . 127
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
128

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

by living, whilst others die,

the great man promotes progress by bein Guede to live

He promotes progress not by what he does himself, but by what i
helps others to do .

130
130
131

132

y ku

xvi ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

We can see this by considering the progress of knowledge which, as
J. S. Mill says, is the foundation of all progress

But all progress in knowledge is the work of ‘‘ dectdedly eccniesaead
individuals,” . ;

as Mill admits, though in curiously Saninaea language :

Now how do the exceptional individuals, when they acquire eee
promote progress by doing so? 2

They promote progress by conveying their cacwinden’ to, and imposing
their conclusions on, others ; ‘ “

A similar thing is true of invention, which is knowledge applied

Invention promotes progress only because the inventor influences the
actions of the workmen who make and use his machines .

The man of business ability promotes progress also only by so ordering
others that the precise wants of the public are supplied

And the same principle is obviously true in the domain of war, politics,
and religion 5 : A : .

Greatness, however, is not in all cases equally beneficial

The influence of some great men is more advantageous than that of
others ; : Fs : ‘ ‘

Progress, then, involves a struggle through which the fittest great men
shall secure influence over others, and destroy the influence of the
less fit 5 : a F ; 4 . :

We now come to another point of difference between the fittest great
man and the fittest survivor 4 , ; °

The social counterpart to the Darwinian struggle for survival is to be
found in the struggle of labourers to find employment ,

But this is not the struggle to which historical progress is due .

For the most rapid progress has taken place without any increased fit-
ness in the labourers : : ; .

The progressive struggle in industry is confined entirely to the em-
ployers ; : “ . . A .

and in every domain of progress it is confined to the leaders, to the
exclusion of those who areled . ‘ . . :

In the progressive struggle between great men, the mass of the com-
munity play no part whatever 2 i .

Let us take, for instance, two rival hotel-keepers .

One becomes bankrupt, and the other takes over his hotel sem his
staff : ‘ ‘ :

The sole struggle is between the employers, not t.the employed

PAGE

132

134
135

136

137
138

139
140

141
142

143

143
143

144
145

145
146
146

147
148

148
148

CONTENTS xvii

The staff of the unsuccessful hotel-keeper gain, not lose, by being em- ie
ployed by the successful. : 149
‘Historical progress, then, results from a aes not fe paraienes
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 + ‘ ; 4 ; I51
We must consider, however, that the great men who struggle for
domination would not do so without some strong motive ; : 152
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 aig
wealth-production . ‘ z ; : ; . 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 cota: gives the primary power to <apiiatintn
as a productive agent 3 ; ; P : : 158
Wage-capital is an accumulation of the necessaries of life, ¢ ; 159
owned or controlled by a few persons, . : : é . 159
and apportioned by them amongst many, on certain conditions . 160
\ Karl Marx entirely misunderstood what these conditions are . 160
eg essence of these conditions is that the many shall be technically
directed by the few : 161
The question of how much the few someone of the Peadiick is a
separate question altogether : : é : . 162

The corvée system or slavery would make wage-capital superfluous ;
and this shows what the essential function of wage-capital is 3 162

Vili ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

So-called ‘‘ co-operation” is merely the wage-system disguised

There are, then, only two alternatives—the wage-system and the slave-
system ; ; . ° >

as we shall find by ‘sobialdietiieg how the socialists can only escape the
wage-system by substituting slavery

For they would secure industrial obedience by coercion, -

not through the worker’s desire to earn his living. And this is the
essence of slavery . - -

Next let us consider the means by which the ae directors of indiasers
compete against one another * :

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

The wage-system is the only efficient means of conepetiian of this
kind

The socialists, though thiey affect to be opeteed to com pelted alto-
gether,

re-introduce it into their own system, .

the only change being that it is associated with the ‘sees oats which
is very cumbrous and inefficient j 5

Competition between employers, then, is a part of every side that
permits of progress ; : ‘ ;

and since the re-introduction of slavery is practically impossible, we
must regard the wage-system as a permanent feature of progressive
societies ‘ ; : F ‘ : :

We might reduce society to ashes, but this system and capitalistic
competition would arise out of them ; :

for capitalistic competition means the domination of the fittest rte. men

The industrial obedience of the many to the few is the fundamental
condition of progress : ; : ./

CHAPTER IV

PAGE

170

170

172

172

173
174

174

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
PAGE
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 ‘ —_ by nlective eaten 177
There is a competitive element even in autocracies, 178
and democracies are essentially competitive 178
All parties also agree that laws must be enbieeed by pains sad
penalties . hee ‘ = ‘ 179
Democrats are peculiar only in their aaa 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 . 7 179
This is the only point in which the Seach athcey differs from the
aristocratic : : : 180
The democratic ruler is, Sivsorctinally, a balance for weighing the wills
of the many, 3 181
or a machine for executing their ‘‘ mandatés” 182
and there are signs which might suggest that the few in sonia 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 ; ; : 2 184
but they salen are identical tilla few men have viangiatate 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 . z ; 4. 187
Thus even in what seems extremest democracy the rae 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 ; : 4 189

Zo

b

XX ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

but nevertheless the many do impress their will on them to a great

extent ; ‘ : A 3 : : :
The question is to what extent ? ; 5 :
This introduces us to a new side of the chem the extent of the »

power of the many : : : : ; ’

This is greater in politics than in industry ;

and yet when we think it over we shall see that it is great in most
domains of activity ; ; : :

We had to take it for granted at starting, We must now examine it .

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

How TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE PARTS CONTRIBUTED

A Joint PRopucT 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
Mill argues thus with special reference to land and labour; . :
but he overlooks what in actual life is the main feature of the case.
The labour remaining the same, the product varies with the quality of
the land . : ; : F > .
The extra product resulting from labour on superior land is due to
land, not labour . . ‘ : = :
This is easily proved by a fnivibes of analogous illustrations : ‘
Mill errs by ignoring the changing character of the effect
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 : , - S
Labour, however, must be held to produce that minimum necessary to
support the labourer,
both in agriculture é
and in all kinds of production . : :
The great man produces the increment “that would not be Sivan if
his influence ceased . : :
Labour, it is true, is essential to the peednctiad of the increment also ;

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CONTENTS xxi

but we cannot draw any conclusions from the hypothesis of labour ae

ceasing; . ‘ ; : : : 205
for the labourer would have to labour Be the great men were

there or no ; ; ; : e : 206
The cessation of the great man’s influence is a practical sltgenative the

cessation of labour is not, : “ ; é ; 206
as we see by frequent ceeciuhed 2 : - f 7 206
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 senkeails will show us

the truth of this. ; 7 : : 208
For practical purposes ¢he cause of an effect is that cause iy 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, . ; : : : 210
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 saiice the padi 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 . : - ‘ 2 215
The socialists are wrong because, seeing that the many do something,

they argue that they do everything - Z : : 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 has 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

Let us turn to the facts of progress, é

and begin with economic progress and progress in ieiieietanes

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

To the question of progress in knowledge we must soaks the condiad of
inquiring what faculties are involved in it . . 4 °

These are faculties entirely confined to the few

And now let us turn to political government

What can the faculties of average men do when left to thesneelvea?

They can accomplish only the simplest actions,

and formulate only the simplest demands 5 ; :

The moment matters become at all complex the faculties of the
exceptional man are required ; : . -

Now in any civilised country few governmental measures are really
simple . ; : > ‘

Exceptional men must simplify them forthe many . , .

Thus the voice of the many, in all complex cases, echoes the voice of
the few

This, however, is not the end of the matter ; é .

for the details of governmental measures are not the whole of govern-
ment . : . : . . .

The true power of democracy is to be seen in religious and family life

Though the influence of the great man in religion is enormous, :

yet religions have only grown and endured because they touch the heart
of the average man

Christianity exemplifies this fact,

and especially Catholicism

The doctrines formulated by the ssinlosany of pane and Councils
originated among the mass of common believers . .

Theologians and councils merely reasoned on the materials sn given
them

Catholicism shows the wan nel es by the many so eee batons
the part played by the few is defined by it so sharply : .

Catholicism, however, is only alluded to here because it illustrates the
essential nature of truly democratic action :

Thus enlightened by it, let us turn back to family life . :

Catholicism shows that democracy is a natural coincidence of con-
clusions ~. ; : ‘ 4 ; ,

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CONTENTS

Xxiii

The home life of a nation depends on the same coincidence, or on
spontaneously similar propensities . : :

This truly democratic coincidence forces all governments to accommo-
date themselves to it : ; :

The same democratic power determines the structure of our houses,

and the furniture and other commodities in them,

and indeed all economic products - 3 ; é

For though in the process of production the many are dependent on
the few, - ; : : - :

(a fact which the powers of trade unionism do but make more
apparent) . : : : : : ;

yet it is the wants and tastes of the many which determine what shall be
produced :

and though great men elicit ae wants ce first etina eileis

the wants themselves must be latent in the nature of the many, and
when once aroused are essentially democratic phenomena

Thus though economic supply is aristocratic, economic demand is
purely democratic .

The most gifted brewer cannot make ‘the public drink — they a
not like ; :

Now in politics also there is a Gettias demand and supply ;

but the truly democratic demand in politics is not for laws

The demand for laws is not the counterpart of a demand for com-
modities, for commodities are demanded for their own sake, laws
’ for the sake of their results : : ;

The demand for laws is like a demand that commodities shall bs made
by some special kind of machinery : :

No one makes this latter demand. Economic demand is single;
political demand is double : ? :

Political democracy is vulgarly identified with the deena not for
social goods, but for machinery : ; :

But in so far as democracy is a demand not for goods but for machinery,
it is not purely democratic ,

The demands of the many are manipulated by the few ; z

Why, then, is democracy especially associated with the demand in which
its power is least? . . .

Because it is the only sphere of activity in which the many can interfere
with the machinery of supply at all ; .

and they can interfere with it here because the effects of political

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rie ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

government on life are less close and important than the effects

of business management on business ;

and in any case the apparent power of the many is even here ocintviied

by the few

The power of the many is a power to dates the amutlieg of civilisa-

tion and progress, not to produce them

CHAPTER III

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248

THE QUALITIES OF THE ORDINARY AS OPPOSED TO THE

GREAT MAN

It will be objected that the conclusions reached in the last chapter

derogate from the dignity of the average man
But they do not really do so;

» for since the great man, as here technically defined, is the man who

influences others so as to promote progress,
the ordinary man, as opposed to him, need not be stupid

He is merely the man whose talents do not increase the efficiency of

other men . : :
Poets, in this technical sense, are ordinary men .
So are the most skilful manual workers,

for very great manual skill does not promote progress or influence

others,

unless it can be metamorphosed into the dans of orders given to

others 4 : ‘
Again, brilliance or charm in Siete life does not promote progress

Therefore ordinary men, who do not promote progress, are not asserted

to be lacking in high qualities

Indeed, what is really interesting in human nature is the typical part

of it, not the exceptional, .
as we may see by referring to art and poetry

Average opinion also on social matters is for eich class the wise

opinion ;

and the average faculties shared by all are in one sense the test of

truth

Therefore in dietiving’« to the average man the powers that promote

progress

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CONTENTS XXV

we are not degrading the average man. We are merely asserting that ei
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 . : F 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; . ‘ - F 264
for we have assumed that he keeps none of the aibepintad wealth he
makes, for himself, - , : 5 : ; 265
but that he works exactly on the terms the socialists would dictate to
him . : ; F : - : - 266
. It now remains to consider whether he would really do so : 3 266

BOOK IV

CHAPTER +1

THE DEPENDENCE OF EXCEPTIONAL ACTION ON THE ATTAIN-
ABILITY OF EXCEPTIONAL REWARD, OR THE NECESSARY
CORRESPONDENCE -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 . ‘ ‘ : : ; 3 ; 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 . 2 : 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

necessaries, much more is it true of rare faculties which aim at

producing superfluities . : ; : 2 : 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 causes practically involved in progress : F ‘ 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 without, like ordinary workers 278
They must be zwzduced to work by areward . , : : 278
which they themselves feel to be sufficient ; Z ; . 279
Hence the great man’s character and requirements impress themselves

on the structure of society . : ‘ H y ; 279
This is what socialists constantly forget ; = : ; 280
and they propose to equalise matters by not offering great men any

exceptional reward : : ’ : : 3 281
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 MOotTrFVES OF THE EXCEPTIONAL WEALTH-PRODUCER

Socialists, though often forgetting the necessity of exceptional motives,

often remember it, _ ; ; ; P ; 285
and endeavour to show that socialistic society would have sufficient

rewards to offer to its great men, . 2 : s see 284
such as the pleasure of doing good, of excelling, and of receiving

honour. © : : * ; Re : : 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 ? ‘ é . : ; : : 286

If it is so, it is for the socialists to prove that it is so;. ‘ : 286

CONTENTS

XXVii

for they themselves admit that it has not been so in the past, and is
not actually so now : ;

Are there any signs, then, that the sii for excketiodal wealth is
beginning to lose its power ? :

We shall find that the socialists themselves maintain just the sedibedeys

for they appeal to the desire of each producer to possess all he pro-
duces as the most universal and permanent desire in man ;

and never questioned this so long as they believed that the sole pro-
ducer was the labourer

They questioned the doctrine only eins they came to see that the
great man is a producer also; and they confine their questioning
to his case . : : : ; .

But if the labourer desires to possess what he eis much more
will the great man do so; . :

for even if he gives away what he produces, he décies to possess it first

There is no sign, therefore, that the desire for exceptional wealth is
losing force as a motive ; . : :

Are, then, other desires acquiring new force as motives to wealth-
production ?

Are the joys of excelling, of benefiting whee or of being canned by
others, doing so? . : - > :

The desire of these joys isa motive to certain kinds of Seaeeeioral
conduct

It is a motive to benevolent action and religious work ;

But neither of these is the same thing as wealth-production

It is a motive to artistic production, certainly,

and also to scientific discovery ; : : :

and works of art are wealth, and scientific Sicomsty i is the basis of
industrial progress ; :

but great art forms but a small part of wealth,

and artistic effort other than the highest is motived by the Sadire of
pecuniary reward, . 3 =

whilst scientific discoveries though aa generally from the desire for
truth, are applied to wealth-production because the men who
apply them desire wealth . : ‘

What, however, of the fact that the desire for ne makes ae soldier
work harder than any labourer ? 5

Why, the socialists ask, should not the same desire make the ete
wealth-producer work ?

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xxviii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

‘Mr. Frederic Harrison has urged a similar argument .

The answer to this is that the work of the soldier is exceptional ;

and we cannot argue from it to the work of ordinary life ‘

The fighting instinct is inherent in the dominant races,

in a way in which the industrial instinct is not ° : ‘

And even in war those who make the prolonged intellectual efforts
required, ask for themselves other rewards besides honour

Still more will the great wealth-producers do so r

There is therefore nothing to show that these other motives will super-
sede the desire of wealth .

What they really do, and what socialists fail to see, is to mix swith the
desire for wealth, and add to its efficiency ; :

As the desire of wealth has mixed with other desires in men like
Bacon, Rubens, etc. : : ‘

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, .

or for the sake of physical Pn err

This forms a small part of its desirability : ‘

It is desired mainly as a means to power, and to those very pleasures
which socialists offer instead of it . ; : ;

The great wealth - producers, susceptible to the motives on which
socialists dwell, will desire exceptional wealth all the more because
of them ‘ : :

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 3 :

It is claimed that this arrangement $outd coincide with abstract justice,

for it is argued that all wealth which is not worked for must be stolen

This is utterly untrue, as the case of flocks and herds shows us ;

but the chief producer of wealth that is not worked for is capital,
which is past productive ability stored up and externalised

The dart of a savage hunter,

the manure heap or cart horse of a peasant,

are forms of capital which actually produce, and the RS acne
to those who own them *

The same is the case with such "capital as engines jaa manufacturing
plant

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CONTENTS

xxix
ey tes r PAGE

These implements are like a race of iron negroes, and are producers as
truly as live negroes would be 3 314
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

Practically, however, the justification of income from capital .

rests on the fact that the power of capital to yield income is what
mainly makes men anxious to produce it ; ;

since if income-yielding capital could not be acquired and acaaed:
wealthy men could make no provision for their families, .

nor could wealth give pleasure to those who might at any moment be
beggars ; : : ; ;

Moreover, if incomes were not heritable, saath would produce none of
those social results, such as continuous culture, etc., which make
it valuable . :

The wealth that ceased with the men 1 thet oiaally niet it Seetg
produce a society of beasts

Wealth is desirable because it is the physical oe of a an eres life;

and there must thus be continuity in the possession of wealth .

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 . ; - -

The majority not only may, but o3; acquire a share of the increment
produced by the great man ; : :

but whatever this share may be, it can never be anc as to ake social
conditions equal

CHAPTER III

EQUALITY 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 : , ; : :

But though inheritance gives a certain permanence to the wealthy
class, the families belonging to it are constantly, if slowly,
changing, . ; A

and new men are constantly forcing their way into it .

315
316

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325
326

XXX ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Indeed the wealth of the country depends on the men potentially great
as producers actualising their talents and producing the wealth
that raises them : : : ;

It is therefore obvious that the wealth will increase in proportion as
these potentially great men have the opportunity of actualising
their productive powers : é . :

It is impossible, however, to make opportunities absolutely equal

The question is how near we can approach to equality i

In acountry where these opportunities have been made artificially un-
equal there will be room for a great deal of equalisation . :

But removingartificial impediments is onlya negative kind of equalisation

It is probable, however, that for the development of genius of the
highest order this is all that is needful,

and will secure the development of all the genius of the highest kind
that exists . . : : ; ‘

But genius of a lesser kind, which would else be lost, may, no doubt,
be elicited by positive educational help from the State ; <

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 :

The latter can be increased indefinitely, the former not

For real productive genius there is always room,

but the economic utility of mere accomplishments is limited by the
conditions of production at the time : ‘

Thus to produce more possible clerks than are waited merely lowers
the wages of those employed, without increasing the utility of
those who are not employed 5 : ;

Still, within limits, educational help from the State does much to
increase the supply of exceptional, though not great, talent

But the main difficulty involved in the equalising of educational oppor-
tunity is not the production of good results, but the avoidance of
bad 4 : : : ‘ 4

The bad results are the stimulating of discontent, not in average men,
but in men who are really exceptional : :

but those exceptional gifts are ill-balanced or have some flaw in them .

For if education sets free and stimulates sound intellectual powers,

it will similarly stimulate intellects that are not sound, *

or wills, with no intellect to match, and will generate a desire for
wealth in men who are not capable of creating it,

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CONTENTS

XXxX1

and thus will merely produce needless misery and mischief

Education, again, stimulates faculties that can really produce excep-

~ tional results, but not results that are complete

The progressive struggle requires that the intellects of some aisaid be

stimulated, whose efforts fail F E ; -

But those failures that promote progress are failures that partially
succeed ; ; : :

But there are abortive talents fick: produce failures that tea no
relation to success. Those talents are purely mischievous ;

for example, the failure of the would-be artist,

or that of the man who popularises wrong medical treatment .

But the commonest example of this kind of man is the socialistic
agitator, > . ; :

who demands the redistribution of wealth whilst absolutely powerless
to produce it, ; : ‘ d F

and who consequently invents false theories about its production,
which do nothing but demoralise those who are duped by them

(though even these theories can be discussed with profit under certain
circumstances) :

Men like these embody the two chief pate of the canaliadieg of
educational opportunity, ; ‘ ;

namely, the rousing in the average man wants he cannot satisfy, wa
the stimulating of talents that are constitutionally imperfect

The latter of these dangers is the source of the former . :

It cannot be completely avoided, but the present theories of educa-
tion tend to heighten, not to minimise it . .

The current theory that-all talents should be developed is false, :

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

_ These false theories rest on the false belief that equal education oie
ever produce equal social conditions : :

The majority of each class will remain in the class in which they were
born - :

Only the efficiently exceptional can rise out of their own class,

and it is the ambition of the efficiently exceptional only that it is really
desirable to stimulate a . :

The average man should be taught to aim at embellishing his position,
not at escaping from it

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xxxii ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

CHAPTER, IV.

INEQUALITY, HAPPINESS, AND PROGRESS

The radical politician will object to the foregoing conclusions in terms

with which we are familiar : > -
The radical theorist will put the same iibetias 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 ©

exceptionally rich, must always remain miserable .

Now the first answer to this is that the fact that all men will never ‘a
equally wealthy does not prevent the conditions of all men from
improving absolutely 3 ; :

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

The final answer is that the unequal distribution of wealth has no

natural tendency to cause unhappiness ; . , .

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 ; s rae s F

but the desire for superfluities aaiieds on their écaptal powers, which

The special appeal of luxury is mainly to the mind and the imagina-
tion— 2 : 4

the luxury, for instance, of a large house,

or sleeping accommodation in a train . : . -

Consequently the desire for luxury and wealth, like the pleasure they
give, depends on peculiar mental powers or peculiar mental states

Amongst most men the desire for wealth is naturally a speculative
desire only : :

It implies no pain caused by the want of wealth “ > .

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 .

The desire for wealth, in fact, is in proportion to each man’s belief

“that by him personally it is attainable. : .

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CONTENTS Xxxili
PAGE
This belief is naturally confined to men with exceptional imaginations
and exceptional productive powers 365
It only becomes general by the popularising of false iiveaties which
represent wealth as attainable by all, without exceptional talent
or exceptional exertion = ” 366
It is roused, for instance, in a man ae sedteniyi is told that he has
a legal right to an estate which previously he never thought of
coveting ; ; : : < 366
The socialistic teaching of to-day createsya spurious desire for ‘death
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 = 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
few, - 3 373
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 Mars
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
reformers . 378

. is eh ile iis nd lala Sesetll:
‘ asi ae ee ee
Scales + ie, caer, idee a ~ a

CHAPTER I

THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR IN MODERN
SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY

THE interest with which the world in general, science during
: : . the middle of

throughout the middle portion of this century, this century

has watched the progress of the various positive SctejPopaiy

interest mainly

sciences, would, when we consider how abstruse pedo
these sciences are, seem strange and almost in- potent:
explicable if it were not for one fact. This fact is
the close and obvious bearing which the conclusions
of the sciences in question have on traditional
Christianity, and, indeed, on any belief in im-
mortality and the divine government of the world.
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 tts popularity
ceasing to be primarily religious, and are becoming pele
primarily social. The theories and discoveries of eretiieee

the savant which are examined with the greatest Problems, but
eagerness are no longer those which affect our

4 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book! prospects of a life in heaven, but those which
Chapter deal with the possibility of improving our social
conditions 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
Sete tonting observe that science itself has been undergoing a
pense 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- materials and structure of the universe, until on the
the middle of one hand it reached atoms and molecules, it examined,
tne cena’ “5 on the other, the first emergence of organic life, and
Sodskigal traced its developments till they culminated in the
evolution. articulate-speaking human being. It brought us, in
fact, to man on the threshold of his subsequent

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 og

and science once again is endeavouring to enlarge Book I
its borders. Having offered us an explanation of “?"*'
the origin of the animal man, 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 tts character-
period has been the establishment of that theory isto deal with
of development which is commonly spoken of as pep vn
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
scientifically is not in itself new. Political economy, tices ae
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

Book I
Chapter 1

What is new is
the application
to it of the
evolutionary
theory.

6 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

accurate science is, that it was thought doubtful
whether political 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
of to-day differs from them. He does not dispute
the truth of the deductions drawn by them with
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 Book 1
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 among

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 oma
merely analysed processes of production and dis- foc) changes
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

Book! also true with regard to evolutionary social science
Chapter 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 doing this in two ways, which, though
arcning tne closely connected, are distinct. In the first place,
oblbad 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
ng or for illustrated by.a reference to political economy. For
tracheal soca DeSides offering to our philosophic and religious
advantages. — faculties the vision 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 ~- Book 1
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.

Thisdistinction between the speculative and practi- Men have thus
cal aspects of social science has a special importance, be pane nae
which will be explained and insisted on presently. But Srey =
it is here mentioned only to show the reader how strong S7ciosists a
a combination of motives is impelling the present 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,
their predecessors. Nor have diligence, enthusiasm,
or scientific genius been wanting to them. As has
already been observed, they have transformed social
science altogether by applying to it the doctrines of and it has
evolution which physical science taught them, and nero a
have thus organically affiliated the former study to ae ee
the latter. This is in itself a triumph worthy of the 5,06
enterprise that has achieved it. But they have done cheer ia
far more than borrow from physics this mere general sical 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

Book I
Chapter 1

Yet despite
their genius
and their dili-
gence, all
parties com-
plain that the
results of their
study are in-
conclusive.

Professor
Marshall and
Mr. Kidd, for
instance, com-
plain of the
fact, but can
suggest no ex-
planation of it.

Io ' ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

all, their methods of studying them. Ina 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.

We have now, however, to record a singular
and disappointing truth. Though men of science
have, in the manner just described, been engaged
for years in the field of sociological study ; though
the way was prepared for them by men like Comte,
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.

No one complains more loudly of this comparative
failure than some of the most distinguished students
of social science themselves. Professor Marshall,
for instance, who has done more than any other
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
“man's actions in society unsurpassed 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 it

in doing more than this. Mr. Kidd, again, whose Book 1
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 advance

which scvence has made in almost every other dtrec-

tron, there ts, 1t 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

“so 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 tndividuat-

sts and collectivists, into which society 1s rapidly
becoming organised.”

Now what is the reason of this? Here is the What can the
question that confronts us. That the methods pia
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 ?

Book I
Chapter 1

The answer
will be found
in the fact just
referred to—
that social
science
attempts to
answer two
distinct sets of
questions ;

and one set—
namely the
speculative—
it has answered
with great
SUCCESS ;

12 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Those who complain so justly of the failure of social
science and who yet show themselves altogether at
a loss to account for it, might have seen their way
to answering this question had they concentrated
their attention on a point that was just now alluded
to. It was just now observed that the problems
which social science aims at answering, and is
popularly expected to answer, are of two distinct
kinds—the philosophic or religious, and the practical ;
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.

Now it will be found that social science, whilst busy-
ing itself with both these sets of problems, has met
with the failures which are alleged against it, only
in 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 Soczal 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 Book 1
—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 larger it has faitea
phenomena of society, which show themselves only f2nytine to
in the long course of ages, and descending to the Sw Pect
problems of a particular age and civilisation, en-
deavours to deduce, from the general principles it
has established, propositions minute enough to be
applicable to our immediate conduct and expecta-
tions. 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 sociology has succeeded in Now the

= : . : phenomena
dealing with those social phenomena which extend with which it
themselves through vast periods of time, and has xan

: . i i ; are pheno-
failed in dealing with those whose interest and *° Potio

Book I
Chapter 1

aggregates
considered as
wholes ;

14 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

existence is limited to lives of a few particular
generations. Now between these two sets of
phenomena, as thus far described, the most ob-
vious difference is, no doubt, the difference in their
magnitude. This difference, however, is altogether
accidental, and does nothing to explain those curiously
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. Asan 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 pro-
perty 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 socio-

FAILURE OF PRACTICAL SOCIOLOGY 15

logist is concerned, are manifested successively by
humanity, or some portion of 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 J/Zaz. But let us turn
to such phenomena as the antagonism between in-
dividualists and collectivists, and the case is wholly
different. It is true that here also, as in the case
we have just been considering, our attention is
called to a portion of the human race, namely, the
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

Book I
Chapter 1

but the practi-
cal problems
of to-day, with
which it has
dealt unsuc-
cessfully, arise
out of the con-
flict between
different parts
of aggregates.

Book I
Chapter 1

Social science
has failed as a
practical guide
because it has
not recognised
this distinc-
tion ;

and hence
arise most of
the errors of
the political
philosophy of
this century.

16 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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
science, has failed. It has failed because hitherto
it has not realised this distinction, and has persisted
in applying to the phenomena, involved in practical
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
instrumental in keeping alive and encouraging
the most grotesquely impossible hopes as to what
may be accomplished by legislation, and the most
grotesquely 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

Ler us take any book we please, by any modern whatever may
. ° e e ° be di b
writer, who is attempting to deal with any social ono men or

. * ° . . classes of men,
subject scientifically, and whenever he is calling scisseniatee

attention to the great intellectual triumphs which * present
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 mr. Kiaa’s

- A = = 2 A Social Evolu-
work on Soczal Evolution, which, on its publication, zion, for in-

attained an extraordinary popularity, and which, nihoren ae
whatever its value otherwise, is interesting as a Procedure.
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

Book I
Chapter 2

He quotes with
approval two
other writers
who have been
guilty of it,

18 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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.

Three examples will be enough. The two first
shall be from two other writers, whom Mr. Kidd
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.

“ Man,” so the passage runs, “72s the only animal
whose wants can never be satisfied. The wants of
every other living thing are uniform and fixed.
The ox of to-day aspires no more than did the ox

when man first yoked him... . But not so with
man himself |. No sooner are his animal wants
satisfied, than new wants arise. . . .| He| has but set

his feet on the first step of an infinite progression.
... Lt ts not merely his hunger, but taste, that
seeks gratification m 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 7s 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.

ale

TYPES OF ERRONEOUS REASONING 19

Our second example shall be a passage which Mr. Book 1
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 shalt cease to be the slave of the nobles and
despots who oppress thee. Thou shalt 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 zs ut that the Sovereign often starves? How

7s wt that those who are held to be the source of
power often cannot, even by hard work, provide
themselves with the necessaries of life?”

Now all these passages, if we consider them who both

carefully, will be seen to consist of statements, every poner ss
one of which is false to fact. To say that man’s {3% on"
wants 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
luxurious classes, Antony and Lucullus are types
of what is not the rule, but the exception. So
too are the individuals who either desire hanging
gardens, or could design them; and more excep-
tional 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 In M. de Lavelaye’s utterances there is an
Chapter analogous misstatement and misconception of every
and the con- fact with which he deals. The promises of political
Sor reustaiten’ democracy, as he describes them, were never
are ludicrous. addressed to “man,” nor ever professed to be. The
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 ‘‘ Soverezgn” 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

ts wt,’ he asks, ‘that those who are held to be the

source of power often cannot, 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 ¢#e source of power by any- Book 1
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 without
clamouring for the steward’s basin.

And now let us turn to Mr. Kidd himself. The mr. Kiaa’s

: : . eaten reasoning itself
object of his book is to vindicate supernatural is not tess

es Sg actel Saget +, _ ludicrous.
religion by exhibiting it as advantageous to its author he
possessors in the social struggle for existence. He (2Maio,

endeavours to make good his position by two distinct Prompts the
€

lines of argument. The first of these is that the render advan-
social struggle for existence, though it produces ian, wick
progressive communities, and communities fitted to es Sat
endure, is injurious to the majority of those who at 4 kee.
any given time are engaged in it, and benefits only
a minority, described by him as “‘ the Jower-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

m+ half is that th
Kidd's message to the world; and here follows the many pe on:
other, which will be found to be fundamentally (me ore
inconsistent with it. ‘ d/an,” if he had chosen to these advan.
ages from the

do so, Mr. Kidd maintains—and this assertion

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’.’

22 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

is repeated by him with the utmost precision
and emphasis—could at any period in his history
have “suspended the struggle for existence” 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
itself. 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 condt-
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—‘‘ man.”
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 ‘‘successfuls,” and the “excluded
classes” or the ‘“‘umsuccessfuls’’; 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
“man's” 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

Book I
Chapter 2

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,

24 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 “san” 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. SPENCERS FUNDAMENTAL FALLACY 25

hardly necessary to say that the thinker thusreferred Book 1
to is Mr. Herbert Spencer. has
We will then follow Mr. Spencer’s reasoning asa short

summary of

from the beginning, as set forth in his works; and his sociological
before consulting his monumental Principles of en
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 “che
theocratic theory,’ the other what he calls ‘the
great-man theory.”

The theocratic theory is that which explains all mr. spencer
social change by reference to the direct and arbitrary Sine that the
interference of a Deity ; and if this be adopted; Mr. chsh mpec

ment to social

Spencer has no difficulty in showing that anything scree
like a social science must be necessarily looked on the great
as impossible: for the only thread by which social
phenomena are connected will in that case be

hidden 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

Book I
Chapter 2

for if the ap-
pearance of
the great man
is incalculable,
progress, if it
depends on
him, must be
incalculable
also ;

26 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

orthodox ; and the really important foe which social
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 J take
zt, universal history, the history of what man has
accomplished in this world, 7s at bottom the history
of the great men who have worked here.” ‘‘ This,”
observes Mr. Spencer, ‘‘xot perhaps distinctly
Jormulated, but everywhere tmplied, 1s the behef
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
of ‘ deputy- God,” in which case we have ‘“‘¢heo-
cracy once removed’; or else his greatness, though
regarded as a natural phenomenon, is regarded as
one whose occurrence is so far fortuitous, that a
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 Book i
upon as a species of incalculable angel, this idea “™?*"?
of his fortuitous appearance is, says Mr. Spencer, but if the great
plainly quite untenable. The great man, unless he Miraculous.
differs miraculously from other men, is produced as 2PPatition, he
F i . owes his great-
they are, in accordance with natural laws, and, like nes to causes

° outside him-
them, owes his greatness to his near and remote self;
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 Flottentot family, or that a
Milton might spring up among 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 and it is these
‘“vemake his society,” his society none the less must uy oll
have previously made him, and supplied him with the effects of

which he is the
those conditions which rendered his career possible ; proximate
and therefore, of any changes which he may popu- A ti
larly be said to have caused, he is merely “ the
proximate initiator,” not the true cause at all; and

‘““7f,” says Mr. Spencer, ‘there zs to be anything

Book I
Chapter 2

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 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

like a veal explanation of such changes, tt must be
sought (not in the great man himself), but in the
aggregate of social conditions, out of which he and
they have arisen.” Except, perhaps, in the military
struggles of primitive savage tribes, ‘‘zew znstitu-
tions, new activities, new ideas, all,” he says,
“unobtrusively make their appearance, without the
aid of any king or legislator; and tf you wish to
understand the phenomena of social evolution, you
will not do it, should you read yourself blind over
the biographies of all the great rulers on record,
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
magnum opus, The Principles of Soctology, and see
how, and with what results, he puts his theory of
study into practice. This immense work, full. of
encyclopedic 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 Book 1
the dawn of man’s existence to the industrial civil- SP"? |
isation of to-day.

The determining factors in all social phenomena Tre true causes
are, says Mr. Spencer, primarily of two kinds—the i esa
“‘external” and the “znternal.” The former con-$y07°
sist of some of the various physical circumstances Physical envir-
in which each community or collection of men is men’s natural
placed ; the latter consist of the characters and con- uentip'
stitutions of the men themselves. In the history
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 distri-
buted ; and the character of the other communities
by which the community in question is surrounded.

One of the first generalisations, says Mr. Spencer, The first

to which social science leads is this—that progress heb
can begin only in climates and regions where the j2,jirprond!
production of the necessaries of life is sufficiently

easy to leave men leisure and energy 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 and an ex.
of progress does not require only that the men ae
concerned 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-

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.

30 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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. ‘‘ Zhe evidence,” says
Mr. Spencer, ‘‘ justifies this inference. . . . On
glancing over a general rain-map of the world, there
will be seen an almost continuous area, marked
‘vainless district, extending across North Africa,
Arabia, Persia, and all through Thibet and Mon-
gola; 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 pro-
gress 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 inhabitants,
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 subjugated
by other races, who, cradled’ in drier climates,

ORIGIN OF INDUSTRIAL CIVILISATION 31

retained their energy unimpaired. In this natural Book 1
descent of the stronger races on “the richer and “PI?
more varied habttats” 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 ees

which in-

: rete ha ‘ ‘ dustrial pro-
the basis of all civilisation, is not, says Mr. Spencer, S Gchends,

started on its progressive career by the sudden was caused by
the differences

orders of any one remarkable man, but by the inthe products
spontaneous action of certain natural causes. It tocalities,
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

Bok1 Smith in his Wealth of Nations; and he seems to

Chapter? regard it as one which is more or less mysterious
and recondite. The answer which he himself sug-
gests is, that there exists in man “a natural pro-
pensity to truck, barter, and exchange.” 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 Fut Islands,” he writes, “are
famous for wooden tmplements, others for mats and
baskets, others for pots and pigments—unlikenesses
between the natural products of the rslands being
the causes... . Soatso.. . the shoes of the ancwent
Peruvians were made in the provinces where aloes
are most abundant, for they were made of the leaves
of an aloe called ‘maguey. The arms were supplied

which ledto Oy the provinces where the matertals for making

oe socalisatlon 4h em were most abundant.” Division of 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 ae
though increased production of commodities was the
chief direct result of the localisation of industries, The locali-

: . sation of indus-
certain by-products resulted from it also, whose tres in its turn
effects were not less important. These by-products fone."
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 toand 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- eae See
isation of authority. They form, in fact, the great pena ane
physical basis of civilised human government, and interchange of
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- neues Te
mena of social progress in so far as they are the ‘ys peri
result of what he calls “the external factors ”— POSS
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 ‘“ zxternal factors,” and consider the pheno-
mena 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

Book I
Chapter 2

their primitive
character did
not fit them to

progress,

till it was
gradually im-
proved by the
evolution of
marriage and
the family—
especially of
monogamy.

34 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

of his readers to the most important of his own con-
clusions arrived at in preceding 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 attention,” he proceeds, ‘‘ was then
directed to the internal factors”; and what he had
to tell us, he says, about the internal factors was as
follows : ‘Ax account was first given of ‘ Primitive
Man—physical, showing that by stature, structure,
strength ... he was wl fitted for overcoming the
difficulties n the way of advance. Then examina-
tion of ‘ The Primitive Man—emotional’ led us to
see that his tmprudence and his explosiveness, re-°
strained but little by sociality and the altruistic
sentiments, rendered him unfit for co-operation.
And then, in the chapter on ‘ Primitive Man—uintel-
lectual, we saw that while adapted by its actiwe and
acute perceptions to the needs of a wild life, his type
of mind was deficient in the faculties required for
progress in 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
that the business of this science is to explain the
evolution of all those subsequent “phenomena
resulting from thetr combined actions.” Of these
phenomena the chief, he says, are the following—
monogamy as evolved from polygamy, polyandry,

EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE 35

and promiscuity; the higher family affections as Book1
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 begin 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 Sts Kudo!
children as could be kept alive without the help
of the father; and as the children grew up, this
rudimentary group dissolved. But “from famzlies
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
andone mother. This last-named type of union, and tt developed
the family life resulting from it, had many practical me dee
advantages, such as the production of closer bonds peepee rina
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

Book I
Chapter 2

The family
being estab-
lished, the
nation gradu-
ally rose from
it.

One family
increased, and
gave rise to
many families,
which were
obliged, in
order to get
food, to separ-
ate into differ-
ent groups ;

36 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

of marriage and family that prevails amongst the
most advanced races of to-day.

Next, as to the phenomena of governmental and
social organisations: these arise only with the
formation of groups larger than the family—of
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 ‘‘zx¢ternal 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
multiply, the land required by the household corre-
spondingly grows in extent, and at last becomes so
large that the whole of it cannot be utilised by a
body of men living on the same spot. Hence, as
Mr. Spencer expresses it, ‘a fission of the group
ts 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 vecompounding of these units once again.”

WAR AND THE EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT 37

And how is this process of “vecompounding” Book 1
accomplished? Mr. Spencer answers it is ace “P*?
complished by one means only, and that is the co- and the recom-
operation forced on them by war for some common ae
interest. Other tribes threaten to attack their f% Purposes of

defence or

territory, or they are desirous of appropriating the asstession,
territory of other tribes. Separately they are nation;
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 all government
the rivalry of other societies, the military leadership calgary
develops into a permanent centralised authority ;
and from this military government, with its “coercive
institutions,’ national existence and all forms of
government spring.

And here Mr. Spencer's argument takes a new But as the arts
departure and carries us on to the point where we Seer
shall be compelled to leave it. As governments * 7. oyu

pates itself

eels : from govern-
and civilisations have advanced, he says, they have *°™ spacer:

taken two forms—that in which the original military and becomes

its own master,

element still continues to preponderate, and that and also forms
: . “4° the basis of
in which the military element becomes gradually political demo-
subordinate to the industrial. “ Zhe former,” he“*™
says, “i its developed form is organised on the
principle of compulsory organisation, whilst the

latter in wits developed form ws organised on the

principle of voluntary co-operation” ; and the latter

Book I
Chapter 2

38 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 régime the very ‘“‘vzght 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 “zuternuncial, through which the Book |
various structures (i.e. manufacturing firms, etc.) “P"?
vecetve from one another stimult or checks, caused
by rises and falls tn the consumption of thew respec-
tive products. . . . Markets in the chief towns show
dealers the varying relations of supply and demand ;
and the reports of these transactions, diffused by the
press, prompt each localty to increase or decrease of
its special functions. . . . That ts to say, there has
arisen, in addition to the political regulating system,
an industrial regulating system, which carries on tts
co-ordinating function independently —a separate
plexus of connected ganglia.” |

We have now looked at social evolution, as the Now, if we
product of both those sets of causes—the “external = pa aaits
factors” and the “‘ zxternal’—by which Mr. Spencer reg A
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 ve shall find

. : : ° > them all to be
in it may be said to be exhaustively typical of conctusions

the conclusions of social science as Mr. Spencer sits

conceives of it. wens iee
And now let us consider what the nature of those °f agsregates.

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,

Book I
Chapter 2

him between
men are
differences

between one .

homogeneous

aggregate and
another,

40 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

the units of which are regarded as being virtually so
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
relations resembled those of the animals, are

y distinguished from their erect successors who

married and lived in families; and the strong and
energetic races are distinguished from their weaker
contemporaries. But each of these aggregates is
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 ‘“‘znternal 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

regarded as the result of different external circum- Book 1
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 manufacturing businesses of and differences’
to-day, for instance, with their promoters, managers, vas Ba
capitalists, and multitudes of various workmen, not eae "
only is each business treated by him as a single “rently.
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 “a
plexus of gangha connected by an internunceal
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

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.

42 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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
corporate 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 Book 1
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 confiict

. e.e : between the
this opposition arises. Mr. Spencer, as we have parts of the

seen, in our rapid survey of his arguments, lays great 720 om in.
stress on the fact that as men rise into aggregates, “Mss °!
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! drawn froma small privileged class, and not from the

Chaps? masses of the community, sinking 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

Spencar's limited class in question can alone supply governors

pmoiey takes OF the required talents and character. Of this clash
of 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 “ unltkeness between the products of different
districts” inevitably led to “the Jlocalsation 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 defending its existing position Book 1
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 Social prob-
reduced to very simple terms. If all members of of the desea
the community were content with existing social Hose vB

positions are
arrangements, it is needless to say there would be imi to have

their positions

no social problems at all. Such problems are due “ged;
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 practi-
by the discontented are practicable ; and the first > the change
step towards ascertaining how far the arrangements et Pros k
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
sufficiently 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

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.

46 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 Book i
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 areinequalities
ask is as follows. Taking Tom or Dick or Harry tazhespie

to alterable
as a type of those classes who happen to occupy an 326,270.

dental circum-

inferior position in the aggregate, and comparing “n°es?
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
undo? Or to exceptional abilities of their own, of 849°"

genital in-
which no parliament could deprive them? Or fo Sates |
advantages secured for them by the exceptional c™ ever 4
ie ‘ y - away with?
abilities of their fathers, which no parliament could

interfere with, or, at all events, could abolish, without

Book I
Chapter 2

Social inequali-
ties are partly
due to circum-
stances ;

but most
people will
admit that con-
genital in-
equalities in

_ talent have

much to do
with them.

48. ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

entering on a conflict with the instincts of human
nature, and interfering with the springs of all human
action ?

Now that external circumstances of a kind, easily
alterable by legislation, have been, and often are,
responsible for many social inequalities, is a fact
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 persons,
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 production 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
practical guide, to begin with ascertaining what
these limits are. Are, then, the congenital in-
equalities of men a factor in the production of social
inequalities, or are they not?

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 Book 1
congenital inequalities are to a large extent the “?*"?
cause, in every society, of such social inequalities Why then
as exist in it; and they will possibly say that it ise?
a mere waste of time to discuss a truth which is so Because this
self-evident. It happens, however, that the more pr oh oat
obvious it seems to be to common sense, the more {ousiosics
necessary it is for us to begin our present inquiry ‘8°
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! general 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 we have already seen, he prefaces his whole
Medea series of sociological writings, and which may be
admissions@nd taken as his fundamental profession of faith—his
well as by the criticism, namely, of what he calls “the great-man

character of
hisconclusions. Zhegrvy,” 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 “gveat-man theory” is false. With the
sole exception, he says, of the military struggles of
primitive tribes, “ew activities, new tnstitutions,
new tdeas, unobtruswely make their appearance,
without the aid of any king or legislator; and uf
you wish to understand the phenomena of social
evolution, you will not do tt should you read yourself

MR. SPENCER’S FALSE ASSUMPTION 51

blind over the biographies of all the great rulers Book!
on vecord, down to Frederick the Greedy and ““"*?
Napoleon the Treacherous.”

But Mr. Spencer, in rejecting the great ‘“ ruler Hiscondemna-
and legislator” as a factor in social evolution un- eieue
worthy of the attention of the sociologist, is really oo’ $2

rejecting a great deal else besides. He is really coveriilaln-
rejecting every inequality in capacity by which ata of
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 commonly
men who, mostly using the observation of others,
observe for themselves less from love of particular
facts than from the desire to put 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.

Book I
Chapter 2

52 ARISTOCRACY AND LVOLUTION

“ Amongst societies of all orders and sizes,” he
writes, “ sociology has to ascertain what tratts there
are in common, determined by the common tratts of
human beings ; what less general tratts, distingutsh-
ing certain groups of societves, 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 sets of men belonging to the same

defines an
aggregate as
being com-
posed of
approximately
equal units.

society. In the latter he deals with societies as
single bodies, the members of which possess no
personal traits whatever, except such as they all
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 |‘‘as distinct from a mere
large family|, ts a union of lke individuals, zn-
dependent of one another in parentage, and approxt-
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 ingeniously advocated,
doctrine is untenable as the foundation of economics ;
and yet, strange to say, a doctrine strictly equivalent
to it -.forms the accepted foundation of con-
‘temporary social science. That science starts with
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

Book I
Chapter 2

His failure,
and that of
others, as
practical
sociologists,
arises from
their building
on this false
hypothesis.

Book I
Chapter 2

54 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

sociologists, complained of by Mr. Kidd and
Professor Marshall, to throw on these problems
any definite light is simply the natural and inevi-
table 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

Ir is evident that an error of the kind now in The ignoring
i f l

question does not represent the carelessness of the atic s

untrained thinker. It is nothing if not deliberate ; * detberte

and indeed Mr. Spencer admits that it is altogether Let us se how
it is defended.
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
the utmost care. tient
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 defenas it
point, he will find that Mr. Spencer rejects the” °"*'
great man for two reasons,. which are not only (1) ty saying
distinct, but are, when interpreted closely, not ‘3t the sat

entirely consistent with each other. One of these relly do what
e seems to

reasons is that the great, or exceptional man does 4:

(56 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book! not really produce those great changes of which he
chapter’ 3 is nevertheless “the proximate initiator” ; the other
(2) by saying is that, outside the sphere of primitive warfare, he
com, to'de is AO€S not even proximately initiate any great changes
not really at all. The first of these two contentions is ex-
pressed with sufficient clearness in his, statement

“af there ts to be anything like a veal explanation”

of those changes of which the great man is the
“proximate tnitzator”—changes, to quote an example

which he himself gives, such as those produced by

the conquests of Julius Casar—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 changes commonly supposed to

have been 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. ‘ Re-
cognising,” he says, “what truth there ts im the
great-man theory, we may say that, of limited to the

history of primitive socteties, the histories of which

are histories of little else than endeavours to destroy

one another, tt approximately expresses fact tn repre-

senting the great leader as all--mportant. But ws
tmmense error lies tn 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 ts

good for all time. Just as fast as the predatory

activity of early tribes diminishes, just as fast as

large aggregates are formed, so fast do soctetzes

MR. SPENCER ON THE MILITARY LEADER 57

begin to give origin to new activities, new ideas, all Book |
of which unobtrusively make their appearance with “3
out the aid of any king or legislator.” |

It will be necessary to deal with these two He admits that
contentions separately ; and we will begin with the (2.
second, as set forth in the words just quoted. We {ns sxe.
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 “‘zmmense
error” which he is pointing out and correcting.
The “‘ zmmense 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 of but denies that

° Eos : he does any-

men in primitive war, for the success of which he thing excep-
admits a great leader to have been essential, and $92.3;"°
their various actions and activities as manifested natiahs
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,

Book ]
Chapter 3

But how does
the great man
fulfil his
function in
war? By
ordering
others.

58 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

“A primitive society,” if it is to become powerful
in war—this Mr. Spencer admits—must have a
great leader to direct it. But what precisely is it
that such a leader is and does? Such a leader leads,
because he is one mind or personality impressing for
the 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, make their appearance un-
obtruswely, without the aid of any king or legis-
lator.” It may, no doubt, be true that they do
appear unobtrusively in the sense that they are not
accompanied 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 so!

ship is to command*the actions of others, the larger Book 1
part of the progressive activities of peace, and the “™?**"3
arts and products of civilisation, result from and The great
imply the influence of kings and leaders, in essentially does baste
the same sense as do the successes of primitive war, ng
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,
and consider what it is, in so far as it differs from oe"?
any other volume—let us say from a treatise on the (yhes'n
cutting of trousers, or an attack on the Spencerian eh
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 asa
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

Book |
Chapter 3

The inventor
orders the men
by whom his
inventions are
manufactured.

60 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

passively. He has been as absolute a master of
all 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
compositors 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.

Precisely the same thing is true of all scientific
inventions—not indeed of inventions as mere ideas
and discoveries, but of inventions 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
produced, 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 61

have been performed at all. They filed or they Book 1
cast pieces of metal into 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. ‘“ Zhe one operation,’ says Mill, “of putting
things into fit places... ts all that man does, or
can do, with matter. He has no other means of
acting on it than by moving zt.” 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 ebeeesiee by case be:
such a phrase as ‘‘ to move matter.” eonriees
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

Book1 does not depend solely on the muscles of the manual

“rps 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

heeper orders 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, Book 1
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 au these men
multiplied, but those just adduced are quite sufficient eat ones
to prove the sole point insisted on at the present O77

and if the latter

moment—namely, that whatever be the part (and 2 soci!
Mr. Spencer admits it to be “ a//-zmportant”’) which the former.
the great man plays as a leader in primitive war-
fare, 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 iota aad
namely that, whatever the part may be, and however *§{h° Prox

mate cause

seemingly important, which the great man plays in only, and not
producing social changes, he is, in any case, nothing cause—
but their “proximate initiator” ;—that “they have

their chief cause in 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

Book I
Chapter 3

this, as Mr.

Spencer, and
three popular
writers of to-
day show us,

64 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 ‘the aggregate of '
conditions out of which he has arisen” is performed
by Mr. Spencer himself. Let us now turn for a
moment 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.

“Tt needs only a little reflection,” writes Mr.
Kidd, ‘‘¢o enable us to percewe that the marvellous
accomplishments of modern cwrlisation are primarily
the measure of the social stability and social efficiency,
and not of the intellectual pre-eminence of the peoples
who have produced them. ... For it must be re-
membered that even the ablest men amongst us, whose
names go down to history connected with great dis-
covertes 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 ut, the great idea
Fructifies and the discovery 1s made. Tt ts, in fact,
the work not of one, but of a great number of persons.
flow true ut ts that all the great ideas have been the
products of the time rather than of individuals may
be the more readily realised when it 1s remembered
that, as regards a large number of them, there have
been rival claims put forward for the honour of
authorship by persons who, working quite independ-
ently, have arrived at like results almost sitmultane-

THE CASE AGAINST THE GREAT MAN 65

ously. Thus rival and independent claims have been Book I
made for the discovery of the differential calculus... “P'**3

the invention of the steam engine, .. . the methods
of spectrum analysis, the telegraph, the telephone,
as well as many other discoverces.” 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 man’s produce are the result of
his social inheritance and environment.” ‘“ This
zs so,’ remarks Mr. Kidd, “and zt zs, zf possible,
even more true of the work of our brain than of the
work of our hands.” To these passages we must
add one from Mr. Sidney Webb, who is, intellect-
ually, 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, “¢hzs egualty,” he
says, “has an abstract justification, as the special
abthty or energy with which some persons are born
7s an unearned increment due to the effect of the
struggle for existence upon their ancestors, and
consequently, having been produced by society, ts as
much due to society as the unearned increment of
rent.” :
Here we have then, in the words of these four resolves itself
writers, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Kidd, Mr. Bellamy, and Pret:
5

66 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book! Mr. Sidney Webb, the case against the great man

Chaptes 3 set fully before us; and we may accordingly 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

(x) That every their sympathies. Firstly, there is the argument
first discovery P Ast s

involves all that in any advanced civilisation not one of the

eet 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

“hosting himself. Secondly, there is the argument that the

ability itself is inventor or author of the improvement, even if we

Eeeeroua.. attribute to him some special ability of his own, is

— in respect of his own congenital 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 gre constantly reinforced by two others. One is

the same dis-

covery is madedrawn from the fact that several independent
by several men

pana workers often arrive simultaneously at the same
(4) that the discovery. The other is drawn from the fact—
tarence « or what is alleged to be the fact—that the interval
eviimary man Which divides even the greatest man from his
is slight. fellows, alike in respect of what he is and of

what he accomplishes, is really extremely slight,

and not worth considering.

SIMULTANEOUS DISCOVERY 67

For convenience’ sake, we will deal with these Book 1
two latter arguments first, and put them out of the ees
way before we approach the others. We will begin Simultaneous

: discovery only
with the argument drawn from the fact that the shows that
same discovery is often made simultaneously by <a) 7".,
independent workers. This would perhaps hardly be 4°
worth discussing 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?

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

Book I
Chapter 3

The extent of

the great man’s

superiority
depends on
how it is
measured,

68 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

their generation, than the fact that the three most
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. 7
Let us now turn to the argument that the in-
equalities between men’s abilities are small, that the
work accomplished by even the ablest is small also,
and that the exceptional man as a separate subject
of study may, in the words of a writer who will
be quoted presently, be in consequence “ safely
neglected.” 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 Books

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 socio-

logist. 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,

regarded in its totality, which has been gathered It may be
. ‘ slight to the

together by all other great men preceding him; but speculative

it may at the same time be incalculably great when Povesonher

but to the
compared with the additions made by the ordinary Practical man

it is all-

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. ‘“J/¢ zs the age that makes the man,

not the man that makes the age... . The tnequal-

ties of the intellect, like the inequalities of the

surface of the globe, bear so small a proportion to

the mass, that in calculating is 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

Book I
Chapter 3

70 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 astronomer,
it does not follow that they are nothing to the
engineer and the geographer. To the astronomer
the Alps may be an infinitesimal and negligeable
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. Spencer'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 factors” of
human history and civilisation? 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
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
distinctly exceptional character of the great man is
assumed, or at all events is not denied, but it is

represented as being, if it exists, not properly the

great man’s own. The first argument refers it to
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 environment.” ‘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-
sider them in detail, there is one broad criticism to
be made, which applies to both equally. There is
a certain sense—a remote and speculative sense—
in which they are both of them quite true, and
indeed are almost truisms; but for practical pur-
poses they are either not true 4t 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

Book I
Chapter 3

As for the two
other argu-
ments, which
admit the great
man’s great-
ness, but deny
that it is his
own,

they are both
true speculat-
ively, but are
practically
untrue, or
irrelevant ;

Book I
Chapter 3

just as state-
ments of
averages

and classifica-
tions of goods
may be true
and revelant
for one pur-
pose, and false
and irrelevant
for another.

72 ARISTOCRACY AND E VOLUTION

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
to bear. Let us take as an example those familiar
statements of fact which are given in terms of aver-
ages. If the vast majority of any given population
vary in height between the limits of five feet six
and six feet, the statement that a man’s average
height is from five feet seven to five feet eight
would be 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 Book 1
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 officials 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-
sufficient plainness in the passage quoted from Mr. sine porte
Sidney Webb, and which insists on the great man’s Sebel
debt to society generally, not for his external circum- {ven nis

stances, but for his personal character and capacities. ayant

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 Seeak
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

Book I
Chapter 3

leads to
nothing but
absurdities if
we apply it to
practical life.

74 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

with the great mass of their contemporaries. Thus
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
certain kind of truth in it, it is hardly necessary to
observe; and for biologists, psychologists, and
speculative philosophers 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 Book1
weaker nation which, after a series of battles, “3
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 Forif the great
it concerns the present, and we shall find that it he oo
results in similar fantastic puerilities. If the great Ooi
man of to-day owes his greatness to society as a the men who

shirk work owe

whole, it is to society as a whole that the idle man theiridlenessto
it; and if the

owes his idleness, the stupid man his stupidity, the former deserve
dishonest man his dishonesty ; and if the great man tier ee
who produces an exceptional amount of wealth can, 2°PHns*
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

Bok1 When stated in the language of Mr. Bellamy.

Chapter’3 « Nine hundred and ninety-nine parts out of the

thousand of every man’s 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.

The same Again, if the proposition has any practical bearing

applies to ON Economics, it must necessarily have a bearing

morals; an precisely similar on morals. If a man of to-day

accepted, we

should have to broduces only a thousandth part of what he seems
admit that

nobody really to produce, it is equally evident that he does only a
did, or was

really re- thousandth part of what he seems to do. Let us
sponsible for, fe :
auything. 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
remarkable 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 77

really be the result of his antecedents, and his few Book 1
faulty deeds may be all that we are to attribute to “3
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, tet us
argument which seeks to eliminate the causality of eS
the great man, not by proving that he owes his % "?at the

great man does
superior brain-power to society, but. by proving that depends on

past discoveries

superior brain-power has little to do with his and achieve-
2 z Sak : ments, to which
achievements, their principal cause being the ap- he does but
; 5 tn add a little.
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

Book I
Chapter 3

If this argu-
ment means
anything
practical, it
must mean
that greatness
is commoner
than it is
vulgarly
thought.

78 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

inventions if centuries of past progress had not
prepared the way for them. ‘A Laplace, for

instance,” he says, “could not have got very far

with the Mécanique Ceéleste unless he had been
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
decorate some public hall with pictures worthy of
Titian or Michael Angelo, or to open some national
theatre with a new play worthy of Shakespeare.
The great question will be where to find the artist
or poet whose works shall even approximate to
these ideals of excellence; and any one who
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. ‘“ Gzven a Shakespeare,”
he says, ‘and what dramas could he have written,
without the multitudinous condrtzons 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 inevi-
tably take the form of another question. Given the

Book I
Chapter 3

But is this the
case? Does
Shakespeare’s

debt to his
antecedents
make Shake-
speares more
numerous ?

-_ 80 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book! conditions of civilised life, and the traditions of
Chaps" 3 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
seagate inherited the same language that Shakespeare did;
had the same the three last had the advantage of knowing his

national ante-

cedents that he finest passages by heart. The weaver, the bellows-
ec out Y mender, the constable, the Justice of Peace, had behind
what he did’ them the same traditions that Shakespeare had, and
were surrounded by the same “‘ mzultztudinous condt-
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 men inherit the past in very
the past onl S ; >
in so faras| different degrees. They inherit the knowledge of
vile the past only according to the degree to which they

assimilate it
acquire it; the language of the past only according

gael

MEN INHERIT UNEQUALLY 81

to their skill in manipulating it; the inventions of — poox1
the past only according to their skill in reproducing "PS.
and using them.

The extraordinary confusion of thought in- socialists say
volved in Mr. Spencer’s position is focalised in an Oyu, pveqtions
argument constantly employed by socialists—that ee eins
“inventions once made, become common property.”

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 encyclopedic knowledge
becomes the property of every one who happens to
inherit an edition of the Excyclopedia Britannica ;
or than the power of deciphering the hieroglyphics
which are preserved in the British Museum
becomes the property of every cabman who drives
his vehicle along Great Russell Street. It is
perfectly true that the discovery of each new
portion of knowledge enables men to acquire it who
never might have discovered it for themselves ; but This is abso-
as the acquisition of the details of knowledge“
becomes facilitated, the number of details to be
acquired increases at the same time; and the
increased 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! Forth, with its spans of six hundred yards and its
Chapter 3 . : ° . Re °

altitudes of aerial steel, implies an assimilation of our

multitudinous existing knowledge, such as is hardly

The discoveries to be found in a score of engineers in Europe. Or

and inventions
of the past are to turn once more to Mr. Spencer’s example of

ace ale Shakespeare, whilst all Shakespeare’s contemporaries

ie —.. had the same antecedents that he had, the same line

them. of thinkers behind them, and the same developed
vocabulary, Shakespeare’s mind was capable of
absorbing much of the national inheritance, whilst
the great mass of his contemporaries could compara-
tively absorb very little.

Thus the intro. | We are thus brought back to the point from

duction of the hich 1 We difk :

past into the Which we set out—namely, the differences in capa-

ives tie city by which men are distinguished from one

differences be- another; and we see that all the reasonings of our

tween the great i “4 :

manand modern sociologists have, for practical purposes,

diminishea, left these differences undiminished. 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 difference
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 — Book1
it seems to do, the mass of living men at all events ears
do something, in the very real sense that if they
did not do it they would die; and the doing of this 16 the ordinary
something is for them the whole of life, and all pay se
practical problems depend on the manner in which Peifay*
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 and in practi-
Sod pe cal reasoning
peculiarities may be neglected, but a true and heisa true

primary cause, on which the attention of the socio- nas rw
logist 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-

Book I
Chapter 3

And, curiously
enough, Mr.
Spencer uncon-
sciously admits
this.

He declares
that the Napo-
leonic wars
were entirely
due to the
maleficent
greatness of
Napoleon.

84 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

possible castle in the air. But the demolition and
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.

In the seventh chapter of his Study of Soczology,
being incidentally concerned to insist on the iniquity
and the mischievousness of war, he describes how
Europe, during the earlier years of this century,
was visited by certain disasters, far-reaching and
horrible, 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
violent and unnecessary deaths. And how does Mr.
Spencer explain these appalling phenomena? He
who declares that we should learn nothing about
social causation “‘ should we read ourselves blind over
the 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 sanguin-
ary chaos of the Revolution,” he writes, “rose a
soldier whose tmmense abthty, joined with his
absolute unscrupulousness, made him now general,
now consul, now autocrat. The instincts of the
savage were scarcely at all qualified mm 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
“agovegates of past conditions” and the influence
of antecedent generations? Far from it. He says,
“All this was gone through because one man had a
restless destre to be despot over all men.”

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

Book I
Chapter 3

Book I
Chapter 3

He defends
patents be-
cause they
represent the
very substance
of the inven-
tors own
mind ;

86 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 Soczal
Statics, and to the section of it in which he treats
of patents—or as he himself describes them, “‘ the
vights of property in ideas.” He begins by com-
plaining that the right of patenting “‘zxventzons,
patterns, or designs” is not recognised as being
based on any moral right at all, but is generally
regarded as a kind of “fpriilege” or “reward.”
“ The prevalence of such a belief,” says Mr. Spencer,
“7s by no means creditable to the national conscience.

To think,” he exclaims, ‘that a sinecurzst
should be held to have a ‘vested interest’ in his office,
and a just title to compensation tf rt 1s abolished ; and
yet that an invention over which no end of mental torl
has been spent, and on which the poor mechanic has
laid out perhaps his last sixpence—an invention which
he has completed entirely by his own labour and with
his own materials—has wrought, as it were, out of
the very substance of his own mind—should not be
acknowledged as his property /”

Soctal 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 wrought not out of Book
aggregates of conditions, but ‘“‘out of the very a
substance of his own mind,” emphasised by him

as a practical truth, with all the vigour of a practical

man. In his chapter on the ‘‘ /uterdependence and
Integration of Industrial Institutions” he dwells with ana he attri-
much eloquence on the almost incalculable benefits pia ERD.
that have resulted, and extended themselves through pronessent

steel manu-

the whole industrial world, from certain improve- facture to Sir
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 obvious
does this truth appear to him, that he devotes an
indignant footnote to denouncing the governing
classes for not being sufficiently 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—‘‘ ax honour”
he says, “ke that accorded to a third-rate public
offictal on his retirement, or to a provincial mayor on
the occasion of the Queen's Jubilee.”

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 ‘‘¢he phenomena of

88 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 1 Social evolution,’ even if they do not result entirely, _
Chapter 3 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-
cedents,” and in “aggregates of conditions.”
Somuch, then, The practically independent character of the

being estab- ; ° °
lished, we must great man’s causality will be yet more apparent

imaiie” at another stage of our argument, and we shall

suggested byit. see 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
from 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
objected that

made are connected with two doctrines, neither of modern socio-
Re . : 1 does not,
which has thus far been submitted to any detailed j here as-
be : . . serted, neglect
examination, and one of which has indeed been fo uttmnan,

hardly so much as alluded to, but which are % it adopts
the doctrine of

both intimately associated, in the estimation of the ne ome of
world 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 ‘“¢he
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 elimi-

nated the great man from his system after all. On

the other hand, when the reader thinks of evolution,

Te) ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book! Which, whatever it may mean, at all events means

Chapter 4 a progress essentially different from the achieve-
Itmaybe ments of particular individuals, he may wonder in
asked, on he what way the doctrine of evolution can be reconciled
vrat man has With any doctrine which has the achievements of
in an exclus- individuals for its basis.

ey Seay or. We will take these two points in order. With
mee 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
The fittest sur- failed to perceive. In the evolution of societies,
eet just as in the evolution of species—in the evolution
great man. 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
He playsa phenomena of progress are no doubt produced by
press, bet not _it, but they are as different from those which the
the same part. oreat 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 Soczal Evolution.

“ Progress everywhere,’ he says, “from the begin-

Oe ee

el Fi i ©

REPRODUCTION OF THE FITTEST gI

ning of life, has been effected in the same way, and 1s Book 1
possible in no other way. It is the result of selection “4
and vezection. In the human species, as im every

other species whith has ever existed, no two indt- The fittest
viduals of a generation are altke in all respects ; there vinta pan’
is infinite variation within certain narrow Limits. 3° 805%
Some are slightly above the average in a particular sai ab
direction, as others are slightly below it; and it 1s Tn oe
only when the conditions prevail that are favour-

able to the preponderating reproduction of the former,

that advance in any direction becomes possible. To
Jormulate this as the immutable law of progress since

the beginning of life has been one of the principal

vesults of the biological scrence of the nineteenth

century. ... To put tt-in words used by Professor

Flower in speaking of human socrety, ‘Progress has

_ been due to the opportunity of those individuals who

are a little supertor in some respects to thetr fellows
of asserting their supertority, and of continuing to
live, and of promulgating as an inheritance that
supertority.’”

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;

Book I
Chapter 4

The great man
promotes pro-
gress by being
superior to his
contempor-
aries.

92 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

or breed children who die early ; whilst the former
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 pro-
gress 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 thetr authority”
not by commanding their inferiors, but merely by
“continuing to five” 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
to an order of facts totally distinct from those
involved in the influence claimed 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

PROGRESS A DOUBLE MOVEMENT 93

bear to each other? In a direct way they are not Book 1
related at all. They neither conflict with each other ‘™?* 4
nor overlap each other. They are both of them The movement
true ; but true as explaining different sets of pheno- Se 3
mena. One of the great errors of which our modern
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—dquite

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 sone esther
different rates of speed, the one set of changes being apis

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
ating reproduction of individuals slightly above the estien ts
average,’ has been the work of an incalculable $2","°"
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
Parthenon knew as much of their craft as those who

Book I
Chapter 4

94 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

constructed the Imperial Institute. But with this
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 maintain 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
during that short period what an astounding progress
has taken place! To sum it up in a bald economic
formula, whilst the capacities of the average English-
man have remained altogether stationary, the eco-

.nomic productivity per head of the population 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 almostimperceptible — Book 1

movement, the rapid and perceptible movement is “*?**" 4

explained by the leadership of the greatest. It is

with the rapid movement alone that the practical The rapia

sociologist is concerned; and hence for him the icea by bs

great man, not the fittest, is the important factor, —_st°at ma».
Let us now consider what is meant by the process

called social evolution, regarded as something dis-

tinct from those intentional advances made and nextasto

maintained by the genius of great men. To Sor ihe

understand this, we must consider what is meant by ¥"™4 ™@"?

evolution generally. Mr. Spencer defines it in

terms of ‘the homogenous” and “the heterogenous” ;

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 apparent

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 admirable

it may be from a certain point of view, is not ex-

haustive. 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! let us begin by fixing our attention on that
chapter + order of facts which formed the special study of
Its great prac Darwin, and in connection with which the theory
tical character- .
istic, as put Of evolution became first known to the world;

ao vain that 2d let us ask what was the greatest and the

itis opposed to most notorious effect produced by Darwinism on

design, oo human thought generally. Its greatest and most

divine inten- ° .

tion ; notorious effect 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

andyet,accord- purpose of the living things themselves. Each

rg es reutea living thing chose its mates, reproduced its kind,

species resulted
from the inten- hunted for food, fought with rivals, and either con-

tion of each

animal to live quered or was conquered by them, in obedience to

and propagate. y : ° . .
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 Book 1
evolution very closely resemble each other; but here ‘4
we come to the point of essential difference between Species, there-
them. According to the theory of design, the varieties 2 theca.
and gradations of organic life were not only the result tonst is ‘he

of intention in the supreme Mind, but were also them- tom, but not
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
equally orderly, equally reasonable and coherent. bearer
Evolution, in fact, as revealed to us in the physio- Sauencs of the
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 This is as true
only to development in that world of facts studied ea Role
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

Book I
Chapter 4

Many of the
social con-
ditions of any
age result
from the past,
but were in-
tended by
nobody in the
past ;

for instance,
many of the

98 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

sequence of the unintended. How this is can be
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 elimi-
nating 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.

Let us take then our definition of evolution as
the reasonable sequence of the unintended, and
apply the idea embodied in it to that aggregate of
conditions, either in our own or any similar period,
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 oné
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 example, and railway travelling have produced a

social effects op hUMber of social results never dreamed of by the

railways and
cheap printing.

men 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 large part of his achievement Book 1
consists in his manipulation and refashioning of ‘4
results of past human action, which can be set down Therefore,

£ - - f hi
to the credit, or ascribed to the intentions of no great man
: oes ‘ 1x71 ‘ produces some
individual, and no body of individuals. The society Prerue §

of the past intended these no more than the great tentionally he
has to work

men of the past. They are results, that is to say, with unin-
' which come all under the heading of the unintended. Sats
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
magnitude and familiarity, will be at once intelligible. sees
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

Book I
Chapter 4

also in the
progress of
philosophy.

And. yet in
each case the
intended
elements equal
or are greater
than the
unintended.

100 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 A%schylus and of Sophocles ;
and similarly we hear of the evolution of the English
drama from such exhibitions as miracle plays or
Gammer Gurton's Needle to tragedies such as
Flam/let and comedies such as As You Like Jt. 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
unintended. Arristotle’s philosophy was in part
derived from that of 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
Sophocles and Shakespeare, in constructing their
dramas, each profited by the achievements of the
dramatists who had gone before them, and though
the art of each would doubtless have been more
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 io1

by evolution in the production of Hamlet and Book:
Antigone is totally distinct from, and is altogether “+4
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
and the history of social progress, as connected the: = imp?
with and derived from them, will show the same pte oress
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 Zzmes is printed, which imple-
ment, according to Mr. Spencer, is the result
altogether of evolution. ‘“/x the first place,” he
says, ‘ths automatic printing machine rs lineally
descended from other automatic printing machines
. each pre-supposing others that went before. .
And then, in tracing the more remote antecedents, we
find an ancestry of hand printing presses.’ Ue
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.

102 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book! Why, he asks, was the Walter press produced? In
Chapter 4 order that “with great promptness” it might “ meet
an enormous demand,”

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

Itwasthe printing press at all. When printing was first
Lats of’ invented, steam-power was undreamed of. When
intended the steam-engine was being perfected as a means of

progress, con-
stantlyre- driving machinery, the inventors had no specific

combined by

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 Zzmes. 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

by the great man remains as essential, and remains
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
necessity of the part played by the men to whose
genius 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
concurrence—the fact of their being brought together
for one definite purpose. This was due to the
deliberate 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

Book I
Chapter 4

Book I
Chapter 4

Evolution, in
fact, is the
unintended
result of the
intentions of
great men.

104 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 con-
ditions 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 intentionally
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 move-
ment 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-
moved. Great men may not have meant to
produce 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 constructive
imagination mark them out from their fellows 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.

Book I
Chapter 4

It was said in the first chapter that sociologists The unin-

have succeeded in dealing with those wider social
phenomena which are exhibited by social aggregates
as wholes, and which are interesting and significant

tended or
evolved
element in
progress is

Book I
Chapter 4

106 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 pheno-

the speculative
philosopher.

|

The intended
element, which
originates
directly in the
great man, is
what is of
interest for
practical
purposes.

mena 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.

But whilst the business of the speculative philo-
sopher is solely with the phenomena that have been
unintended, the business of the practical sociologist is
solely with the phenomena that have been intended.
A moment's reflection will convince the reader that
this must be so. The meaning of the words “ practi-
cal 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 hypothest, 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
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 I
Chapter 4

, epit
» ;
ey he
a

~*

CHAPTER I

THE NATURE AND DEGREES OF THE SUPERIORITIES
OF GREAT MEN

THAT great men are true causes of progress is The causality
i . of the great

admitted by Mr. Spencer himself to be the natural man bee

opinion of mankind. What has been done, then, in Spies: "°

must consider

the preceding book is not much more than this :—a "rrr Peers
sound popular judgment, which is of the highestis.
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

Book II
Chapter 1

Mr. Spencer
will help us to
a general
definition of it.

112 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

help us; for this remarkable writer, though he fails
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.

Let us turn, then, to the opening pages of Mr.
Spencer'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, “ave slaves to unwarranted
opinions”; ‘‘proximate causes’ 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 im 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 ‘“‘human affairs’ are, he proceeds
to say, merely “a scattered few.” He elsewhere
divides society into “the capable and the tncapable,”
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, Zhe Study of Soctology, he is ridiculing—and
very justly—the socialistic idea that the State can
be endowed with any talent or wisdom beyond what
happens to be possessed by the individual function-
aries who compose the State. These functionaries,
he says, are merely ‘a cluster of men,” which, like
any other cluster taken at hap-hazard, will comprise
“a. few clever individuals, 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.
Spencer, may, roughly speaking, be divided into
three classes—the “clever” who are few, the
“ordinary” 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

Book II
Chapter 1

He divides the
human race
into the clever,
the ordinary,
and the stupid.

Book II
Chapter 1

Now if all the
race were
stupid, it is
plain there
would be no
progress ;

nor would
there be any,
if all the race
were ordinary ;

114 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Now it must be perfectly obvious to the reader
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
that the entire human race contained no individuals
superior to the “deczdedly 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 ‘“deczdedly 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 ‘“ovdzuary.” 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 ‘‘ovdinary” man is of taking
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. Undersuch conditions Book 1
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 pro-

gress must be due to men who are superior to the
“decidedly stupid.” Were we have the great-man

theory inembryo. But it is equally evident that we

can goa step farther, and say that progress could

never have taken place had there been no in-
dividuals who in will, originality, and intellect were therefore pro-
superior to “ordinary men.” Social progress, there- fue to the .
fore, must be due to this third class—the class which °°": ¥"°

are, as Mr.
alone is capable of taking “a rational” view of u seprdioy
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
giving it, it is brought into ‘actual accordance with ese seiis
the facts of social life, and, unlike the wild exaggera- *Y *****
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.

Book II
Chapter 1

For great men
are not
necessarily ”
heroes, as
Carlyle
thought,

nor divided
absolutely
from all other
men.

116 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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
treated them, in accordance with Mr. Spencer's
formula, as a mass of units, approximately equal in
capacity. The truth of the case is, on the contrary,
this :—that 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
a ‘scattered few,” we do not mean that out of every
thousand men there are nine hundred and ninety-nine
“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

7

MANY DEGREES OF GREATNESS. 117

theory, when properly analysed and explained, will Book 11
be found to comprise no such absurdities as the °°?"
foregoing. When we speak of “greatness” we Greatness is
mean a great variety of efficiencies, which, though Mee hice
grouped together because they are all exceptional in “8"**
degree, are nevertheless indefinitely various in kind ;

and, moreover, the degrees to which they are ex-
ceptional 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
thermometer 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 but, atar |
thermometer is at eighty-five, and cold when the gcauin
thermometer registers twenty degrees of frost. In mmory of

men who re-

the same way, though there will be a certain number semble each
other in being

of people who may be classed as great by one judge peasy
and classed as ordinary by another, there is a majority.
certain number whose capacities, however unequal
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.

Book II
Chapter 1

We see this
in poetry,

in singers,

118 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

How great the inequality is between the natural
powers of men is perhaps most clearly evidenced by
the case of art, and more especially the art of 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 totheirage. 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 Fitz-
gerald”? 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
domain of human effort. What can be more

VARIOUS KINDS OF INEQUALITY 119

unequal than the gifts of different singers? In Bookm
every school and university we see multitudes of “?"
young men and boys whose opportunities of learn- in the scholar-
ing are not only similar but identical, but of the same
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 Mevius 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

tut 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 gee
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

120 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book II events, whose opportunities are as equal as human
Chapt ingenuity could make them. This is so in the

Enough men, French army, in the English House of Commons,

as it is, have . %

equalop- | and in the world of business and industry; and yet

portunities, to PF

show how un- Of men thus equally placed we see some doing great

separa things, and doubling their opportunities by using

ofusing them. 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 in-
equality 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 realised inequality —to
increase the number of the mountains, not to
produce a plain.

No doubt a It will doubtless be objected by those who would

ordinary in. minimise natural inequalities that a man may be con-

and eret i, temptible in one capacity—that of a poet, for instance

another; _ —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

or

GREATNESS TO BE MEASURED BY RESULTS 121

bad poetry, was a greater man than Voltaire. This Book 1
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 pono. in
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
; an agent of

progress, has any necessary resemblance to great- social progress
ness as conceived of by the moralist. A man may scl cae
be a great saint or a noble “moral character ” who produced by
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

Book II
Chapter 1

A selfish
doctor, if
successful, is
greater than a
devoted
doctor, if
unsuccessful.

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 produc-
tion.

122 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

for nothing, and died in his unavailing 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 indignantly
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
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
altogether disappear when we more closely examine
what the qualities are on which the production of
given social results depends. 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. ae

A man who should, without underpaying his
employees, succeed in manufacturing for the poorer

Book II
Chapter 1

But the most
efficient forms
of greatness,
have often
nothing
brilliant about
them.

Book II
Chapter 1

A lofty im-
agination is
often the
enemy to
practical
efficiency ;

124 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 inferi-
ority, 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
‘“oreat 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 Book 1
popularising some particular political demand— “™?***
the secret of such a man’s success, in four cases and great
out of five, will be found to lie in the greatness, not pea ie
of his intellect, but of his will—in an exceptionally pS er
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 is
quired and does require for its production intellectual are
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 he but the in-_
thereby develop some of the humbler qualities in sat wohet ers
which he is wanting. As it is, he resembles a“?
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
cmp’ “doing so. Such unions are often sufficiently strange
a has to. in appearance. We see some man whose intellect is
withmen the finest machine imaginable, but he is only redeemed
whose excep- .
tional gifts are from absolute and grotesque uselessness by his
andeven Partner, who is little better than an inspired bag-
Beers 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 po
imagination. | bi ae
Greatness, in short, as an agent of social progress, Greatness is
is in most cases not a single quality, but a peculiar Ca
combination of many; its composition varies fmm”
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,
here attributed to the word—when we speak of ao aie
great men as agents of social progress—we do not Wich many

domain of pro-

mean that the world is divided into ordinary men stéss:make the
and heroes. The members of that minority whom et a
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

ssi ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Booki1 say that a man is great we mean that he is
Chaptss* 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
aoall aoe being an obvious fact, and the nature and the
that some degrees of their inequalities having been now

men were not

more efficient Generally explained, we may re-state, with a meaning

than most

men, no pro- more precise than was formerly possible, the
take place at fundamental proposition implied in the great-man
of 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 greatmen, number, progress in that community would be so
in spite of

"these slow as to be practically non-existent.
soa We 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 1
the majority bring progress about; and we shall “™P*"'
find that, however various they may be in other

respects, they all promote progress in a way that is @ll promote

ere progress in the
fundamentally similar. same way.

CHAPTER II

PROGRESS THE RESULT OF A STRUGGLE NOT EOR
SURVIVAL, BUT FOR DOMINATION

Ir has already been explained that the great man,
as here understood, does not in any way correspond
with the fittest man in the Darwinian struggle for
existence. The fittest man in the Darwinian sense
merely promotes progress by the physiological
process 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 the

In order to see :

how the great first that we must consider is as follows.

vrogees we Le fittest man, or the survivor in the Dar-

must consider winjan struggle for existence, is, so far as his own

that whilst
the fittest sur- Contemporaries are concerned, greater than his

vivor only pro-

motes it inferiors only in respect of what he accomplishes for

GREATNESS AND STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 131

himself, or for those immediately dependent on him. Book m
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 oe sai
health, he, by his superior gifts, is able to secure
much. ‘“ Famzles,” says Mr. Spencer, ‘whom the
increasing atfficulty of obtaining 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
stimulate.” 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 contem-
poraries 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 ppb aes.
that in which the fittest man shows his fitness. 7° ©
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,

132 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 but because he showed them how to find others
Chapter? which they never would have found unaided, and
took for himself in payment a small portion of each.
He promotes The great man, in fact, as an agent of social progress,
progress not , : . 5
by whathe is great not in virtue of any completed results which
“a by WEE he produces directly, by the action of his own hands
he felps others 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 enables
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
promotes social progress by supplying it with its
first materials, and from which all other kinds of
greatness draw some portion of their nourishment.

We can see Jt so happens that one of the most remarkable
this by con- , e
sidering the. thinkers of this century, who, though he preceded
Cede Mr, Spencer, belongs to the same school, is able to
peng /-S- assist us here by a very apt and remarkable passage.
the foundation —_ John Stuart Mill, in that section of his System of
progress. {gg7¢ to which he gives the title of ‘“‘7he Logtc of the
Moral Sciences,” writes thus. “Ju the difficult pro-
cess of observation and comparison which ts required
( for the purpose of obtaining a better understanding
of the laws of empirical sociology, and especially of
social progress) tt would evidently be a great asstst-
ance tf wt should happen to be the fact that one
element in the complex existence of social man ts

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
progress of that one element as the central chain,
to each successwe link of which, the corresponding
links of all the other progresstons being appended,
the succession of facts would by this alone be
presented in a kind of spontaneous order, far more
approaching to the real order of thetr filiation than
could be obtained by any other merely 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 ts predominant and almost paramount
amongst the agents of social progression. This ts
the state of the speculative faculties, including the
nature of the beliefs which by any means they have
arrived at, concerning themselves and the world by
which they are surrounded, Thus,’ Mill continues, ‘Zo
take the most obvious case, the tmpelling force to most
of the improvements effected in the arts of life ts the
destre for increased material comfort; but as we can
only act on external objects in proportion to our know-
ledge of them, the state of knowledge at any given
time 1s the limit of the industrial improvement pos-
stble 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

Book IT
Chapter 2

134 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book II Some new State of the practical rather than of the
Chapter 2 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.
But all pro- Speculative knowledge, however, does not in-
gress in know- : : é
ledge isthe crease of itself. It is not acquired without consider-
wgecidealy able effort; and people acquire it only because they
iaiindeie” 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. ‘“‘ /¢
would be a great error,” says Mill, ‘and one very
little likely to be commutted, to assert that speculation,
intellectual activity, the pursuit of truth, 7s amongst
the more powerful propensities of human nature, or
holds a predominating place in the lives of any save
decidedly exceptional individuals. But notwithstand-
ing the relative weakness of this principle among
other sociological agents, its influence 1s the main
determining cause of social progress, all the other
dispositions of our nature which contribute 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

a ee |

THE GREAT MAN AND KNOWLEDGE 135

the extraordinary confusion in which Mill involves Book 1
what he means by his perverse manner of ex- “™?*"?
pressing 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 as Mil aamits,
discovering and understanding it, mankind are calenaly ae
divided broadly into two classes—the great majority “°*#"s"s*
with whom the ‘‘pursuzt of truth” and “ zntellectual
actwity” are “shght propensities,’ and “the
decidedly exceptional individuals” 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 unmeaning blur. He converts his statement

that only “the decidedly exceptional individuals”

desire truth with any great intensity, and have the
faculties requisite for discovering it, into the state-

ment that if we take “the decidedly exceptional
endividuals” and the majority together, and regard

them as one body, which he calls ‘‘ mankind,” we

shall find that the average desire for truth is luke-

warm, 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 poetry

of a very moderate quality.

136 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book II This confusion of statement, however, on the
Chapter 2 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 “zx deczdedly
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 1s 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 . ° . oe
individuals, | present inquiry, and ask how do these individuals who
wen toy wy. alone strongly desire truth, and have the faculties

acquire know-

ledge, promote for discovering it, perform the practical part which

progress by : = ‘ .

doing so? = Mill so rightly assigns to them? By what kind of
conduct do they become “agents of social pro-
gression,” 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

a a i ii et

THE GREAT MAN AS TEACHER 137

of acquiring knowledge, by laying up this treasure — Book 1
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 “ deczdedly
exceptional.” It is not produced by the fact that They promote
the “decidedly exceptional” minds are stocked with Sea aah
such ideas and with such knowledge themselves, ar gene
but by the fact that they communicate such a {itt com
measure of these to average minds as average others.
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

138 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 primarily upon this; and what is to be taught about
Chapter? 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 let us pass from mental progress to
is true of in- . . -
vention, which Material—that is to say, from speculative knowledge
snied = 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 complete-
ness, 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 Book 1
of the medizeval 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 only because
a factor in social h k iy bY na
progress he can take only by infuences the
influencing one or two other men, at all events— 2tons of the

workmen who

artisans whose technical action he directs in such make and use
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 “soczal 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.

Book II
Chapter 2

The man of
business ability
promotes pro-
gress also only
by so ordering
others that the
precise wants
of the public
are supplied.

140 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 possessor exercises over other men.

All progress or development in commerce and
in the arts of production is in proportion to the
correspondence in every place and season of the
goods brought into the market with the con-
temporary wants of the buyers. If it were not for
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,
since want, in the sense of efficient 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 ‘“‘soczal progression,” 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
agent of speculative progress which, as Mill says,
is at the bottom of progress of all other kinds, and
having dealt with him also as an agent of that
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

Book II
Chapter 2

And the same
principle is
obviously true
in the domains
of war, politics,
and religion.

ve ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book1I in a light so obvious that it requires no explana-

Chapter? 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 import-
ant truth that the great man, as an agent of social
progress, is great only because he is able to exercise

Greatness, a specific influence over others, it is necessary to
however, is Pt turn our attention to a different order of facts alto-
aay Pene- 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 efficiency 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

- struggle which is continually taking place within the

THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN GREAT MEN 143

with conflicting theories, inventors with rival inven- Book 1
tions, statesmen with rival policies. It follows “*??
accordingly that though all these men may be pos- Tre influence
sessed of talents indefinitely above the average, they thes gee
would not all of them, were their influence over other {{2738°0"s
men equal, affect society in an equally advantageous °*s.
way. Some men, indeed, whose talents are “‘deczdedly
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,
resulting from the actions of great men, depends on prised
the degree to which certain of them make their own (esse. ks
views prevail, and secure the rejection of others ™™Sh@!

secure influence

: F . over others,
which are directly or indirectly opposed to them. ae

It depends, that is to say, on a keen competitive the influence
of the less fit.
limits of the exceptional minority.

And here we come to that further point of we now come
difference, which still remains to be noticed, annie
between the part played in social progress by fhe‘sttcst great
the great man, and the part in it played by the man andthe |
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 2 |
physiological process, the average capacities of his

successors, whereas the great man promotes pro-

Book II
Chapter 2

144 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

gress because he is himself more capable than his
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

The social
counterpart to
the Darwinian
struggle for
survival is to
be found in
the struggle of
labourers to
find employ-
ment.

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
of them have completely misunderstood its nature.
They have hastened to identify it with the Dar-
winian struggle for existence, from which it differs
in the most vital manner conceivable ; and, obscur-
ing it thus by a loose and misleading analogy, they
have 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. Pro- Book 1
gress, in the sense of the rapid and appreciable ™P'*"?
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 stages have been passed, so independent of But thisis not
any further increase of skill in the individual worker, tb which bie.
that it continues its course whilst skill remains jo P°8"*
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 aie ea
either in their acquired faculties or their inherited. Vo". 2"

increased fit-
Let us take, for instance, the introduction of the rail ease
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
sie)

146 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 gas, has superseded it not because it is the product
Chapter? of more skilful labour, but because it is the product
The progres: Of manual labour directed by a set of inventors and
i ineey is employers, who, so far as regards certain social
confined en- requirements, direct it more successfully than another
tirely to the _ e Es -
employers; set, The struggle which it represents 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 inevery industrial progress, is true of that which produces

domain of

progress it progress of all other kinds. Scientific knowledge
Faas’ increases in proportion as those exceptional indi-
not to the fe Viduals whose studies have brought them most near
who are led. to the truth are 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 philo-
sophers, 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

again, in this country has not triumphed over pro- Book 1
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 In the pro-
obvious, not only throw the Darwinian struggle for struggie
existence altogether into the background as an re iia

agent in social progress, but they show that it pre- adhe

community

sents us with no true analogy to that kind of struggle Pi#y ne Part
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.

\
Book II
Chapter 2

Let us take,
for instance,
two rival hotel-
keepers.

One becomes
bankrupt, and
the other takes
over his hotel
and his staff.

The sole
struggle here is
between the
employers, not
the employed.

148 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

The success of the strongest and ablest employers—
that is to say, the heads of the most successful
businesses—may involve, and does involve their
selection for survival as employers, and does involve
the 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
his business far better than the other. His hotel is
always full, whilst his rival’s is half empty. The
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 hotel-
keepers existence is the very thing they have been
struggling for, and the survival of the one has meant
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

ll te iii ee le ii

THE RIVALRY OF EMPLOYERS 149

by the successful hotel-keeper of a fortune double — Book n
that with which he started has not involved any “™?*"?
diminution in the wages of his staff. It will, on the The staff of
contrary, if we are to take the case now in question falhotel keeper
as typical of the survival of the fittest employers fy pune em.
generally, have not only not diminished their Pioved Py the
wages, 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 increase
in wealth which the ablest employers have, by their
struggle with rivals, secured for their own enjoy-
ment, there has been not a corresponding diminu-
tion, but a corresponding increase in the means
of subsistence that have gone to the population
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 struggle which pro- Historical pro-
duces economic progress—and progress of every aise i
kind is produced in the same way—is not a general rae g

Book II
Chapter 2

not for sub-
sistence, but
for domination.

150 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

struggle which pervades the community as a whole ;
neither is it a struggle between the majority and an
exceptionally able minority, in which both classes
are struggling for what only one can win, 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 generally
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
domination of the greatest man.

—— a ee

a

CHAPTER Ill

THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GREAT MAN APPLIES
HIS GREATNESS TO WEALTH-PRODUCTION

Tue 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 All gain by the

° eye : ° . domination of
say, the civilisation of the entire community de- the fittest,

pends alike for its advance and for its mainten- Sem "¢%™
ance on a struggle which is confined within the ee ee
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 commun-

ity gains, except the men who have personally lost

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 ;

152 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

authority, and who share the merited fate of their
own errors or deficiencies.

The progress and the maintenance, then, of
civilisation 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 — Book 1
great men will feel to be worth working for. ap)

In the second place, since the great man, as We and also that
have seen, is an agent of progress and civilisation a
only because he influences others—because he guides Poe exccP!
their speculative beliefs, and in certain respects ticvlar means.
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 efficient may
establish itself, and that of the less efficient cease.

Now the whole question of motive we will deal Now the ques-
with later on. We will for the present put it pape son
altogether aside. We will assume a natural impulse %; bresent we
on the part of all great men to develop their powers Wi! confine
to the utmost, and employ them in influencing ‘be question of
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, ergs
the means by which the great man influences others *""™

will vary with the nature of the results which his

Book IT
Chapter 3

In some they
are too obvious
to need dis-
cussion.

154 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

influence aims at eliciting. The social activities on
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.

Now out of these five domains of activity the
three first—namely, the intellectual, the religious,
and the military—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

.

pe 5 we:
r

a

FIVE DOMAINS OF ACTIVITY 155

disciples give to the multitude. But these means Book 11
are of so universal a kind, and have so little con- “3
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 Cesar or Wellington. 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 setyan
control the actions of others so that ordinary men ‘2 domains

of politics and

may be guided by the faculties of the exceptional— °f wealth-pro-

: eve . : duction.
the only domains of activity in which these means,

156 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 thus employed, really require minute and careful
Chapter 3° 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.
The question This is specially true of the domain of economic

is most im-

portant in its Production; for it is mainly on aecount of its con-

vate, nection with the production and distribution of

oO 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 pro-
cesses 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

0 Ne

——

SLAVERY AND THE WAGE-SYSTEM 157

really our first concern to examine relates tothe means _ Book 11
by which great men, whose greatness consists in the “3
fact that they are exceptional in their powers of
causing 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
or else in some way that is a combination or modi- la Naps
fication of both. One of these ways is slavery ; minence te

action of others

Whe co an
the other is the capitalistic wage-system. Let us hisses,

consider how the two resemble each other, and also slave-system
H and the wage-
how 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

widely different; but so far as concerns their direct The slave-
connection with industry—their operation on men Geedieiae tae
during the actual processesof production—slaveryand (een on
the capitalistic wage-system differ only in this: that by inducement.
the one secures the required industrial obedience 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

Book IT
- Chapter 3

Wage-capital,
not fixed
capital, gives
the primary
power to capi-
talism as a
progressive
agent.

158 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

be built at all, the bricklayers, masons, and other
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 struc-
tures and appliances which are grouped together
under the general head of fixed capital by econo-
mists. But these structures and appliances are
themselves the result of the previous influence of
great men on the industrial actions of the many ; and
as it was by means of wage-capital that this influence
was secured, the primary and most essential functions
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

ee a ee

CAPITAL AS ACCUMULATED FOOD 159

accumulation of the necessaries and comforts of life, Book 11
by the consumption and use of which menare able to “™?**"3
sustain themselves when engaged on works requir- wage-capital
ing a long period for their completion, which will jason ot neces:
when completed be useful and produce much, but “"°s fl
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-
wage-capital it is necessary that these accumulations piece
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,

Book II
Chapter 3

and appor-
tioned by them
amongst
many, on
certain con-
ditions.

Karl Marx
entirely mis-
understood
what these
conditions are.

160 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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
man possessing it to make with ordinary workers—
a bargain, not that they shall work such and such a
number of hours (for that they would have to do
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
miss its significance. Karl Marx conceives of the
capitalists as a body of men who, so far as produc-
tion is concerned, 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 161

labourers in every day through the gates, on the Book m
condition that every evening the unhappy men “™?*"3
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 pro-
ducing anything; but it is perfectly certain that
a society of this kind would exhibit none of the
increasing 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 intense The essence
effort, their intellectual faculties to industry in its i oe
minutest details. It has increased not because the ,o tury.
monopoly of capital has enabled the few to say to directed by the
the many, ‘‘ We will allow you to work at nothing,
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

II

Book II
Chapter 3

The question
of how much
the few
appropriate of
the product is
a separate
question

altogether.

The corvée
system or
slavery would
make wage-
capital super-
fluous; and
then thus show
us what the
essential
function of
such capital is.

162 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

concerned, may appropriate much of the gross
product or little; or they may leave the whole of it
to be divided amongst their employees. What they
actually have done, or do, or may do, in this
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 actual 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 pro-
ducts. 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.

This truth will become plainer still when we
reflect that if only certain conditions prevailed
which in many civilised countries survived till quite
recently, the whole process of production as we now
have it might be carried on without any wage-
capital at all. These conditions are those of the
corvée 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 1
applied to modern industry, would have, no doubt, Parees
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 covvée 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-called ‘+co-
assistance is afforded by the talents of the few to the aeuee
industrial efforts of the many, may be secured by {ituica.
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

Book II
Chapter 3

There are,
then, only two
alternatives—
the wage-
system and the
slave-system ;

164 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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-opérators,
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.

We are thus brought back to the point from which
we started—namely, that there are two methods only
by which, in the domain of industry, the superior
faculties of the few can direct 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-SVYSTEM 165

it. This proof is afforded us by the schemes which, Book 11
with ever-increasing clearness, have of recent years “3
been put forward by all the more thoughtful
socialists.

These enthusiasts, who are still careful to tell as we shall
us that they regard the wage-system as the source sdartor bow
of all social evils, have been slowly coming to a a
perceive that the ability with which the labour is oP Sim
directed is as important a factor in production as Y Sisttutns
the labour itself, which is directed by it. They pro-
pose 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 Fadzan Essays. It is there stated that

Book II
Chapter 3

166 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

with regard to the apportionment of the means of
subsistence, the only ‘‘ ¢valy socialistic” scheme is
one which would ‘ adsolutely 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 different citizens.

For they would The vendering of such services, on the other hand,

secure in-
dustrial
obedience by
coercion,

not through
the worker’s
Own desire to
earn his living.
And this is the
essence of
slavery.

instead of being left to the option of the citizen, with
the alternative of starvation, would be required under
one uniform law or civic duty, precisely like other
Jorms of taxation or military service.”

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
the wage-labourer, so far as the direction of his
productive actions is concerned, is that he has
not to work as he is bidden in order to gain
his livelihood, but that, his livelihood being assured
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

il is

CAPITALISM AND PROGRESSIVE STRUGGLE 167

progress and maintenance of economic civilisation Book 11
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 civilisation
implies the existence of either one system or the
other, and that socialists accordingly, in proportion
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 tet us
means by which any one great man exercises indus- omen tang
trial control over the actions of a number of ordinary W™<? the

great directors
men. We have still to consider the means by which °f industry

compete

the most efficient of the great men get this control seniuaticns
. . e another.
into their own hands, and take it out of the hands of

the less efficient.

Under the végzme of private capitalism this process Under capital-
° - . ism they do
is simple. The fitness or efficiency of each great so, owing to

man is according to the acceptability to the public of (fe 2c "4!

the man who

the goods or services which he offers them. If the cannot direct

industry so as

public are not pleased with these goods and services, * please the
public, loses

they do not buy or demand them; and the capital his capital, and
of the man by whom they are offered, not being Sr
renewed by any money received, melts in his hands, “"°"°™
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

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,

168 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 “cut-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 socialists are completely blind. The struggle
to live, or, in other words, the struggle to
secure employment, 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 struggle
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

Book IT
Chapter 3

170 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 not only does it inflict no injury on themselves, but
“Pr 3 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 benefit,
because they confuse it with the 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
reintroduce it Should attack, but that the kind of competition
ean ow" 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 efficiency,

and robbed of nothing else.

the only For our contemporary socialists, who have at last
bei : ARE
change P18 come to perceive that the productivity of labour de-

associated with hands on the ability with which it is directed, perceive

the slave-
system, which g]so the fact that, out of many possible directors, some

cumbrous and would direct it far more efficiently than others. They

inefficient. ° °
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

—— ee

COMPETITION INVOLVED IN SOCIALISM 171

organisers, had to act as State officials, or else not
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 per-
suade 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

Book II
Chapter 3

Book II
Chapter 3

Competition
between
employers,
then, is a part
of every social
system that
permits of
progress,

but since the
reintroduction
of slavery is
practically
impossible, we
must regard
the wage-
system

172 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

capitalists which socialists so furiously denounce,
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, then, between the directors of
labour—or, as it is here defined, the struggle for
industrial domination—is as much a part of the
theoretical ~égzme of socialism as it is a part of
the actual véezme 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 matter
in the one case, and the mass of the consuming
public deciding it in the other for themselves.

Now we may safely say that the régime of
industrial coercion, or slavery, even though it should
bear the name of socialism, is not in these days
possible. It is impossible for two reasons—one,
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* Book 11
our consideration ; and such being the case, there Ciepters
remains for us the absolute certainty that if society is asa permanent
to make any further industrial advance, or if it is to pine
save itself from a relapse into industrial helplessness, °°"
the capitalistic wage-system, and with it capitalistic
competition, or, in other words, the competitive
struggle 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

. P : reduce society
perfectly true that this system might at any given to ashes, but
® . . thi t
time, and in any given country, be paralysed or an4 capitalistic
reduced to ashes; but the forces that would over- comprtinon

would rise

throw it would be essentially non-productive. The een. ore
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

Book II
Chapter 3

for capitalistic
competition
means the
domination of
the fittest great
men.

The industrial
obedience of
the many to
the few is the
fundamental
condition of
progress.

174 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

the realised process of the more efficient members of
the human race controlling and guiding the less
efficient; capitalistic competition is the means by
which, out of these more efficient members, society
itself selects those who serve it best ; and’no society
which intends to remain civilised, and is not prepared
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
by them in its production; that their inequality in
productive power is of such a kind as to render the
industrial obedience of the larger number of them to
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 being, as they claim to be, the expressions
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.

Book II
Chapter 3

CHAPTER IV:

THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GREAT MAN ACQUIRES
POWER IN POLITICS

In discussing IN discussing, with reference to political govern-
the means by :
which the great Ment, the means by which the great man controls the

man wields actions of others, it will be found that the point on

power in

‘waa which we shall have to concentrate our attention

question differs differs somewhat from that which engaged it when
from the ques- - < . = * ty
tion raised by we were discussing the same question with reference
his power in A . ° ‘
industry; | 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 upholder of autocracy, admits, firstly, that
h 2 : ,
eae satisfactory governors must be exceptional or great
case of the men; secondly, that the fittest great men can be

great wealth-
producer ar iti : i ‘Z
Ease 2 secured by competition only ; and, thirdly, that how
in the case of ever they are appointed, and whatever may be the
the governor. aos ° F

principles on which they govern, their orders must

in every case be enforced by virtually the same

THE PROGRESSIVE STRUGGLE IN POLITICS 1 eis

sanctions. The last of these three facts—namely, Book 11
that the commands of the governor must be en- “4
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 ee ereaest
always be a genius, must in some respects, at all admit that the
events, be a great or exceptional man, is of course trust be an
admitted by the advocates of autocracy, aristocracy, *°Pto"™
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 Jersonne/ of the government might and sie pat
be chosen by casting lots. Next, as to the question chosen by

oe ° : elective
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.
12

Book II
Chapter 4

There is a
competitive
element even
in autocracies,

-and demo-
cracies are
essentially
competitive.

178 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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, —‘“‘postguam cerdonibus esse timendus
caeperat’’—will, as history shows us, be assassinated
or got 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

—— ee ——<_ +

THE GUIDE VERSUS THE REPRESENTATIVE 179

power is taken from him when the majority cease Book 11
to be satisfied, not only because they are of opinion “™*"+4
that he governs badly, but because they are of
opinion that a Disraeli will govern better. A demo-

cracy, 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 All parties also
‘with—namely, the necessity for great men as ee eset
governors, for the selection of the fittest of them paced a
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 practi-
cal or theoretical difference between them consist, by
which most undoubtedly the former is distinguished
from the latter? The only essential point of differ-
ence 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 Democrats are

peculiar only in

_communicates to those elected. An elected governor, their theory

. that th st
whether chosen from a large or a small class, is, greatness

according to the aristocratic or oligarchic theory, 7a’

their governors

chosen because he is personally wiser than those § @ Perceptive

: Saws _ a and executive
who elect him; and it is theoretically his mission, greatness,
eaate : Gacy a a which will
within very wide limits, to follow his own judgment, enable them to

: h
not that of the electors. The democratic theory nid Brat

is the very reverse of this. The elected governor, Wh % te

? many.

Book II
Chapter 4

This is the
only point in
which the
democratic
theory differs
from the
aristocratic.

180 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 illiterate
lover employs to put his passion for him grammati-
cally 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

DEMOCRACY AS THE MASTER OF ITS RULERS 181

is to be smothered or over-ridden by the average will, Book 11
as is expressed clearly enough in the well-worn “+4
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-—
. . . : é . z cratic ruler is,
just described, according to which the brain of the theoreticany,
ideal ruler is merely a balance for weighing the wills {ene the
of multitudes, which are dropped into one or other Who
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

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.

182 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 demo-

COMPLETE DEMOCRACY AN ILLUSION 183

cracy, exerting itself independently of any separate Book 11
will of the few, and turning the powers of the few fhepee4
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
ordinary 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 atall. |
For although there is much in the history of the But these signs
present century to warrant the assumption that the for Seat ess
political will of the many is at last emerging as ae sil
supreme and independent governing power, we “pendson the

action of

shall find that these movements and opinions, which ae:
seem, when viewed superficially, to result from the
spontaneous actions and spontaneous thoughts of
the many, 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

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.

184 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 Book 11

the capacities, the character, and very probably "4

the personal designs of the exceptional man who

supplied 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
ak ele seems to be the

opinion expressed, or a political demand made, by a opinion of the

body of ordinary men thus absolutely unanimous ¢enera

generally de-

seems at first sight a genuine expression of the will Pendent om the

influence of a

and the capacities of the many, it always in part, fw-
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 The many, for
Free Trade and Bimetallism. If any British Govern- never ne
ment were to revert to the system of protection, it pete h

cannot be doubted that throughout the country there o Bimetallism

if a few men
would be meetings and demonstrations, at which pany

worked on
every throat would be unanimous in shouting con- them.
demnation of theirconduct. America-has witnessed

a precisely similar outburst in favour of a proposal

Book II
Chapter 4

186 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

to remonetise silver. The issues raised, how-
ever, both by the free traders and the bimetallists,
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? Evena

——

DEMOCRACY IS DISGUISED OLIGARCHY 187

village meeting is never got together without the — Book 1
agency of some one who is slightly more efficient “™?*"4
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 Fou, "5

nuclei, round

to those revolutionary movements which have the whist to form
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

Book II
Chapter 4

Thus even in
what seems
extremest
democracy the
few are
essential.

Democrats,
however, may
argue that
under demo-
cracy the few
do, in the long-
run, carry out
the genuine
wishes of the
many.

188 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

sense derive their power from the many. They do
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
surrender it into the hands of the exceptional men
for the simple and enduring reason that, with very
few exceptions, which will be examined in another
place, it comes 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.

The apologists of democracy, however, have
another argument left them. They may contend
that the exceptional men, who are necessary to the
development of the collective powers of ordinary
men, though each of them is constantly, with regard
to particular questions, following 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 — Book 11
of which their masters do not actually approve. “+
Now even were this representation of the case true,

it would leave untouched that broad and fundamental

truth on which it is the primary purpose of the

present work to insist. It would leave untouched Even were
the truth that the great mass of human beings are chia
helpless without the assistance of a minority more dao,

efficient than themselves. If ninety-nine average Youd be false,

for unequal

men, through the aid of a hundredth man who is men would be

. : essential to
exceptional, can develop and give effect to a collec- executing the
tive will, which is altogether their own, and Ym.”
originates entirely with themselves, but if they can
neither develop it nor give effect to it unless the
hundredth man lent 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 ordérs which he
executes had been largely originated by himself ;
just as a lens is essential to the photographer's camera
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 11 hundred would be diminished by one ninety-ninth

res 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

Seema’: thé superior few are ever the mere passive agents

passiveagem'ss Which the democratic theory 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

put neverthe. genuine will—the will and wishes of the average

loimeres’ man as distinct from the will and wishes of the man

do impress

their will on aaa ° a °
hem toavreat WhO is in any way exceptional—on the exceptional

pent. men 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 average man, when these Book 1
acts are considered as a whole; but they may be “?t"4
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
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-
is asked our inquiry is gradually taking a new ew eats of ti
turn, and that having started with asserting the Peon ihe
claims of the great man as the author and sustainer PoVW's of the
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
of politics the many, so far as direct and intentional in Pauty
influence is concerned, are actually capable of play-
ing 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

Book II
Chapter 4

and yet when
we think it
over we shall
see that it is
great in most
domains of
activity.

192 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 discoveries
to the many, if the many were not, in various
degrees, capable of assimilating and responding to
them. Still less could the great man of industry
realise 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

THE TWO CO-ORDINATE POWERS 193

‘true. In dealing with the activities of the few, we — Book 11
have taken those of the many for granted. This “™?*"4
general assumption, however, though inevitable at We had to
the beginning of our inquiry, has been provisional pects
only. To any scientific conception of what is done “7s We
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 actu-

ally 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

~~

ft

Fon
- ‘ie A
eH lg

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 Mill declares

that when two

Economy Mill alludes to the question raised by agencies are
certain thinkers, of ‘‘ whether nature gives more eet
assistance to labour in one kind of industry than See
another”; and he endeavours to show that the conmbutions |
question is useless and unanswerable. In every ‘isctiminated.
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 “ zndefinzte

and tncommensurable.” ‘When two conditions,” he
proceeds, ‘‘are egually necessary for producing the

effect at all, it 1s unmeaning to say that so much of

wt ws produced by one, and so much by the other ;

at ws like attempting to decide which half of a pair

of scissors has most to do in the act of cutting, or

which of the factors five and six contributes most

to the production of thirty.” I\f this argument is

applicable to nature and labour as agents in the

198 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 production of commodities, it is equally applicable
Chapter * 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 argues Mill brings the argument forward with special

thus with - >
special refer. reference to agriculture. Let us take, he says in

ecto. 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
but he over- very greatly in fertility ; and if the produce of one—

looks what in ° x :
actual life is the least fertile—when cultivated by a given amount

the mat 3 of labour, be symbolised by ten loaves, the produce
pare. 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
The labour applied to the first, it produces ten loaves only ;
remaining the ‘ ~
same, the pro- When applied to the three others, it produces two, |
sith thegaaity OF five, or ten loaves in addition. About the first
of the land. 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 m1
parts played by land and labour in producing them °°?"
are “‘zudefinite and tncommensurable,” precisely as

Mill says they are. But the two, the five, or the |

ten extra loaves which result when labour is applied

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 Tre extra pro-

. ° ° F duct resulting
in producing the loaves, or, as Mill puts it, ‘te from tabour

effect,’ the parts played respectively by land and 23 es
labour are incommensurable so long as the land, ths land. not
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 ot
blades of a pair of scissors were made of two pratt
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

Book III
Chapter 1

463 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

efficiency of the more efficient pair would, it is
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 MILL'S ARGUMENT 201

the patentees of the chain, we may be certain,
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
social action the effects which have to be considered
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 all,’ as though the same amount of land and

Book III
Chapter 1

Mill errs by
ignoring the
changing
character of
the effect.

Book III
Chapter 1

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 pro-
duce the in-
crement,

202 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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,
instead of producing something that can be described
generally as ‘‘ the effect,” produce in different cases
effects that are widely different—ten loaves when
the acre is bad, twenty loaves when the acre is good :
and, in a similar way, when the acres are of the
same quality, twenty loaves will be produced by an
acre if it is cultivated by the methods of civilisation,
and only ten by an acre if it is 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 degree ;
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 original basis; and before we proceed farther, — Book 111
there is one fact more in connection with them on “™?*'
which it is necessary for the purposes of our present Labour, how-
argument to insist. Of soils the same as to area, Fahy beam a
but not the same as to quality, some, it has been “st
said, will produce ten loaves, some fifteen, some Ronee
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, bok aa

then, in agriculture must be held for all practical
purposes to produce the whole of that minimum

Book III
Chapter 1

and in all kinds
of production.

‘The great man
produces the
increment that
would not be
produced by
labour if his
influence
ceased.

a64 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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.

Now just. as we can argue with regard to land
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 man.
We shall say, in fact, that the great man produces
so much of the product as comes annually into
existence when he directs the others, and disappears
as soon as he ceases to direct them.

Here, however, 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 Book 11
not produce this excess unless the average men “*P*"
were present to carry out his directions; and the Labour, itis
reader will possibly be disposed to argue that the tit to the pro-
average men may be as reasonably credited with {vcton of te
the whole of the product except that insignificant *s°:
fraction which the great man could have produced

without ¢em, as the great man may be credited

with the whole of the product except that which

the average men could have produced without zm.

Now this reasoning has a certain fanciful but we cannot
plausibility, but it is absolutely devoid of any ahantoaie Bet
practical meaning; and in order to show the gyre
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

508 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book ur centre. It is: equally evident that no practical
Chapter ¥ conclusion as to the claims and prospects of labour
for the could be drawn by considering what would happen
soos eto if the labourers could live without food. Now since
the gest wen 20 food is producible without labour, a population
were there or which does not labour is just as impossible a con-
s 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

The cessation happen if the average men ceased to labour. The

f th t shunt
Jan's influence latter——or the majority of them—would have to

isa peace"! labour in any case, whether there were any great
the cessation rman to direct their labour or no; and the supposition
is not ; 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.
ities by These alternatives are being constantly exempli-
examples. 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

1 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

Book III
Chapter 1

Book III
Chapter 1

Thus the great
man, in the
most practical
sense, pro-
duces what
labour would
not produce in
his absence.

An analysis of
practical
reasoning as to
causes gener-
ally will show
us the truth of
this.

208 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

with any approach to exactness will, no doubt, be
more difficult 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
calculation is one which is based on the simplest
and most indisputable principles, and that not only
in a theoretical, but in the most strictly practical
sense, what great men produce, when they co-
operate with average men by directing them, is
the amount or degree 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.

The absolute validity of this method of argu-
ment and calculation will be yet more apparent
to the reader 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.

CAUSES IN PRACTICAL REASONING 209

the cricketer; but the entire antecedents and con- Book Ill
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

: = the
practical purposes will be found to be always one (ause of an

4 ‘ : : effect is that
which, under the circumstances in view, may oF (orce only

may not be present,'—which a careless person may Menage as

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-

1 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

Book ITI
Chapter 1

as we see
when men
discuss the
cause of a fire,

or of the
accuracy of a
chronometer,

210 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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
all know that when a house is burnt to the ground
the causes of the phenomenon comprise the
inflammable 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.
The reliability of a chronometer, any practical man
will tell us if we ask him about the matter, depends
on the balance and the escapement. It is the perfect
‘compensation ” of the former and what is called the
“detachment” of the latter 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

spring and a train of intervening wheel-work. But Book m
if any one were explaining the causes of a chrono- “?"*
meter’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 oF the causes

° ° 4 . of danger toa

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 gvece ™°
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 ut their anxiety by saying that his life depends not
Chapter on the rope but on the rock. In either case it
would literally depend on both, and on a thousand
other things beside; 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.
wos aisehe de But there is yet another method, still more neces-
another means sary to be described, by which we are able to differen-

of discriminat-

ing between the tiate the respective products of these two classes of
products of

enceationnl “ae =f method which will assist us not only to
aden men. assign.to each 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 Book 111
been considered, will be seen to be self-evident. ‘?*?**?
Whatever the many contribute to the social con- This is by an
ditions. of a community, either in the way of feealtiee’
industrial production or of the formation of habits pycauce the
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 offspring, are facts Are these
which determine much in the conditions of. all ed by
societies. On the other hand the social effects jy oun)*
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

Book III
Chapter 1

214 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

more or less numerous minority; and even when
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.

CHATTER: ii

THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PURELY DEMOCRATIC
ACTION, OR THE ACTION OF AVERAGE MEN IN
CO-OPERATION.

THE great-man theory as held by the conventional caryte was
wrong in his

historian, and expressed by Carlyle and others in gains for the

those vehement formulas which have so justly See ee

excited the ridicule of Mr. Herbert Spencer, errs ‘ailed to note
that his powers

not because it emphasises the fact that the great 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, po (ne sed
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
with him the whole school of socialists, impressed abating aaialie
by the obvious fact that the many do something, go scmemme
never pause to inquire what they do, or how much }' pipet
they do, or how little, but rush to the conclusion that ‘ins.

Book III ,
Chapter 2

What the
many do is
limited. We
must see pre-
cisely what the
limits are.

If a Russian
conspirator
employs a
hundred work-
men to dig
what they think
is a cellar,

but is a mine
for blowing up
the Czar,

até ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

the many do everything. This conclusion is even
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
limitations are. The methods by which the dis-
covery is to be made have been already indicated.
Let us now go on to apply them. They are of two
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 implies.
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.

The practical validity of both these kinds of
reasoning is shown by the following imaginary, but
not impossible case. A hundred Russian workmen,
all 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
from below. The so-called cellar was a mine, the
wine-cases were filled with dynamite. Now if all

DIFFERENT ELEMENTS IN ONE RESULT 217

those who were concerned in the production of this Book 111

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

and attained result had been not criminal, but entre ciminal

beneficent, the elements in it that made it glorious eee

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 people when a choir
‘ . ‘ ‘ ° sing Handel's

with ordinarily good voices are so trained and music, Handel

organised as to sing a chorus out of JsvaeZ in Conuibuirs the

specific char-
Egypt, the peculiar qualities which tender EhiG ena iee
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 kind Aare ° so eqe the facts of
e 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

218 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 1 impossible, in a case like this, to examine social
Chapter 2" 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 speculative knowledge. The first affords us the
progress and Clearest illustration of how to discriminate the pro-
knowledge, duct 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 considering
the nature of the faculties which the production of

the result implies.
In the case of To begin with production, then, let us take the
nesses case of the United Kingdom, and consider the amount
must apply ‘he ber head that was annually produced by the popula-

inquiring what tion a hundred years ago. This amount was about ©
is produced by

labour with £14. At the present time it is something like

“epabtines: = 435, and the purchasing power of money has so
van increased 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), we 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 Book m1
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
414 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 To the
‘intellectual, and apply to this our second method zing ie
of analysis. Of purely intellectual results, or, as Mill nov'ess* “*

must appl
calls them, “advances in speculative knowledge,” the method of
the most striking examples are to be found in ‘culties are
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 BON...

school-boy, or of the kind of man into which the ‘ed to the
average school-boy grows. Wemay indeed dismiss —

Book III
Chapter 2

And now let
us turn to
political
government,

What can the
faculties of
average men
do when left
to themselves ?

They can
accomplish
only the
simplest
actions,

220 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

purely intellectual progress as the domain in which
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
faculties of the many, as distinct from those of
the few, are capable of operating there. This
inquiry resolves itself 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
the faculties of ordinary men can accomplish, without
any assistance from exceptional faculties whatsoever.
In the domain 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
and the formulation of, and the insistence on, very
simple demands. Of the destructive actions referred
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 Book m1
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 and formulate
upon unaided, we may take as an example a demand oriole

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 pecan eral
could be established only by inference, the lynchers (ore ofthe
would have to be convinced of it by some clever “<cPtion™!
advocate. If the lynching itself were a matter of teauired.
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

Book III
Chapter 2

Now in any
civilised
country few
governmental
measures are
really simple.

Exceptional
men must
simplify them
for the many,

222 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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

genuinely popular until it was identified with the simplest of all
aspirations—the non-payment of rent.

ORIGIN OF DEMOCRATIC OPINION 223

question from the point of view of the many, we do Book 111
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 Thus the voice
and the civilisation of the country increase. The rales
voice of the many is heard as loudly as ever; but $s**:,<choes
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

\

Book III
Chapter 2

This, however,
is not the end
of the matter,

for the details
of govern-
mental
measures are
not the whole
of government.

The true
power of
democracy is
to be seen in
religion and in
family life.

224 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

the end of our inquiry; but it only brings us to the
beginning of what is really the important part of it.
For though these conclusions, so far as they go, are
absolutely true, 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—
does not represent that process in its true social
entirety ; nor is civil government wholly an affair
of measures which are devised, discussed, amended,
demanded, opposed, carried, 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
at all; and the nature of its action here will throw
a remarkable light on the nature of all action which
is in a true sense democratic. Of the domains of
activity here 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 Book 1
and observances, with the special habits of mind ‘™P**?
and dispositions of the heart which are appropriate Though the
to them, which has ever influenced great masses of te ee nie
mankind, is mainly a result of pure democratic action. 237202 *
It is true that in the establishment of the great
religions of the world another agency has played a
great partalso. 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 yet religions
and explained the respective gospels entrusted to pict #

them, and given by their saintly lives examples of aed Pe

cause they

the value of their teaching. But whilst nowhere is ieee
the power of the few—of the very few—more man.
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 com-
munities, nations, or races amongst whom the religion
in question has become established.

The truth of this statement is not in the least Christianity
invalidated if we apply it to a religion which we as- tats feed
sume to have been supernaturally revealed. Indeed,
the clearest example of its truth may be found in the
phenomenon of Christianity. Whether we attri-

15

V

226 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 bute the doctrines of Christianity to a natural or a
Chapter 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
assents 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 But the clearest illustration of the truth thus
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 __ Book 11
structure built up by the misguided ingenuity of “™?*"?
priests, and imposed by them on a credulous and The doctrines
i j formulated by
passive laity; but so far, at all events, as the the aristocracy
; : :
more important doctrines are concerned, the very phe es.

reverse is the case really. It has been the world “isinated

amongst the

of ordinary believers that has imposed its beliefs mass of com-
jo 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 cu/tus 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

228 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 111 in a way which was in all cases practically similar ;
Chapter? 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
Bpenlogians: regard to the Virgin’s sinlessness, and the degree of
merely worship which is her due, has been the work, no
reasoned ©" doubt, of the few, not of the many—of priests, of
thus given’ 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
Boe tayo Ge plays in the development of religion is shown us by
“learly because tHE Church of Rome with greater distinctness than
the part played jt ig by any other great communion of believers ; and

by the few is

defined by it the reason is that no other great communion of

so sharply. 3 ' . om
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

:
i
1

%

RELIGIOUS DEMOCRACY A TYPE 229

Council. This Council considers how far they are Book 11
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 Sottolee
history of Catholicism may be thought, perhaps, only alluded to
to have little appreciable connection with those i ye
social or sociological problems which at present SP qann.
agitate the world, and give to the theory of de- “tic action.
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

Book III
Chapter 2

Thus en-
lightened by it,
let us turn
back to family
life.

230 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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.?

And now let us turn again to a nation’s family
life, and consider it in the light which the case
of Catholicism throws on 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-

1 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
government of*the few, not a government of the many; and yet the
religion or religions of the many impose limitations on our legislators

as stringent as any that could be imposed on them by any number
of formal mandates.

DEMOCRACY AND THE FAMILY 231

taneous workings. Thus the common religious _ Book 11
opinions of the mass of devout Catholics are, theoreti- . bn se
cally at all events, the sum of a number of independ-

ent opinions, which agree because they result from

a number of similar but independent’ experiences, Catholicism
Here we have the essence of democratic action— ooicacr isa
namely, a natural coincidence of conclusions, which olan
happen to be identical, not because 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 The: one life
any race or nation owe their points of identity to depaatie Gi
essentially the same causes. They result from Pods suit
propensities in a vast multitude of men which, (15? ei tiar
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

Book IIT
Chapter 2

232 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

made terminable with an ease unapproached at
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

1 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 word, 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 Book 111
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 ccinciience
originate in it. The legislation of the few, on the asec
contrary, has so to shape itself as to protect those ‘0 accommo.
modes of life and institutions which these habits ‘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

. . . . democratic
of men’s family lives are not to be found only in power deter-
the domain of laws and government. They confront Supine Bee
us even more openly in the material surroundings 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 ;

Book III
Chapter 2

and the furni-
ture and. other
commodities
in them ;

and indeed on
all economic
products.

234 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

for if the propensities which result in family life
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 true
also that they have not, so far as their details
are concerned, as deep a root in our nature as
the 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 de-
finite 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.
The influence, however, of men’s spontaneous
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,

———— ee

SUPPLY DEPENDENT ON THE FEW 235

and to the few alone. The practical validity of this Book 11
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 For though in
that if even in the development of religion the prettier
many are dependent on the exceptional powers of (amin 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- (a fact which

° F the powers of

temporary trade unionism. These are supposed trade unionism
by many of the trade unionists and their sympathisers pepbaghece
to show the growth of democratic power in the *PPse"!)
domain of production generally. What they do in

reality is to exhibit its essential limitations. They

Book III
Chapter 2

236 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

show this in a way which is hidden from the careless
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 isan 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
setting 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. Ina 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 ITI
Chapter 2

Book III
Chapter 2

yet it is the
wants and
tastes of the
many which
determine
what shall be
produced ;

238 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 Book 11
any sort of perfection. ee
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, satisfied ana though
tastes and wants existing in various sections of the Sicit these
community. The eliciting of these wants, or the anaes
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
common to all men, like the desire for food, or sip git ote
developed by influences from without, like the desire * (f° eth
for telegraphic accommodation, are, when once they 24 ¥he=

, ; : ; : once aroused
are in existence, essentially democratic in their are essentially

3 . emocratic
nature. They are not like the movements of 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 11 allto do. They represent the uncontrolled prompt-
ae 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, though it owes most of its
erasers.) development to the few, is yet, when its develop-
Satie ee ana Ment has taken place, fundamentally democratic
se in its nature. 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 elabor-
ately 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 orginal processes of
producing them. Production has now become quite
as complicated as commerce; and a manufacturing
aristocracy has developed itself equal in wealth to

the commercial.

DEMAND FOR COMMODITIES DEMOCRATIC 241

But though supply thus depends on the domina- Book 111
tion of the few, and rises and falls with the “™?"?
ability with which that domination is exercised, The most

ey = . Be gifted brewer
it is itself at the same time under the domina- cannot make

° ; . . the public
tion of the many. Some industrial genius may drink beer
make a colossal fortune by directing the labour of j;°% °°"
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 whisky ;
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
16

242 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book III Our attention, as we did previously, to production, the
eas. <i many, in the capacity of workers, are the servants
or subjects of the few.
Nowin politics And now let us turn back to the domain of
Gaviledemana politics. We shall. find that we do so possessed of
and supply; 4 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 point of which we must here take

democratic

demandin motice is this—that though the analogy between
poms 5" economic production and civil government is a
genuine one, it is not to be found in the pheno-
mena in which we should naturally be tempted
to look for it. What we should naturally be in-
clined 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_ Rook m1
demand; for the beer is demanded for its own ©???
sake, but laws and policies are not. They are The demana
: - 1 for laws is not
demanded for the sake of certain results on social the counter.
i i i ’ part of a
life which, by various processes of reasoning, those fio.
who demand them have been led to believe that commoiities,
‘or commodi-

they will produce ; and it is the results of laws and tis are de-
manded for

policies, not the laws and policies themselves, which their own
are in the political sphere what commodities are in fe72"5;""
the economic, and for which alone the demand is ®* results.
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 demana
. ° . for laws is like
equivalent to a demand for a particular kind of a demand that
beer, the demand for the law was equivalent to a Qryptes
demand that the brewer should employ some novel ?¥s°mespecial
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 11 is single; political demand is double; and whilst
Chapter? one part of political demand—namely, the demand
No one makes for social results—corresponds with economic de-
this latter
demand. mand, or the demand of the consumer for com-
sand ike modities, the other part of political demand—
politica, mamely, the demand for particular measures—does
Rouble, not 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 bicycles,
they do so because they approve of the qualities
which those goods manifest when in _ use;
not because they approve of the machinery by
Politicaldemo- which the goods were made. But in_ politics,
garly identified although there is likewise a demand for political
vend, not or ZOOdS, as such,—for social security, personal pro-
focial goods, sperity, and so forth,—of which each man is natur-
machinery. ally his own judge, 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. Book m1

They never represent the spontaneously similar ideas “*?**"?

of the mass of ordinary men, any more than the But in so far
P se as democracy

machinery used in a great brewery represents the is a demana

spontaneously similar ideas of the happy and united ;<; By Bee

customers whom a spontaneously similar taste 73)".

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 be

grounds on which its choice was formed would be pesca as

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 ut the power of the many. The result is that, whilst
Chapter? 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, power in the demand for political means—the kind

is democracy A °

specially asso- Of demand in respect of which they are most

ciated with the .

demand in influenced by others.

voneris ast? + ‘Now what, let us ask, is the explanation of this
fact? 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 instance, though the structure and

the only sphere Suey ;

of activity in Manufacture of watches is in one sense determined

cee ory by the many, because the manufacture of those

net watches only can be continued permanently which

ofsupply 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 Book 111
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

it is not even rendered unsatisfactory.

For this peculiarity in politics there are three and they can
reasons. One is that the connection between it here because
measures and the general welfare of the community potted
is by no means so close or immediate as the con- feronyento

nection between a watchmaker’s tool and the wheel ¢!9s¢ 2"¢ less
important than

or pinion to which he applies it. Social effects Saag!
follow on measures slowly, and the tendencies of management
bad measures are neutralised by other causes. The "°°!
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
remember is that it cannot exert itself or exist someone
for any practical purpose unless the few provide paertacae: &
it with the means of doing so, any more than a f0ved by the
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

Book III
Chapter 2

The power of
the many is a
power to
determine the
quality of
civilisation and
progress, not
to produce
them,

248 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

choice between them, alike presupposes the few who
will make the supply a possibility.

And if the power of the many over supply is
thus limited even in the domain of politics, in the
domain of economic production it is more limited
still, and in the domain of intellectual progress it is
absolutely 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
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
conclusions 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.

Book III
Chapter 2

It will be ob-
jected that the
conclusions
reached in the
last chapter
derogate from
the dignity of
the average
man.

CHAPTER III

THE QUALITIES OF THE ORDINARY, AS OPPOSED TO
THE GREAT, MAN

THE objections which will be taken to the con-
clusion arrived at in the preceding chapter resolve
themselves into two groups, one of which rests on
general and more or less sentimental considerations,
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,

MEANING OF TERM ORDINARY MAN 251

taste, and skill equal to any possessed by the men _ Book 111
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 But they do
briefly glanced at when we were considering the hap
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 technically
defined, is the

far more definite meaning than is given to them man who
when they are used ordinarily ; for most words when ures.
used ordinarily have several meanings, but when og PrO-
used technically they must have only one. Any

term, then, when used technically will of necessity
specifically 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 literature.

This observation, as the reader will readily perceive,

has a special application to our use of the term great

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

Book IIT
Chapter 3

the ordinary
man, as
opposed to
him, need not
be stupid.

He is merely
the man whose
talents do not
increase the
efficiency of
other men.

Poets, in this
technical sense,
are ordinary
men.

252 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

upon 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
—namely, that if the essence of technical greatness is
so to influence the actions or thoughts of other men
that 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
men and relegate to the class of ordinary men all
those whose greatness begins and ends with them-
selves, and does not tend to communicate itself to
any one beside themselves, 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.
The greatest poets, for instance, will in this way
be classed 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 performing their several tasks
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 dramatist
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
true of the arts is also true of the crafts, or, in other
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 progressive
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

1 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.

Book III
Chapter 3

So are the most
skilful manual
workers, .

Book III
Chapter 3

for very great
manual skill
does not pro-
mote progress
or influence
others,

254 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

gem-engraving of the Greeks and Romans has rarely
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-
ciding with any progress in manual skill, that it
actually depends on a getting rid of the necessity,
not certainly of all skill, but of skill of the rarer
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-
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 medizval 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

Book III
Chapter 3

Book III
Chapter 3

unless it can
be metamor-
phosed into
the shape of
orders given to
others.

Again, brilli-
ance or charm
in private life
does not pro-
mote progress,

256 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

given level, unless it can metamorphose itself—
as in many cases it can do by means of patterns
or otherwise—into a series of orders which men
who have less skill can execute, and thus affects
commodities not directly, but indirectly. So long
as it resides 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.

And now let us turn from the consideration of
human capacities, as applied to and expressing
themselves 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. Noone, Book it

for example, who knows anything of English society “3

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 inaugurate

any general moral advance ; and a man whose life is

rendered interesting by an exceptionally romantic

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 rnerefore the
majority of mankind as being so far passive with ony mem

regard to the production of progress that unless Promote Pro-

2 : * : gress, are not
there were a minority of men with faculties which asserted to be

, lacking in 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

Book III
Chapter 3

Indeed what is
really interest-
ing in human
nature is the
typical part of
it, not the
exceptional,

as we may see
by referring to
art and poetry.

258 ARISTOCRACY AND) EVOLUTION

case. What is really interesting in human life and
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.
The most famous and interesting characters to be
found in fiction or in the drama, though they may
have been invested by their creators with exceptional
circumstances and endowed with exceptional gifts,
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 isnot “aman,” but “man.” If a great dramatist
or novelist makes his heroes exceptional, he does so
only because he can, by this device, more easily givea
magnified representation of what is universal; and
the universal elements which he magnifies excite
universal interest, not because they are exhibited
on more than acommon 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 ?

wal _— ———s—- °° ° °

ARISTOTLE ON THE AVERAGE MAN 259

But not only is the normal man the type of what — Book m1
is interesting and important in humanity. He is “3
also the type of wise conduct in life, and secures
amongst men in general a conformity to this
conduct, not by means of advice given by exception-
ally excellent individuals, but by the purely demo-
cratic pressure of cumulative class opinion. The
force which this opinion exercises is commonly
called “The World.” The details of its injunctions Average
and prohibitions are different in different classes ; Siar mates
and when it is called “The World,” reference is 37° 2°...
usually being made to the pressure exercised by it °?'™"'
in 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 facuities shared
on the part of ordinary men, that forms, as Aristotle X13" 0,
says, the fundamental test of what is real. The tof truth.
world of reality is distinguished from the world of
dreams because the former is the same for all men.

It is 6 maou Soxe?t. The same fact is the foundation
and the justification of trial by jury—an institution
in which, as Sir Henry Maine has observed, we

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.

260 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOZLUTION

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
proportion 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 per-
ceptions which shows the reality and the qualities of
external objects, ordinary men’s perceptions would
never have sufficed 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 feel-
ings 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
ordinary man multiplied, cannot provide themselves

PROGRESS NOT THE WHOLE OF LIFE. 261

with the conditions of their own progressive develop-
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, anda
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 re-
cognise, 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

Book IIT
Chapter 3

262 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 to encounter. Objections will be raised against

Chapter’3_ 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 In order to see what these objections are it will be

object to this well to consider them in their extremest and most

conclusion only

| because it ic] if j i ;
oeeaIehes the UNCOMpromising form. We will accordingly consider

claim of excep- them as put forward by the socialists. That the
_exceptional Objections of the socialists to the claims made for
_ the great man are not grounded in any theory that
consistently 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 Cesar 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
employed 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- Book m
tion of them to two kinds of social action only; and “3
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 ;

e
wealth-producer are the only ones that here require eid se
our attention. erage 7

Now even here we shall find that the objections Pesinning to
: recognise the’

in question are originated not by theoretical, but by importance of
practical considerations only ; for one of the most ica here
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, ‘‘¢he 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

Book III
Chapter 3

and only
obscure the
fact for pur-

So far, how-
ever, as the
reasoning of
this book has
gone already,
no claim has

264 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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

ita. 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, Book 111

any socialist could object. We have not assumed “3

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 efficient i oan ee
of his workmen. On the contrary, we have assumed
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 fe kesps none
faculties on the practical business of wealth-produc- of the excep-

tional wealth
tion with as much intensity and devotion as he he makes, for

would do if the whole of what he produced were to oe
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

object ;

socialists need _

266 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 11 assumed the realisation of the very conditions at
Chapter 3 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 7¢gzme would consist not in getting

but thathe rid of the great man, but in securing his activity on

works exactly Tas e °

on the terms totally new. terms. The socialists aim, in fact, at

tne ocGeine securing the best industrial masters and treating

fo him. 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 hundred
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.

er taane Now, whatever the reader may think of this

‘whether he | €COnomic programme, there is nothing in the present °

Il or SS ; 3
‘eco 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 socialism.
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 faculties
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

CHAPTER 1

THE DEPENDENCE OF EXCEPTIONAL ACTION ON THE
ATTAINABILITY OF EXCEPTIONAL REWARD, OR
THE NECESSARY CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE
MOTIVES TO ACTION AND ITS RESULTS.

In entering on the inquiry which now lies before us
it is necessary to recall to the reader, and to insist
with renewed emphasis on a fact which has been ex-
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 maintenance
of civilisation depend, and which in a technical sense
we have here described as greatness, do not consist of
qualities which are unique in kind, or which are not
possessed in some measure by the masses of ordinary
men ; but that they are made up of ordinary faculties
magnified or mixed together in unusual proportions.
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 dimensions of
a tiger, may never in another man outgrow those of

Great men
differ from
ordinary men
in degree only,
not in kind,

Book IV
Chapter 1

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.

272 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

a weasel. Gveatness, then, is simply the possession
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, practically
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-
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
universal wants, and because, in the second place,
the earth is so constituted as to supply the materials
on which these faculties can operate. Or, to put the
matter in more general terms, the very commonest
and simplest faculties 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-

Book IV
Chapter 1

Thus the
exercise of the
simplest facul-
ties depends
on the want

of some certain
object, and on
the possibility
of attaining it.

If this is true
of the com-

‘monest kind, ministering to the needs which all men monest facul-

inevitably feel alike, and which they always must
feel so long as they remain alive, it is yet more
obviously true of those higher and rarer faculties

ties which aim
at supplying
necessaries,
much more is
it true of rare
faculties, which

ministering to needs which are so far from being aim at pro-

inevitable, that whole races have existed and do
exist 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

ducing super-
fluities.

274 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 1v produces. Columbus, for instance, as the records of
Chapter * 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, Qreat men in general, unless society is so constituted
if great men .
are to work in aS to render some reward or other the natural or
et es 2 possible result of the exercise of certain exceptional
shear gs faculties, and unless this reward shall be one which
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 virtuallya genuine social

society uncon-

sciously makes Contract. It is not, indeed, such a contract as Rousseau
2 social con dreamed off. _ 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 being renewed, and the terms of which reformers Book Iv
are continually trying to alter. Thus the socialists’ ae
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 this is a
which the community has not only made, but is arieiog con
always remaking and revising with its great men, “"Y"*"**
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

276 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book Iv the answer depends on these men themselves. It

Chapter * 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 mn ON the great man, no community can become or
themselves are : sys : .

the ultimate remain civilised which does not so arrange itself as

fxers of their to accord to its living great men such rewards as

own price.
they themselves feel to be a sufficient inducement
firstly to develop their faculties, and secondly to
employ them to the utmost.

/ Here is the Here, then, we have a new and final verification

eee of that truth which has already been established

men, not past against the arguments of Mr. Spencer—namely, that

conditions, are :
the causes the great man is a vera causa of progress, and that
practically s ss
involved in no explanation of progress has any practical value
eee 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 perhaps
even a superior, importance.
If the exceptional faculties of the great man

were so far like the faculties possessed by all men,

THE GREAT MAN AT AN ADVANTAGE 277

that by looking at him we could tell that he was a_ pox iv
potential inventor, or organiser of industry, or philo- “Pt?
sopher, as easily as by looking at a common man we These living
can tell that he can trundle a wheelbarrow, the entire Secters af 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 ecines tae
for exercising them, he will probably be hardly aware “cPton2!

owers till
that he possesses such faculties himself. Moreover, they Sonne.
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

Book IV
Chapter 1

They cannot,
therefore, be
coerced from
without, like
ordinary
workers.

They must be
induced to
work by a
reward

278 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 Zhe 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-

tent a

THE GREAT MAN’S TERMS 279

ward originally offered has to be raised several times Book Iv

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 which they
themselves feel

greatness to such a figure that the possessors of to besufticient.

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 Hence the
primarily comes in contact with the practical prob- Sambar dd
lems of to-day. That all progress is due to the tito ae
efforts of the superior minority is a truth which, <\eson tte
taken by itself, and apart from other truths allied to it, s°ci*y-
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 percentage 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

Book IV
Chapter 1

This is what
socialists con-
stantly forget,

280 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

will thus consist in arranging these conditions and
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.

It is this sociological and psychological truth
that even the clearest-headed 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 “‘ zzabzlity,” as Mr. Spencer calls it, “¢o com-
prehend assembled propositions in their totality” is
to be found in a remarkable passage by Mr. Sidney
Webb. Having observed that “‘soczalists would
nationalise both vent 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 untouched the third monopoly—the largest of
them all—the monopoly of business ability.” In
these last words he appears to be like a Daniel

———— a ——<_-

RECKONING WITHOUT THE HOST 281

come to judgment. He recognises in the fact that Book 1v
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- Qqualise
culty in the way of the realisation of socialism; but Oferine peer
now comes the passage for the sake of which these (rion)
others have been quoted. Great as this difficulty "ware

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. ‘Zhe more recent
socialists,” says Mr. Webb, “attack this third mono-

poly 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- nae these
able specimen of the modern socialistic theoriser. It great men
is therefore interesting to notice the hiatus that here Wows exrese

yawns inhis argument. The entire question which See ee
is really at. issue is begged by him. His allies, he at al.
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

Book IV
Chapter 1

Exceptional
rewards are
essential to

exceptional

action.

282 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 employ them who does not put him-
self at the mercy of the authorities by letting them know
he has them; and thus ‘‘¢he move 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 ifa
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 Bookiv
stimulating action of the hope of certain personal “™?***
advantages on the mind of the exceptional man,

which advantages he will not only covet as advan-

- tageous, 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-
only. What these personal advantages are, the che oa =
desire of which, coupled with their attainability, is ScPbon"!.
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.

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,

CHAPTER OW

THE MOTIVES OF THE EXCEPTIONAL WEALTH-
PRODUCER

In spite of their frequent forgetfulness of the
fact just insisted on, that the development and
exercise 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

SOCIALISTS ON MOTIVE. 285

has been due. These rewards have been defined in _ Book iv

a recent Handbook of Socialism as the pleasure of “*?*?

‘excelling,’ ‘the joy im creatwe work,” the satis- such as the

faction which work for others brings to “the zustincts Slee ek

of benévolence,” and, lastly, “ soczal approval,” or the Sos 8004,

homage which is called “‘ Lonour.” ing honour.
If the socialists, however, confined themselves to

maintaining that the desire of such rewards as these

constitutes a sufficient 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-

tional men, endowed with certain temperaments, cera ail

are motived by them to activities of certain specific {4} <"""s

kinds, other exceptional men will be motived by simuste
great men to

them with equal certainty to other activities of a wealth-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 pro-
portionate to the amount produced by them—an

|

Book IV
Chapter 2

Is the enjoy-
ment of excep-
tional wealth
superfluous

as a motive to
producing it ?

If it is so, it is
for the social-
ists to prove
that it is so;

286 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

amount which will separate their lot from that of
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
desire of possessing exceptional wealth is altogether
superfluous as a motive for producing it, and that
the great producers of it, when all chance of possess-
ing it is 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 prospect
of the largest fortune.

Now in endeavouring to make this peculiar.
position good, it is evident 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

PRODUCTION AND DESIRE OF THE PRODUCT 287

machinery, the pioneers of commerce? Their chief Book tv
moral indictment has been this: that these men, “*?**?
instead of labouring for their fellows, or for the for they them-

selves admit

sake of any of those rewards which the socialists that it has not
declare to be so satisfying, have been motived oe see
solely by the passion of selfish “greed.” Its hideous *" *°
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

insult ; 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

Book IV
Chapter 2

Are there any

signs, then,

288 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

that other motives, on the other hand, are actually
acquiring and exercising it.
Let us first, then, consider the passion of greed

that the desire itself, and ask whether there is anything in its con-

for exceptional

wealth is
-beginning to

lose its power ?

We shall find
that the
socialists
themselves
maintain just
the contrary ;

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 Book Iv
he gets less than he produces, and that consequently ise
the wealth of his employers is merely his own for they appeal
wealth stolen from him. ‘AW wealth ts due to oat ote
labour ; therefore to the labourer all wealth ts due” ie. voces as °
has formed from the first, and still forms the text t® ™o*

universal and

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

L _ questioned
slowly compelled to recognise the few to be pro- this so long as
° they believed
ducers of wealth just as truly as the many, that that the sole
the socialists began their attempts to get rid of the hrocuest was
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

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;

290 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

tion. 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 Book Iv
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 for even if he
that the desire of possessing great wealth is ceasing to ee sieges
be the motive for producing it. But those who Sus.
allow themselves to argue thus, show a curious PSs it first.
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 endowsthem. 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 végzme of social-

292 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION.

Book Iv ism, which would aim at depriving them of anything
Chapter? 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, since we have seen that ‘‘greed” as

sign, therefore, > ‘ =

that the desire € motive to wealth-production shows no internal

oe ey tendency to lose its old efficiency, let us turn to those

foree a5 other motives which the socialists tell us are to
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 these motives are has been sufficiently

other desires > r

acquiring new Shown already in language borrowed from the social-

force 28, _ istic writers themselves—the pleasure of “ excelling,”

wealth-produc- the ‘‘7oy wn creative 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

— lo

=.

SCOPE OF THE LOFTIER MOTIVES — 293

being based exclusively on some pleasurable con- Book 1v
dition of mind, which is independent of anybody “?*?
except the individual who actually experiences eee Joys of
the two last being based on a pleasurable condition benefiting
of mind, which is directly dependent on the actions abet) pace:
or the attitude of other people. We may therefore gycres
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
s awe = 2 . these joys is a
exceptional activity are, in the production of which motive to
one or other of these motives, or both of them, ec
have played, hitherto, any considerable part. We °"“"*
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 tt is a motive
the last from our consideration, not because it has ony"
not a most important influence on civilisation, but religioas works
because it has no direct connection with any of the

processes of wealth-production, except in so far as it

Book IV
Chapter 2

but neither of
these is the
same thing as
wealth-produc-
tion.

It is a motive
to artistic pro-
duction,
certainly,

294 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 reli-
gious 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 — Book iv
_ 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

truth—arduous though it is—is generally under- see ssa?
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
principal motive of their activity is not the desire
of any extrinsic reward, the amount of which they
will balance 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 ex-

296 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book IV ceptional faculties whose function it is to maintain
Chapter? and increase the production of wealth? With

and works of regard to artistic creation, we are certainly bound to

art are wealth ; = .

and scientific admit that great works of art are wealth of a highly

discovery is the - : . F

age important kind, and when a good picture is pro-

aaa Pr" duced, as it often is, solely in obedience to the
painter’s artistic impulse, we have a genuine example
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 allto 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
faculties of the great wealth- producers. The
evidence, in fact, as soon as we have fully examined
it, will be found to point in a direction precisely
opposite.

but great For, to begin with the case of the artist, it must

ks of art é
form buta. be remembered, in the first place, that works of art,

mt” 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- Book Iv
duced and multiplied 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 pre-
parations 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 ana artistic
powers are true, but qualify them only for decorative fon ye"
not for creative work—the men, for example, who Bshet's

motived by the

design beautiful stuffs and furniture—though the 4esire of
pecuniary

exercise of their power may be doubtless itself a reward;
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 whilst scientite
knowledge, though this, and more especially pure though made
scientific discovery, may form the basis of all pro- paign a
ductive effort, it is very far from being a form of 28%
productive effort itself. It has, on the contrary, no W&@lth-produc-

tion because

necessary connection with it. It does not even the men who
apply them

belong to the region in which such effort operates. desire wealth.

298 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

ba Iv Scientific truths, as apprehended by the mere seeker
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 productive
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
ever, of consist in the desire of self-realisation to those
‘seeecelige which consist in the desire of the approbation or the

honour makes

the soldier homage of others. This desire, which exercises a
work harder

than any great influence on the artist, and often also on the
labourer ? ‘ =
seeker after speculative truth, concurrently with the

—

THE SOLDIER’S MOTIVE IN BATTLE 299

desire of pure self-realisation, exhibits its force most Book IV
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 no-
thing besides itself, excepting perhaps a medal and Why, the
a scrap of ribbon—has been said by socialistic writers bod eae
to afford a conclusive proof that any practical work, Sake the sreat
no matter how laborious, and more particularly the Youth Pre,
work of the great wealth-producer, will be willingly
undertaken for the sake of the same _ reward.
“ The soldiers subsistence 7s certain,” writes a
well-known contemporary enthusiast. ‘‘/¢ does not
depend upon his exertions. At once he becomes
susceptible to appeals to his patriotism. He will
dare anything for glory, and value a bit of bronze
which 1s ‘the reward of valour’ far more than a
hundred 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 ‘hose
especially notice this last pownt who fancy we must
wart till men are angels before socialism be practical.”
And even so well-trained a thinker as Mr. Frederic ur. Frederic
Harrison has argued, from the readiness with which weed anes
men die in battle for their country, that they will be *s"™"
equally willing to deny themselves or suffer martyr-
dom for universal humanity.

To all these ideas and arguments there is one

Book IV
Chapter 2

The answer to
this is that the
work of the
soldier is
exceptional ;

400 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

answer to be made. They are all founded on a
failure to perceive the fact that military activity is
in many respects a thing apart, and depends on
psychological, and indeed on physiological processes
which have no 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

willingness to risk it cutting trousers, and is for Book iIv
certain reasons a phenomenon standing by itself. inc
That this is so is shown even more strikingly
by the fact to which the two other writers just and we cannot
; a’ te 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 hardship 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 Why men will do as soldiers what no one will do in

Chaps? any other capacity, and what soldiers themselves

will cease to do as soon as they become commis-
sionaires,

The fighting For this peculiarity in the soldier’s conduct there

inherent in the are three separate reasons. One is the strictness of

comnant 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, though he submits himself — Book 1v
to the most direct coercion, never considers himself, °™?**?
and never is considered a slave; and military
activity will always be a thing apart, and for ina way in
purposes of argument will never be comparable to scone
industrial, till human nature undergoes so radical "t's"
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
mere honour—of honour unaccompanied by any ces ones
extrinsic advantages — has an efficiency which is 720 cron

lectual efforts

. . . . . “1° required, ask
strictly limited in the domain even of military FT

activity itself. It may move men, in the act of tewardsbesides
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 Czsars 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

Book IV
Chapter 2

Still more will
the great
wealth-pro-
ducers do so.

There is there-
fore nothing
to show that
these other
motives will
supersede the
desire of
wealth.

What they
really do, and
what socialists
fail to see, is to
mix with the
desire for
wealth, and
add to its
efficiency ;

304 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

shop doors. If, then, the mere honour of being
a great conqueror is insufficient to stimulate the
activities by which great conquests are achieved, a
man is hardly likely to consecrate his entire faculties
to 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, therefore, in the present operations of
those motives, for which the socialists attempt to
claim a universal efficiency, as little to suggest that as
motives to exceptional wealth-production they will

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.

The socialists, in dealing with this question of
motive, have been led into the curious blunders
which have just now been exposed by their singu-

larly childish conception of what men’s actual

motives are. They divide motives into various well-
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 Book IV
certainly powerful, have been motived by the desire ““?**’
of pecuniary reward also. It is enough to mention as the desire of
the names of Bacon and Shakespeare, Rubens, Sat wae
’ Turner, and Scott. And with the desire of honour 27.“
the desire of pecuniary reward is found to mix itself Re". otc,
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 certain

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 For in saying
all exceptional exertions in wealth-production are pt weave
motived solely by the desire of exceptional wealth “St! 35 *
as such, although it is the doctrine imputed by the W@!»-produe- /

tion we do not

socialists to their opponents, has been said already sien tie eee)
to be a very imperfect rendering of any doctrine as its own sake,
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
20

Book IV
Chapter 2

or for the sake
of physical
gratification.

This forms a
small part of _
its desirability.

306 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

desire of it most powerfully influences. For wealth
as such, in the ordinary sense of the phrase, is wealth
regarded as a means of personal self-indulgence, It
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,
itis 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 a
man with every pleasure or luxury that his own
senses 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

WEALTH DESIRED AS A MEANS 307

there are three principal kinds, One of them is the Book 1v
pleasure of power, which in their analysis of human“? ?
motives the socialists conveniently overlook ; and It is cesirea
the two others happen to be the very pleasures by hema"
the desire of which the socialists themselves declare Frye. oy
the exceptional wealth-producers are to be principally Pleasures
marked in the future—namely, the pleasures of self- offer instead

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 desire
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

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.

308 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

proposition which the socialists 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 possess-
ing exceptional wealth will ever cease to be indis-
pensable 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

remaining to be considered which, whilst based on
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
the well-known contention that though the posses-
sion of exceptional wealth must be allowed to the
exceptional men who are actually engaged in pro-
ducing it, and the exercise of whose business ability
is just as essential to the country’s prosperity as to
their own, yet this possession of wealth should be
limited to themselves personally, and should not be
allowed to distribute itself amongst their idle and
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

Book IV
Chapter 2

It is argued,
however, by
semi-socialists
that the actual
producer may
be allowed the
income he pro-
duces, but that
this must end
with his life,
and not be
passed on to
his family as
interest on
bequeathed
capital.

310 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book Iv large by distributing amongst it an enormous income,
Chapter 2 which at present, instead of stimulating 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
~<stelln of abstract justice which it raises, or of the practical
would coincide 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 they say, in which a man can become possessed of

that all wealth . .
which isnot Wealth—either by producing such and such an

yore een, amount himself, 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, “4 man can get an income
only by working or by stealing. there 1s 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 Book v
possessors nor yet stolen by them. That is to say, “™?*"?
it consists of flocks andherds. 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
sions are wines, whose quality improves with time, tase of ioe
and whose value, consequently, whether in exchange ney
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
actual producer, in as true a sense as labour is, or anata. |
the ability by which labour is directed, let us begin 2° Worked for |

is capital,
by considering fixed capital as distinct from wage Which is past
. . = Si ae . > productive
capital, and by considering it in its simplest forms. ability storea

: : . up and
By fixed capital is meant any tools, machines, or externalisea.

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

Book IV
Chapter 2

31 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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

The dart of a
savage hunter,

the manure
heap or cart
horse of a
peasant,

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

neighbour wastes; and that every year, through
the powers accumulated in his manure heap, he can
raise a larger crop than his neighbour, though he
actually works less. Would any one affirm that the
man lost his right to his extra produce because he
produced it indirectly by the external agency of
his manure, and not directly by overstraining his
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?

Book IV
Chapter 2

are forms of
capital which
are actual pro-
duce, and the
product
belongs to
those who own
them.

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

engines and
manufactory

neither more nor less than portions of fixed capital, P!"*

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

Book IV
Chapter 2

These imple-
ments are like
a race of iron
negroes, and
are producers
as truly as live
negroes would

Indirectly,
wage capital is
also a producer
in the same
way.

314 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

a race of iron slaves. The amount of wealth which
the employment of a machine adds to the amount
that would be produced without it by a given
number of labourers, is produced by the machine
itself just as truly as it would be if the machine,
instead of a structure of wheels and framework,
took the form of a gang of artificial negroes, who
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.

And what is true of fixed capital is true of wage
capital also; for fixed capital, such as machines,
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 right to the men whose enterprise and whose
intellect created them.

Book IV
Chapter 2

Capital, then, as such, is as true a producer of And indeed

wealth as the men were who in the first instance
produced it; and when one of them passes a
portion of it on to his son, and with it the income
that results from it, this income is nothing that is
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

till they saw
that this argu-

ment could be

turned against
themselves, it
was strongly
urged by the '
socialists. ,

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,

316 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book IV would have been the rightful heirs to all capital,
Chapter’? 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, But the whole of this argument, based on the

however, the . P ° ‘ °

justification of Claims of abstract justice, would avail very little to

eae om 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.
lees The most obvious of the reasons why the right
act that the ‘ . .
powerof to income from capital forms in the eyes of the
capital to yield : 1 ai ae 1 .
prods exceptional wealth-producer a principal element in

the desirability of the wealth produced by him has

INCOME-VIELDING CAPITAL 317

its root in the facts of family affection. In spite of Book 1v
the selfishness which distinguishes so much of human “*?*** ?
action, a man’s desire to secure for his family such is what mainly
wealth as he can is one of the strongest motives of eee ae
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-
in luxury so long as he lived, but would condemn ser teary
all of them, the moment he happened to die, to be sees pi eae
turned by the butler and footmen into the street as M*athet,

wealthy men

beggars. are oe
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 fashionable

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,

Book IV
Chapter 2

nor would
wealth give
pleasure to
those who
might at any
moment be
beggars.

318 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 accumu-
lated and bequeathed to others in the shape of in-—
come-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 Book iv
ambitions of a family are not self-contained. 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
bare fact that they are the possessors of so much jot heritable,

not heritable,

money, but by the fact that they have the habits and Wet coud

produce none

interests which result, and result only, in the social of those social
results, such as

atmosphere created by a number of assured incomes, continuous
wholly independent of any daily struggle to make ehich minke
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 brings him, provided only that The weaith
he spends it on brandy, or beer, or absinthe ; but peice bey
that if he save it up and buys a useful horse with Dt 2cmally

: made it would
it, his purchase shall be confiscated by the State, Pater
because a horse is productive capital. This pro- beasts.
posal, however, is not only ludicrous in theory, but

it would, if put into practice, result in a sort of

Book IV
Chapter 2

Wealth is
desirable
because it is
the physical

\ basis of an en-
larged life ;

and there must

' thus be con-
tinuity in the
possession of
wealth,

320 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

society more vile and bestial than anything which
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.

The main value of wealth in the eyes of the
great wealth-producer does not consist in its minis-
tering to brief spasms of self-indulgence, but in the
fact of its being the foundation 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
possesses wealth, but is accustomed to its possession,
and is characterised by accomplishments, tastes,
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 Book iv
are by the desire of wealth that shall come to them S™?*?
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, Hence the
will continue to render a tribute to their creators armas
and their creators’ children. piscine

possession not

Thus, to express the matter in brief and familiar only of what

he produces

language, the sustained development and exercise directly, but of
what he pro-

of exceptional ability in wealth-production implies ducesindirectly
the possession by those who monopolise this ability, ae ee
not merely of that portion of 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

21

322 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book iv is produced by him. On the contrary, of that con-
Chapter? stantly growing product which is added by the
depen great man’s faculties to the product of ordinary
but do acquire labour, and out of which the income of the great
thestden ‘wo. Man comes, a portion is capable of being appro-
ore a® priated by the ordinary labourers themselves.
Indeed, 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 motives which prompt the great men to produce it.
at ganipeesd This is a question to which, by @ frzorz reasoning,
be such ast© it is absolutely impossible to give any definite
ais answer. It is a question that can be solved only
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

Ss ee

SOCIAL INEQUALITIES PERMANENT 323

will render it less exceptional as the object of an
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 civil-
isation 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.
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, possesses 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-
Thewealthy duce wealth directly, but produce it indirectly by
Sess. Owing producing wealth which produces it, and which they
alwaysmuch are enabled to hand on to their children, the

more numerous

ies eg wealthy class is at any particular moment always

men actuall

engaged atany more numerous than those members of it who are

given time in . ° if

production. engaged actually in production. In Great Britain,
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

CHANGES IN OWNERSHIP OF WEALTH 325

the direct products of work. We may therefore Book iv
here adopt the rough hypothesis that out of each “?**?
generation of our wealthy class a third part is
enriching 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 pro-
duction which were created by their fathers and their
grandfathers. Now such being the case, what we
have to notice is as follows. Though the members But though

inheritance

of the wealthy class are not always changing, as they gives a certain

. . ° t
would be were no saving of capital, no interest, and fo \yeaithy —

no bequest allowed, they are still changing gradually (ss. the

families

from generation to generation, so that whilst the belonging to it

are constantly,

class, as a class, always possesses a nucleus of ifslowly,
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.’

1 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

Book IV
Chapter 3

and new men
are constantly
forcing their
way into it.

326 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Thus in spite of the permanence which interest

gives to wealth, the families 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
enterprise and strenuous will, actually contribute
most to the productive forces of the country. It
was observed by J. S. Mill with regard to political
government that this “is always in, or 7s 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 30 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.

‘
.
‘a
a
-

THE ACTUALISING OF POTENTIAL TALENT 327

Such being the case, then, the material civilisa- Book iv
tion of a country—the wealth of the few or the pro- “™?**"3
gressive comfort of the many—depends on the ex- Indeed the

: : : wealth of the
tent to which its potentially great wealth-producers, country de-

‘ : pends on the
as they come into the world, generation after genera- tien potentially
tion, are induced by circumstances to develop their st 2s pro-

7 ducers actual-

exceptional talents, and devote them to the main- ising their

talents and

tenance and improvement of the productive process. producing the
For those, therefore, who regard the material wel- bean a
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 maa will
which the possession of wealth is secured to the portion aston.
producers of it, and the persons to whom they leave Popa,
it. But to these must be added another set of an theopportunity

é oe Sy P of actualising
entirely distinct character—that is to say, the con- their produc-
6 7 x “ 2 2 tive powers.
ditions which, the motive to exertion being given,
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 asking what truth is contained in it. We
Chapter 3 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
Itisimpos- condition of things as this, however, is impossible

sible, however,

Se enstikes for the following, if for no other, reason. Successful
cy parents as a rule will employ part of their wealth—
equal. 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; there-
fore, 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
ideal condition which we never can reach, but to
The question is Which we can only approximate; and the only
can approsch. PYactical questions for us are accordingly these:
to equality. 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

REMOVABLE INEQUALITIES 329°

community with reference to which they are asked. — Book rv
For though men’s powers of equalising opportunities "3
are limited, their powers of making them unequal Ina country
. A ° where oppor

may be said to be indefinitely great; and the more tunities have

; bee

unequal they have been made at the time when we siihoaty,
s ‘ unequal there

ask our questions, the greater will the progress be iat ther

which there will be room for us to make towards oge Laeadt an:

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 Revolu-

tionists 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

reached may be described as being of a negative eirpcder:

rather than a positive kind. It depends on the p2%2;°s"°

absence of artificial impediments to production, “sto

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

Chapter 3 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, that .

for thedevelop- impeded, make their own opportunities for them-

ment of genius

of the highest’ Selves; and the genius who is born with every
order this 'S_ opportunity waiting for him has but a few years’
needful, 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 Book v
the leaders of economic production there, we shall “3
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.

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- ana wit! secure
tive faculties are really of the first order. And this ¢@°v0P-
inference is supported by a large number of analogies 7 9.0
drawn from domains of activity other than economic. ‘bt exists.
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 dé¢on 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

Book IV
Chapter 3

But genius of
a lesser kind,
which would
else be lost,
may no doubt
be elicited by
positive educa-
tional help
from the State ;

though the
amount of such
genius is over-
estimated by
reformers,
because they
confuse talents
rare in them-
selves with
accomplish-
ments that are
- only rare
accidentally.

332 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

independent of artificial assistance, many of an in-
ferior, but still of an exceptional kind, are not; and
it cannot be doubted that the supply. of these last
will depend very largely on the degree to which
facilities for self-development are given by the State
to those who desire to take advantage of them.
Thus, though the spread of education in this country

as 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 en-
ormously 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,
with accomplishments which are exceptional only
because they are not universally taught. Thus read-
ing and writing, for instance, were rare accomplish-
ments once. Of all accomplishments they are the
most universal now; and there is not the least doubt
that there are very many others which, with equal
opportunities, might be acquired by almost anybody,
but 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

ee a

TALENTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS 333

different process from evoking by similar means gook1v

faculties which are potential in everybody, and the “™?*"3

supply of which can be increased indefinitely ; and Tre tater can

it is a process, moreover, which produces very pcveaiee ti

different results. Let us consider how this is. ee
For productive faculties of the highest order, For reat pro-

which not only minister to progress, but initiate it, (°° oe

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

anybody might conceivably acquire—knowledge of

French, for instance, or of book-keeping—though

they may minister to the business of wealth-produc- but the

tion, yet have no tendency in themselves to make callie ot eas

the business grow. The number of persons, then, *comPis.

» mentsis limited
possessing these accomplishments who at any given (Ye cone
time can put them to a productive use is limited by Sen 5 Ue
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

Book IV
Chapter 3

Thus to pro-
duce more
possible clerks
than are
wanted merely
lowers the
wages of those
employed,
without in-
creasing the
utility of those
who are not
employed.

334 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

partner, it would not be enlarged, when there were
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
would fit them for the work of clerks would not be
to increase the number of young men who would
wear black coats, and sit on stools in offices, instead
of working in factories, or laying bricks, or plough-
ing. Instead of raising the position of the plough-
boy to the same level as the clerk’s, it would lower
the clerk’s salary to the level of the plough-boy’s
wages; 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

aE

DANGERS OF EQUALISED EDUCATION 335

the error in their conclusion is one of exaggeration Book Iv
only. There is much exceptional talent which, “3
though not of the highest order, will, when oppor- rng

* _ : ; imits, =
tunity is given it, increase the wealth of the com- tionalhep
munity, but which will, without the educational {o= fcc:
help of the State, be lost ; and it may frankly be Bah lh:
admitted that, within certain limits, the equalising exceptional,

u i . though not

of educational opportunity plays a very important great, talent.
part in supplying the community with exceptionally
efficient citizens.

But the main difficulties involved in the artificial But the main

he : +1. difficulty in-

equalisation of opportunity are not concerned with \cived in the
the problem of how to produce good results by it. sincatieal
They are connected with the problem of how to oppimlly's
avoid producing bad results. Let us consider what ductionof good

the possible bad results of it are. ieeidice of J
In a general way they are indicated, or indirectly 3
implied, in the saying so dear to the sterner and
more thoughtless of the Conservatives—that popular
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

BookIv discontent of certain special kinds; and it is
Chapt Tits :
“3 necessary to discriminate carefully what these kinds
are. ;
The bad Now the kind of discontent which Conservatives
results are the ° 5
stimulating of Generally have in view, when they denounce educa-
discontent, not ,: . . ° >
in average On because they think it tends to promote it, is

men, but in by no means that from which danger really arises.
really excep» 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

a
a eae

EDUCATION AND IMPERFECT TALENTS 337

important political movements have been produced Book rv
_by men whose greatness consisted merely in ordinary ‘3
sense joined to, and made efficient by, an extra-
ordinary strength of will. It is necessary now to but whose
follow this line of observation farther, and to point oecPye a.
out that if extraordinary strength of will can pro- paanced o
duce beneficial effects when allied with ordinary aw in them.
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 ae mR ee.
powers of men in whom the intellect is really acute ies toes
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 t will similarly

others for which it does nothing, except to increase jntettects that

their powers of reasoning wrongly; and when an“°"* asi
22

338 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book iv intellect of this kind is allied with a naturally strong
Chapter 3 will, the effect of education is to let loose a wild
horse, merely in order that it may run away with a

lunatic.
orwillthathas | It must be remembered that the strength of a
rth asi man’s will, though depending as a potentiality on
wit senate the character with which he happens to be born,
wealth inmen Gepends as an actual force on his desire for certain

who are not

capableof objects or results, coupled with the belief that he

creating it, Z :
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 selves mainly to an over-estimate of their own

toe mines powers; and this over-estimate is generally the

and mischief direct result of education, which, by making them

WILL, DESIRE, AND FACULTY 339

falsely imagine themselves capable of attaining Book iv
wealth, actualises a fruitless desire for it, which ‘3
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 eXx- tates faculties
ceptional faculties that correspond to them, actualises PYjcce cases.
desires accompanied by faculties which are really fiona! results,
exceptional, and which produce results undoubtedly oe
more than ordinary, but are nevertheless incap-
able 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-

A . Sive struggle
attempt, like the dreamers who have wasted their requires that

Book IV
Chapter 3

the intellects
of some should
be stimulated
whose efforts
fail.

But those
failures that
promote pro-
gress are fail-
ures that
partially
succeed.

340 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 Book 1v
it may be necessary to refute them because they “3
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 altogether mischievous. Thus whilst the
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 Southcott or the
American prophet Harris. Accordingly, whilst it is But there are

i ; : a : - abortive talents

impossible to say with precision where the line is which produce
. - il

to be drawn between the exceptional talents which, "5"

if developed, would be of use in the progressive "tio t

success.

struggle and those which are so defective that Ages
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 for example
do the unwritten annals of the social life around us. the would-be,
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 ouvrzers ;
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 * that of the

man who

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
Chapter’ 3 illed by the frosts of ignorance, and never allowed
wrong medical
treatment. to blossom.
But the But the commonest examples of talent that is
example of this Wholly mischievous are afforded by certain classes
te soteue Of politicians and social agitators. There is a
petator, 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 organ-
isation 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-

rr *

SOCIALISTS AND PRODUCTIVE IMPOTENCE 343

distribute it in some of them arises from sentiments Book Iv

of benevolence ; in some from fallacious reasoning; “"*?"3

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 who demands

the re-distribu- |

a serious theory, is essentially an attempt on the tion of wealth
part of men who are themselves economically im- ih sone.
potent to prove that they, and others like them, have js‘ Produce
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 “agere-

gates of conditions,” or “social inheritances,” or
“environments,” as Mr. Spencer, Mr. Bellamy, and

Mr. Sidney Webb tell us; and sometimes that it and who con-
is produced by “average labour measured by time,” jsdente duise
as Karl Marx tells us,—the one doctrine being that (ners; 220"

. which do no-
wealth is produced by nobody, and that one man thing baa

has thus as good a right to it as another; the moralise those
other being that it is produced in equal quantities by by thea oa
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

these theories

promulgated only amongst classes who were capable can be dis-

Book IV
Chapter 3

cussed with
profit under
certain circum-
stances).

Men like these
embody the
two chief
dangers of the
artificial equal-
isation of
educational

opportunity,

344 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

of passing a scientific judgment on them, they
might have played—and within limits they have
played—a valuable part in eliciting the truth
opposed to them. But they have become wholly
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 character,
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 unfortun-
ately 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.

It is men like these—the men with ill-balanced
or abortive talents—the men with strong wills and
defective intellects, the men whose ambition is
developed by the smallest educational stimulus, but
who have no talents proportionate to it which any

“ee

OSELESS WANTS AND TALENTS 345

education could develop—it is men like these who _ Book Iv
invest with its principal dangers the equalisation of ari
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.

And these dangers correspond with the two objects namely, the
for the sake of which the equalisation of educational eee
opportunity is advocated. One of these objects is "#ns wie

he cannot '

the raising the condition of the average man; the =tisty, and the |
e stimulating of

other is the securing, alike for himself and for talents that are
$ Ps ; 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 he

Book. IV
Chapter 3

The latter of
these dangers

is the source of

the former.

-It cannot be
completely
avoided, but
present
theories of
education tend
toheighten, not
to minimise it.

The current
theory that all
talents should
be developed
is false ;

346 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

will, when he comes to maturity, be unable to gratify;
nor is any one made better or happier by the develop-
ment 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 toa 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-

4 2

RELATIVITY OF EDUCATION 347

tion and culture to which education generally should, Book Iv
so far as is possible, be assimilated, is the kind of EEE 3
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 s0 is the theory
because all tastes and talents are good or bad, {tiie
useful for a man or useless, according to the ‘ultvated in

all alike. The

conditions under which his life will be passed ; and education
; proper for the

the conditions of the rich are altogether exceptional. rich is not a
Societies have existed in which they have been apc:
enjoyed by nobody. It would be impossible to con-
struct a society in which they should be enjoyed by
more than afew. The attempt, therefore, to give to
everybody a rich man’s education is like including
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 rese fatse
false theory of society which it is the principal object {ite tase
of the present volume to expose—the theory that ‘hat caval

civilisation is the product of men approximately cod iil
uce equa

equal in capacities, and that in proportion as these social condi-
tions.

equal capacities have equal opportunities of develop-
ment, there will naturally be an approximation to an

Book IV
Chapter 3

348 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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

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 ;

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

el i ee ae 5

— = “ ares

Ye Se

a he

RELATIVITY OF OPPORTUNITY 349

developed it renders those who possess it actual Book Iv

additions to the civilising forces of the community, “™?**"3
With regard, then, to exceptional men, the object of

education should be to stimulate the ambitions of those and it is the

of them whose talents are efficient, whilst discourag- Aiea oe

ing the ambitions of those whose talents are inherently pase RF ts

defective. The stronger the ambitions of the former Ty dssiable

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 inter-

fered with.

With regard to the average man, the object of The average
man should be,

education should be to develop in him such tastes or taught to aim

: RS at Sek ae at embellishi
accomplishments as will assist him in the work by his position,

which he is to live, and enable him to make the most oe et ee
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 edu-
cational 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 capacities, will

Book IV
Chapter 3

350 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

do most to make him a useful, a contented, and a
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.

CPAREEK 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
and reformers practically join issue; and it is Snes
mainly because inequality in the possession of (rs0iné com
wealth is affirmed to be a permanent and necessary ‘ens with
feature of civilisation, that the conclusions here put familiar.
forward will be attacked.

The objections that will be brought against them
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

352 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

BookIv these conclusions, whilst highly satisfactory to

Cheptr4 the 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

theorist will . . we °
put these same the attainment of an exceptional position, and more

esections especially of an exceptional amount of wealth, as

more logically.

Ifthe desire the sole motive that can be counted on to induce

of exceptional

wealth is really exceptional men to develop and use their powers.

the strongest : 5 i a
motive, he will Now this, he will urge, is tantamount to declaring
say that it ae ‘

follows that that exceptional wealth is naturally regarded by men
most men,
since they can-

not all be 7 : ‘
exceptionally OPVious that exceptional wealth can be possessed by

rich, must — the few only, we are, he will say, convicted of teach-
always remain

miserable. ing that social progress involves a denial of happi-

as the main condition of happiness; and since it is

=

ee At tS

=

ee ee ae a a ee errr

a oe 2.

EQUALITY AND GENERAL PROGRESS 353

ness to the vast majority of those amongst whom Book Iv
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 finite
to prove, or have any tendency to prove, that the {ct 23a!

men will never

ict] j ; be equally
many, as distinct from the few, in any progressive }° Siy

country, may not reasonably look forward to a not prevent

, A bs % Par the conditions
continuous improvement in their condition—to a ofall men
. from improv-
greater command of the comforts and luxuries of ing absolutely.
life, together with a lightening or a lessening of the
labour necessary to procure them. On the con-
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

ee
&

Book IV
Chapter 4

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 substi-
tute unequal
honour for
unequal
wealth.

354 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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. 7

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—is,
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

sant

_

— ~~

HONOUR AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR WEALTH 355

the present moment. They, as has been said
already, though they consider themselves the apostles
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, “wll be tncalculably 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. Wecan, 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

Book IV
Chapter 4

Book IV
Chapter 4

356 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

honour is conferred as the choicest prize of life,
and 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

OE a

ee _— =

EQUALITY OF DESIRE 357

character. It is that the entire supposition on which Book 1v
the objection rests is untrue. The external prizes of “™?*"4
life, of which exceptional wealth is the type, though The finar

: answer is that
struggled for by many with every faculty they the unequal
possess, though valued by those who achieve them, Se
and though recognised by men in general as some- "#tutal tend-

ency to cause

thing of which everybody would choose to be the unhappiness ;
possessor if he could be, do nevertheless amongst
average human beings not cause any unhappiness
by their absence at all corresponding to the satis-
faction 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 fous astnorum of all social
psychology. A brief elucidation of it will be enough
for our present purpose.

There isa 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 parses
amongst such goods are food and, in most climates, pecessaries of

» life only ; for
clothes and shelter. So far as this minimum is con- tis desire

i f rests on men’s
cerned, the desires of all are practically equal ; and physical
natures, which

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

Chaps + which we are all similar. But for external goods

but the desire that are beyond this minimum men’s desires vary

ce indefinitely ; and they vary because they depend on

Neves which the action of the imagination and the intellect, which

vary. 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 distinct to enable us to place in contrast with it those
Ee cinty obviously unnecessary goods which make up wealth
eiime andluxury. Now luxury is very commonly supposed,
imagination— jn contradiction 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

ee ee a a en

;
ve

— eC

_*

_"— vs

va

~~ ay

EE

THE RELATIVITY OF LUXURY 359

same external things are luxuries or not luxuries Book iv
according to the way in which the mind regards ‘™?!*4
them. Thus a man will be called luxurious if his

house is of palatial proportions, if he lives under lofty the tuxury, for
ceilings and treads upon shining floors. But the iarse nous”
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 magnificent private houses. A man, again, or sleeping
will be thought, and will think himself, luxurious if aaten
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 compartment

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 pettiest 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

Book IV
Chapter 4

Consequently
the desire for
luxury and
wealth, like
the pleasure
they give,
depends on

360 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 th
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

peculiarmental general depend on the action of the intellect and the

powers or
peculiar
mental states.

imagination also. Hence, though a desire for wealth
is popularly supposed to be universal, and in a certain
sense is So, it is a desire the non-satisfaction of which
causes a sense of privation only when the imagina-
tion and the intellect work in an exceptional way. Let
us take, for example, some community on the out-
skirts of civilisation which continues to maintain
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 Book iv
mountain and promised to give it tothe first man who ‘™?*"4
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
great masses of mankind the desire for wealth is for Seah a
a speculative desire only. They give, if we may Sunni?
borrow an expression from Cardinal Newman, only “s"° ™¥-
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
stomach clamoured ; and he would feel the want of 1: implies no
it as keenly as he would value its possession. So, saaphes
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 ARISTOCRA CY AND EVOLUTION

Book tv bility of spending Christmas with them. But no

“meter 4 ordinary man, unless he has lived 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
The desire = Jifetime ?

ceases to be

speculative The speculative desire for wealth, common to all
and becomes a A ‘ ‘ 7 ~

practical crav- human beings, is converted into this practical crav-
ing only when .-

theimagination Ing by two causes, which act and re-act upon each

is exceptionally . °
ston anda. Other. One of them is an exceptionally powerful

strong belief imagination; the other is the belief on the part of
is present that ‘ 3 ae 3 a f
Pe sitsioment any fiver individual that wealth is a thing which
ot wealth is . . . .
possible. he actually may acquire if he will only make certain

|

INEQUALITIES IN DESIRE FOR WEALTH 363

efforts, of which he believes 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 z¢. 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

Book IV
Chapter 4

Book IV
Chapter 4

The desire for
wealth, in fact,

isin proportion

to each man’s
belief that by

364 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

stimulated to such a degree, that all would find
themselves craving for the possible prize equally.

In converting, then, a mere notional assent to
the proposition that wealth is desirable into an
actual hunger for it, which is painful if not

him personally satisfied, the essential cause is a belief that the

it is attainable.

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
sufficiently 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 67tc-d-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

—— i rl

THE LAW OF EXPANDING DESIRE 365

excite no desire. Here is the great difference
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
correspond to them. They crave for wealth, in
fact, because they believe themselves capable of
creating it, and their craving keeps pace with their
belief in the range of their capabilities. The more
wealth they can create, the more they desire to
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 ¢he
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

Book IV
Chapter 4

This belief is
naturally con-
fined to men

with excep-

tional imagin-
ations and
exceptional
productive
powers.

Book IV
Chapter 4

It only be-
comes general
by the

popularising of

false theories
which repre-
sent wealth 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.

366 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 creating
it, is capable of being implanted under certain circum-
stances artificially in men who possess no exceptional
powers at all.

A familiar case like the following 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
commands 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 London.
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 regard to his surroundings is Book rv
changed. His pride in his cottage is gone, and its “™?"4
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 once was 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
life 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,
that the law will make him the possessor of it
without any exceptional productive effort of his
own. And here we have a counterpart to the
socialistic teaching of to-day. It excites, or aims at The socialistic
exciting, an artificial craving for wealth in men who ioeeeial =
would not naturally trouble their heads about it, by gy wealth by.

for wealth by
teaching them that they have a right to it, which is F [°C
wholly independent of any exceptional productive "8" t+

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

Book1v the claimant to the park and estate whose case we

Chapter’ 4 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 practical The desire for wealth, as something distinct
craving for

Seedich tn from competence, is a desire which normally affects
patra °° men only in proportion as they believe themselves

ho ha -
wito havesome to be possessed of power by which they may

oye individually earn it; and so long as men recognise

caused by its the truth that, apart from rare chances, the powers

absence is .

naturally con. that earn wealth are the exceptional powers that

ined tosuch 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.

The socialistic And not only do these teachings, so far as they

theories merely - . :

cause a barren Have any effect at all, create private unhappiness and

au 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.

ee

THE MISCHIEF OF FALSE THEORIES — 369

The crude and childish philosophy which socialists
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
large ; and from this it follows that all claims to the
profits of capital, as put forward by its present
possessors, are, in an abstract sense, unjust. The
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

Book IV
Chapter 4

which interferes
with that
harmonious
progress on
which the
welfare of the
many depends.

Book IV
Chapter 4

These theories
make enemies
of classes who
would other-
wise be allies,
and the cause
of true social
reform suffers
incalculable

injury.

370 . ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

exorbitant, 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 nothing but
friction, constant dunning, and writs—were it known
that the customers entertained and meant to act on
the theory that they ought not, in abstract justice,
to pay their bills at all. Now such is the labour-
leaders’ theory with regard to the employing classes.
For a time some part of their bills must unfor-
tunately be paid—that is, some part of their profits
be allowed 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 we re

partly because the employed, whatever advantages Book Iv
they may gain, will be no nearer to content than “™?"*4
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 The object of
° * ° P = the present
question of wealth and its distribution is concerned, work is to
has been to show how absolutely false to fact are the fullace ‘kes
theories to which this impracticable discontent is due, Sion" 5
and how intellectually ludicrous is the position of the sccialistie dis-
school of thinkers who imagine that such theories socialistic
. . . + aspirations ;
represent accurate science. 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,

Book IV
Chapter 4

and to show
that the many
are not a self-
existent power,

372 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

and in every sense they contribute as truly; and
they 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 socialists
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.
Socialists contend that the source of all power is
in the multitude. It is impossible to imagine a
greater or more abject error. 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 Book 1v
former would be impaired also. In the domain of ‘™?"4
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. but depend for
Here are the two factors or forces which we can they soeee on
never get rid of unless we get rid of civilisation [7 Pe,
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 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 forces that 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

ae

THE RIGHTS OF THE FEW AND THE MANY 375

teach them. So it is in economic production, so it Book iv
is in political government. The power of democracy “?"T4
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—is it, or can it be, 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
the latter are capable of abusing their power, so also tna whose”
are the former; but nothing will tend to prevent peed yesh
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

Book IV
Chapter 4

The recogni-
tion of the fact
that the rela-
tions and
positions of
classes can
never be
fundamentally
altered

(especially
when. we con-
sider the facts
of history to
which Karl
Marx drew
attention)

376 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

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 progress of all, instead of being incompatible
with the fact that the positions of all have no tend-
ency to become equal, assumes, on the contrary, a
more and more practicable aspect in proportion to
the accuracy with which 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,
so will socialism arise out of capitalism. This argu-
ment is merely another example of those self-con-
fusions by which the socialists are distinguished as
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
as regards 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

Book IV
Chapter 4

Book IV
Chapter 4

shows us not
only how
chimerical are
the hopes of
the socialists,
but what solid
grounds there
are for the
hopes of more
rational
reformers.

378 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

place, yet this particular change which has refused
to take place in the past is perfectly certain to take
place in the future.

The historical evolution of society, however, and
the social changes that have taken place, do indeed
convey to us a very important moral ; but this moral
which the changes convey to us is curiously different
from that which the socialists draw from them.
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—
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 ‘‘emanctpation” 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 be-
cause 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

Book IV
Chapter 4

380 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION

Book 1v workers would be as helpless as a flock of shepherd-
chapte'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.

THE END

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