Aristocracy & Evolution / A Study of the Rights, the Origin, and the Social Functions of the Wealthier Classes

by W. H. Mallock

CONTENTS

• BOOK I
  • CHAPTER I
    THE FUNDAMENTAL ERROR IN MODERN SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY
    • Science during the middle of this century excited popular interest mainly on account of its bearing on the doctrines of Christianity • [3]
    • Its popularity is now beginning to depend on its bearing not on religious problems, but on social • [3]
    • Science itself is undergoing a corresponding change • [4]
    • Its characteristic aim during the middle of the century was to deal with physical and physiological evolution • [4]
    • Its characteristic aim now is to deal with the evolution of society • [5]
    • Social science itself is not wholly new • [5]
    • What is new is the application to it of the evolutionary theory • [6]
    • This excites men by suggesting great social changes in the future, • [7]
    • which will give a speculative meaning to the history of humanity, • [8]
    • or secure for men now existing, or for their children, practical social advantages • [8]
    • Men have thus a double reason for being interested 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 • [10]
    • What can the explanation be? • [11]
    • The answer will be found in the fact just referred to—that social science attempts to answer two distinct sets of questions; • [12]
    • and one set—namely, the speculative—it has answered with great success; • [12]
    • it has failed only in attempting to answer practical questions • [13]
    • Now the phenomena with which it has dealt successfully are phenomena of social aggregates, considered as wholes; • [13]
    • but the practical problems of to-day, with which it has dealt unsuccessfully, arise out of the conflict between different parts of aggregates • [15]
    • Social science has failed as a practical guide because it has not recognised this distinction; • [16]
    • and hence arise most of the errors of the political philosophy of this century • [16]
  • CHAPTER II
    THE ATTEMPT TO MERGE THE GREAT MAN IN THE AGGREGATE
    • Whatever may be done by some men, or classes of men, sociologists are at present accustomed to attribute to man • [17]
    • Mr. Kidd’s Social Evolution, for instance, is based entirely on this procedure • [17]
    • He quotes with approval two other writers who have been guilty of it; • [18]
    • who both attribute to man what is done by only a few men; • [19]
    • and the consequences of their reasoning are ludicrous • [20]
    • 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 • [21]
    • The second half is that the many could have taken these advantages from the few, and that religion alone prevented them from doing so • [21]
    • This contradiction is entirely due to the fact that, having first divided the social aggregate into two classes, he then obliterates his division, and thinks of them both as “man” • [22]
    • Mr. Kidd’s confusion is the result of no accidental error. It is the inevitable result of a radically fallacious method; • [24]
    • and of this method the chief exponent is Mr. Herbert Spencer, • [24]
    • as a short summary of his arguments will show • [25]
    • Mr. Spencer starts with saying that the chief impediment to social science is the great-man theory; • [25]
    • for, if the appearance of the great man is incalculable, progress, if it depends on him, must be incalculable also; • [26]
    • but if the great man is not a miraculous apparition, he owes his greatness to causes outside himself; • [27]
    • and it is these causes which really produce the effects of which he is the proximate initiator • [27]
    • These effects, therefore, are to be explained by reference not to the great man, but to the causes that are behind the great man • [28]
    • The true causes, says Mr. Spencer, of all social phenomena are physical environment and men’s natural character • [29]
    • The first physical cause of progress was an exceptionally fertile soil • [29]
    • and an exceptionally bracing climate • [29]
    • All the conquering races came from fertile and bracing regions • [30]
    • There were other regions more fertile, but these were enervating; and hence the inhabitants of the former enslaved the weaker inhabitants of the latter • [30]
    • Again, division of labour, on which industrial progress depends, was caused by difference in the products of different localities, • [31]
    • which led to the localisation of industries • [32]
    • The localisation of industries in its turn led to road-making; • [33]
    • and roads made possible the centralisation of authority and interchange of ideas • [33]
    • Next, as to men’s natural character, which is the other cause of progress, • [33]
    • their primitive character did not fit them to progress, • [34]
    • till it was gradually improved by the evolution of marriage and the family—especially of monogamy • [34]
    • Monogamy represents the survival of the fittest kind of sexual union • [35]
    • It developed the affections and the practice of efficient co-operation • [35]
    • The family being established, the nation gradually rose from it • [36]
    • One family increased, and gave rise to many families, which were obliged, in order to get food, to separate into different groups; • [36]
    • and the recompounding of these groups, for purposes of defence or aggression, formed the nation; • [37]
    • all government being in its origin military • [37]
    • But as the arts of life progress, industry emancipates itself from governmental control, and becomes its own master, and also forms the basis of political democracy • [37]
    • Now, if we consider all these conclusions of Mr. Spencer’s, • [39]
    • we shall find them to be all conclusions about aggregates as wholes, not about parts of aggregates • [39]
    • The only differences recognised by him between men are differences between one homogeneous aggregate and another, • [40]
    • and differences between similar men who happen to be occupied differently • [41]
    • But, as has already been said, the social problems of to-day arise out of a conflict between different parts of the same aggregate; therefore the phenomena of the aggregate as a whole do not help us • [42]
    • The conflict between the parts of the aggregate arises from inequalities of position • [43]
    • of which Mr. Spencer’s sociology takes no account • [44]
    • Social problems arise out of the desire of those whose positions are inferior to have their positions changed; • [45]
    • and the practical question is, is the change they desire possible? • [45]
    • To answer this question we must examine into the causes why such and such individuals are in inferior, and others in superior positions • [46]
    • Are inequalities in position due to alterable and accidental circumstances? • [47]
    • Or are they due to congenital inequalities which no one can ever do away with? • [47]
    • Social inequalities are partly due to circumstances; • [48]
    • but most people will admit that congenital inequalities in talent have much to do with them • [48]
    • Why then insist on this fact? • [49]
    • Because this fact is precisely what our contemporary sociologists ignore, • [49]
    • as Mr. Spencer shows us by his distinct admissions and assertions, as well as by the character of his conclusions • [50]
    • His condemnation of the great-man theory is a removal of all congenital inequalities from his field of study; • [51]
    • and he actually defines an aggregate as being composed of approximately equal units • [52]
    • His failure and that of others, as practical sociologists, arises from their building on this false hypothesis • [53]
  • CHAPTER III
    GREAT MEN, AS THE TRUE CAUSE OF PROGRESS
    • 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 does not really do what he seems to do; • [55]
    • (2) by saying that what he seems to do is not really much • [56]
    • He admits that the great man does do something exceptional in war; • [57]
    • but denies that he does anything exceptional in the sphere of peaceful progress • [57]
    • But how does the great man fulfil his function in war? By ordering others • [58]
    • The great man, in peace, does precisely the same thing • [59]
    • Mr. Spencer, for example, orders the compositors who put his books into type • [59]
    • The inventor orders the men by whom his inventions are manufactured • [60]
    • The great man of business orders his employees • [61]
    • The hotel-keeper orders his staff • [62]
    • All these men resemble the great military commander; and if the latter is a social cause, so are the former • [63]
    • Next, as to the contention that the great man is the proximate cause only, and not the true cause— • [63]
    • This, as Mr. Spencer and three popular writers of to-day show us, • [64]
    • resolves itself into four arguments: • [65]
    • (1) That every first discovery involves all that have gone before it; • [66]
    • (2) that the discoverer’s ability itself is the product of past circumstances; • [66]
    • (3) that often the same discovery is made by several men at once; • [66]
    • (4) that the difference between the great and the ordinary man is slight • [66]
    • Simultaneous discovery only shows that several great men, instead of one, are greater than others • [67]
    • The extent of the great man’s superiority depends on how it is measured • [68]
    • It may be slight to the speculative philosopher, but to the practical man it is all-important • [69]
    • As for the two other arguments, which admit the great man’s greatness, but deny that it is his own, • [71]
    • they are both true speculatively, but are practically untrue, or irrelevant; • [71]
    • just as statements of averages and classification of goods may be true and relevant for one purpose, and false and irrelevant for another • [72]
    • Thus the argument that the great man owes his faculties to his ancestors, and through his ancestors to the society which helped to develop his ancestors, though a speculative truism, • [73]
    • leads to nothing but absurdities if we apply it to practical life • [74]
    • For if the great workers owe their greatness to the whole of past society, the men who shirk work owe their idleness to it; and if the former deserve no reward, the latter deserve no punishment • [75]
    • The same argument applies to morals; and if accepted, we should have to admit that nobody really did, or was really responsible for, anything • [76]
    • Finally, let us take the argument that most of what the great man does depends on past discoveries and past achievements, to which he does but add a little • [77]
    • If this argument means anything, it must mean that greatness is commoner than it is vulgarly thought • [78]
    • But is this the case? Does Shakespeare’s debt to his antecedents make Shakespeares more numerous? • [79]
    • Shakespeare’s contemporaries had the same national antecedents that he had; but they could not do what he did • [80]
    • Men inherit the past only in so far as they can assimilate it • [80]
    • Socialists say that inventions once made become common property • [81]
    • This is absolutely untrue • [81]
    • The discoveries and inventions of the past are the property of those only who can absorb and use them • [82]
    • Thus the introduction of the past into the question leaves the differences between the great man and others undiminished • [82]
    • If the ordinary man does anything, the great man does a great deal more • [83]
    • and in practical reasoning he is a true cause for the sociologist • [83]
    • And, curiously enough, Mr. Spencer unconsciously admits this • [84]
    • He declares that the Napoleonic wars were entirely due to the maleficent greatness of Napoleon • [84]
    • He defends patents because they represent the very substance of the inventor’s own mind; • [86]
    • and he attributes the modern improvement in steel manufacture to Sir H. Bessemer • [87]
    • So much, then, being established, we must consider two difficulties suggested by it • [88]
  • CHAPTER IV
    THE GREAT MAN AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE PHYSIOLOGICALLY FITTEST SURVIVOR
    • It may be objected that modern sociology does not, as here asserted, neglect the great man, for it adopts the doctrine of the survival of the fittest • [89]
    • It may be asked, on the other hand, what place the great man has in an exclusively evolutionary theory of progress • [90]
    • The fittest survivor is not the same as the great man • [90]
    • He plays a part in progress, but not the same part • [90]
    • The fittest men, by surviving, raise the general level of the race, and promote progress only in this way • [91]
    • 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 • [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 intention, 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]
    • 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 • [100]
    • And yet in each case the intended elements are equal or are greater than the unintended • [100]
    • We see the same thing in the history of the Times printing press • [101]
    • It was the result of many kinds of unintended progress, constantly recombined by intention • [102]
    • Evolution, in fact, is the unintended result of the intentions of great men • [104]
    • The unintended or evolved element in progress is what concerns the speculative philosopher • [105]
    • The intended element, which originates directly in the great man, is what is of interest for practical purposes • [106]

• BOOK II
  • CHAPTER I
    THE NATURE AND THE DEGREES OF THE SUPERIORITIES OF GREAT MEN
    • The causality of the great man being established, we must consider more precisely what greatness is • [111]
    • Mr. Spencer will help us to a general definition of it • [112]
    • He divides the human race into the clever, the ordinary, and the stupid • [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 progress must be due to the clever, who are, as Mr. Spencer says, a “scattered few” • [115]
    • This is the great-man theory reasonably stated • [115]
    • For great men are not necessarily heroes, as Carlyle thought, • [116]
    • nor divided absolutely from all other men • [116]
    • Greatness is various in kind and degree, • [117]
    • but, at all events, there is a certain minority of men who resemble each other in being more efficient than the majority • [117]
    • We see this in poetry • [118]
    • in singers, • [118]
    • in the scholarship of boys at the same school, • [119]
    • and similarly in practical life • [119]
    • Enough men, as it is, have equal opportunities, to show how unequal men are in their powers of using them • [120]
    • No doubt a man may be ordinary in one respect and great in another; • [120]
    • but the majority are not great in any • [121]
    • The measure of a man’s greatness as an agent of social progress is the overt results actually produced by him • [121]
    • A selfish doctor, if successful, is greater than a devoted doctor, if unsuccessful • [122]
    • The fact that many men who produce no social results seem better and more brilliant than many men who do produce them, makes some argue that these results require no greatness for their production • [122]
    • But the most efficient forms of greatness have often nothing brilliant about them • [123]
    • A lofty imagination is often the enemy to practical efficiency; • [124]
    • and great efficiency is often independent of exceptional intellect • [125]
    • Intellect is 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 gifts are unimpressive 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 progress, 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 same way • [128]
  • CHAPTER II
    PROGRESS THE RESULT OF A STRUGGLE NOT FOR SURVIVAL, BUT FOR DOMINATION
    • In order to see how the great man promotes progress, we must consider that whilst the fittest survivor only promotes it • [130]
    • by living, whilst others die, • [130]
    • the great man promotes progress by helping others to live • [131]
    • He promotes progress not by what he does himself, but by what he helps others to do • [132]
    • We can see this by considering the progress of knowledge which, as J. S. Mill says, is the foundation of all progress • [132]
    • But all progress in knowledge is the work of “decidedly exceptional individuals,” • [134]
    • as Mill admits, though in curiously confused language • [135]
    • Now how do the exceptional individuals, when they acquire knowledge, promote progress by doing so? • [136]
    • They promote progress by conveying their knowledge to, and imposing their conclusions on, others • [137]
    • A similar thing is true of invention, which is knowledge applied • [138]
    • Invention promotes progress only because the inventor influences the actions of the workmen who make and use his machines • [139]
    • The man of business ability promotes progress also only by so ordering others that the precise wants of the public are supplied • [140]
    • And the same principle is obviously true in the domain of war, politics, and religion • [141]
    • Greatness, however, is not in all cases equally beneficial • [142]
    • The influence of some great men is more advantageous than that of others • [143]
    • Progress, then, involves a struggle through which the fittest great men shall secure influence over others, and destroy the influence of the less fit • [143]
    • We now come to another point of difference between the fittest great man and the fittest survivor • [143]
    • The social counterpart to the Darwinian struggle for survival is to be found in the struggle of labourers to find employment • [144]
    • But this is not the struggle to which historical progress is due • [145]
    • For the most rapid progress has taken place without any increased fitness in the labourers • [145]
    • The progressive struggle in industry is confined entirely to the employers; • [146]
    • and in every domain of progress it is confined to the leaders, to the exclusion of those who are led • [146]
    • In the progressive struggle between great men, the mass of the community play no part whatever • [147]
    • Let us take, for instance, two rival hotel-keepers • [148]
    • One becomes bankrupt, and the other takes over his hotel and his staff • [148]
    • The sole struggle is between the employers, not the employed • [148]
    • The staff of the unsuccessful hotel-keeper gain, not lose, by being employed by the successful • [149]
    • Historical progress, then, results from a struggle not for subsistence, but for domination • [149]
  • CHAPTER III
    THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GREAT MAN APPLIES HIS GREATNESS TO WEALTH-PRODUCTION
    • All gain by the domination of the fittest, except the few who fail to secure power for themselves • [151]
    • 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 and wealth-production • [155]
    • The question is most important in its bearings on wealth-production • [156]
    • The great man in wealth-production can influence the actions of others by two means only—by the slave-system and the wage-system • [157]
    • The slave-system secures obedience by coercion, the wage-system by inducement • [157]
    • Wage-capital, not fixed capital, gives the primary power to capitalism as a productive agent • [158]
    • Wage-capital is an accumulation of the necessaries of life, • [159]
    • owned or controlled by a few persons, • [159]
    • and apportioned by them amongst many, on certain conditions • [160]
    • Karl Marx entirely misunderstood what these conditions are • [160]
    • The essence of these conditions is that the many shall be technically directed by the few • [161]
    • The question of how much the few appropriate of the product is a separate question altogether • [162]
    • The corvée system or slavery would make wage-capital superfluous; and this shows what the essential function of wage-capital is • [162]
    • So-called “co-operation” is merely the wage-system disguised • [163]
    • There are, then, only two alternatives—the wage-system and the slave-system; • [164]
    • as we shall find by considering how the socialists can only escape the wage-system by substituting slavery • [165]
    • For they would secure industrial obedience by coercion, • [166]
    • not through the worker’s desire to earn his living. And this is the essence of slavery • [166]
    • Next let us consider the means by which the great directors of industry compete against one another • [167]
    • Under capitalism they do so, owing to the fact that the man who cannot direct industry so as to please the public loses his capital, and with it the means of direction • [167]
    • The wage-system is the only efficient means of competition of this kind • [168]
    • The socialists, though they affect to be opposed to competition altogether, • [168]
    • re-introduce it into their own system, • [170]
    • the only change being that it is associated with the slave-system, which is very cumbrous and inefficient • [170]
    • Competition between employers, then, is a part of every system that permits of progress; • [172]
    • and since the re-introduction of slavery is practically impossible, we must regard the wage-system as a permanent feature of progressive societies • [172]
    • We might reduce society to ashes, but this system and capitalistic competition would arise out of them; • [173]
    • for capitalistic competition means the domination of the fittest great men • [174]
    • The industrial obedience of the many to the few is the
    • fundamental condition of progress • [174]
  • CHAPTER IV
    THE MEANS BY WHICH THE GREAT MAN ACQUIRES POWER IN POLITICS
    • In discussing the means by which the great man wields power in politics, the debatable question differs from the question raised by his power in industry; • [176]
    • for the points that are debated in the case of the great wealth-producer are admitted by all in the case of the governor • [176]
    • The greatest democrat admits that the governor must be an exceptional man, • [177]
    • and also that he must be chosen by elective competition • [177]
    • There is a competitive element even in autocracies, • [178]
    • and democracies are essentially competitive • [178]
    • All parties also agree that laws must be enforced by pains and penalties • [179]
    • Democrats are peculiar only in their theory that the sole greatness required in their governors is a perceptive and executive greatness, which will enable them to carry out the spontaneous wishes of the many • [179]
    • This is the only point in which the democratic theory differs from the aristocratic • [180]
    • The democratic ruler is, theoretically, a balance for weighing the wills of the many, • [181]
    • or a machine for executing their “mandates”; • [182]
    • and there are signs which might suggest that the few in politics are really becoming the mere instruments of the many • [182]
    • But these signs are deceptive; for what seems the will of the many, really depends on the action of another minority • [183]
    • Opinions, to derive power from the numbers who hold them, must be identical; • [184]
    • but they seldom are identical till a few men have manipulated them • [184]
    • Thus what seems to be the opinion of the many is generally dependent on the influence of a few • [185]
    • The many, for instance, would never have had any opinions on Free Trade or Bimetallism if the few had not worked on them • [185]
    • Popular opinion requires exceptional men, as nuclei, round which to form itself • [187]
    • Thus even in what seems extremest democracy the few are essential • [188]
    • Democrats, however, may argue that under democracy the few do, in the long-run, carry out the wishes of the many • [188]
    • Even were this true, the current formulas of democracy would be false, for unequal men would be essential to executing the wishes of equals • [189]
    • Now in reality the few are never mere passive agents; • [189]
    • but nevertheless the many do impress their will on them to a great extent • [190]
    • The question is to what extent? • [191]
    • This introduces us to a new side of the problem—the extent of the power of the many • [191]
    • This is greater in politics than in industry; • [192]
    • and yet when we think it over we shall see that it is great in most domains of activity • [192]
    • We had to take it for granted at starting. We must now examine it • [193]

• BOOK III
  • CHAPTER I
    HOW TO DISCRIMINATE BETWEEN THE PARTS CONTRIBUTED TO A JOINT PRODUCT BY THE FEW AND BY THE MANY
    • Mill declares that when two agencies are essential to producing an effect, their respective contributions to it cannot be discriminated • [197]
    • Mill argues thus with special reference to land and labour; • [198]
    • but he overlooks what in actual life is the main feature of the case • [198]
    • The labour remaining the same, the product varies with the quality of the land • [198]
    • The extra product resulting from labour on superior land is due to land, not labour • [199]
    • This is easily proved by a number of analogous illustrations • [199]
    • Mill errs by ignoring the changing character of the effect • [201]
    • The case of labour directed by different great men is the same as the case of labour applied to different qualities of land. The great men produce the increment • [202]
    • Labour, however, must be held to produce that minimum necessary to support the labourer, • [203]
    • both in agriculture • [203]
    • and in all kinds of production • [204]
    • The great man produces the increment that would not be produced if his influence ceased • [204]
    • Labour, it is true, is essential to the production of the increment also; • [205]
    • but we cannot draw any conclusions from the hypothesis of labour ceasing; • [205]
    • for the labourer would have to labour whether the great men were there or no • [206]
    • The cessation of the great man’s influence is a practical alternative; the cessation of labour is not, • [206]
    • as we see by frequent examples • [206]
    • Thus the great man, in the most practical sense, produces what labour would not produce in his absence • [208]
    • An analysis of practical reasoning as to causes generally will show us the truth of this • [208]
    • For practical purposes the cause of an effect is that cause only which may or may not be present; • [209]
    • as we see when men discuss the cause of a fire, • [210]
    • or of the accuracy of a chronometer, • [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 produce the product • [213]
    • Are these faculties possessed by all, or by a few only? • [213]
  • CHAPTER II
    THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PURELY DEMOCRATIC ACTION, OR THE ACTION OF AVERAGE MEN IN CO-OPERATION
    • Carlyle was wrong in his claim for the great man because he failed to note that his powers were conditioned by the capacities of the ordinary men influenced by him • [215]
    • The socialists are wrong because, seeing that the many do something, they argue that they do everything • [215]
    • What the many do is limited. We must see precisely what the limits are • [216]
    • If a Russian conspirator employs a hundred workmen to dig what they think is a cellar, but is a mine for blowing up the Czar, • [216]
    • the conspirator contributes the entire criminal character of the enterprise • [217]
    • When a choir sings Handel’s music, Handel contributes the specific character of the sounds sung by them • [217]
    • Let us turn to the facts of progress, • [217]
    • and begin with economic progress and progress in knowledge • [218]
    • 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 • [218]
    • To the question of progress in knowledge we must apply the method of inquiring what faculties are involved in it • [219]
    • These are faculties entirely confined to the few • [219]
    • And now let us turn to political government • [220]
    • What can the faculties of average men do when left to themselves? • [220]
    • They can accomplish only the simplest actions, • [220]
    • and formulate only the simplest demands • [221]
    • The moment matters become at all complex the faculties of the exceptional man are required • [221]
    • Now in any civilised country few governmental measures are really simple • [222]
    • Exceptional men must simplify them for the many • [222]
    • Thus the voice of the many, in all complex cases, echoes the voice of the few • [223]
    • This, however, is not the end of the matter; • [224]
    • for the details of governmental measures are not the whole of government • [224]
    • The true power of democracy is to be seen in religious and family life • [224]
    • Though the influence of the great man in religion is enormous, • [225]
    • yet religions have only grown and endured because they touch the heart of the average man • [225]
    • Christianity exemplifies this fact, • [225]
    • and especially Catholicism • [226]
    • The doctrines formulated by the aristocracy of Popes and Councils originated among the mass of common believers • [227]
    • Theologians and councils merely reasoned on the materials thus given them • [228]
    • Catholicism shows the great part played by the many so clearly, because the part played by the few is defined by it so sharply • [228]
    • Catholicism, however, is only alluded to here because it illustrates the essential nature of truly democratic action • [229]
    • Thus enlightened by it, let us turn back to family life • [230]
    • Catholicism shows that democracy is a natural coincidence of conclusions • [231]
    • The home life of a nation depends on the same coincidence, or on spontaneously similar propensities • [231]
    • This truly democratic coincidence forces all governments to accommodate themselves to it • [233]
    • The same democratic power determines the structure of our houses, • [233]
    • and the furniture and other commodities in them, • [234]
    • and indeed all economic products • [234]
    • For though in the process of production the many are dependent on the few, • [235]
    • (a fact which the powers of trade unionism do but make more apparent) • [235]
    • yet it is the wants and tastes of the many which determine what shall be produced • [238]
    • and though great men elicit these wants by first supplying them, • [239]
    • the wants themselves must be latent in the nature of the many, and when once aroused are essentially democratic phenomena • [239]
    • Thus though economic supply is aristocratic, economic demand is purely democratic • [240]
    • The most gifted brewer cannot make the public drink beer they do not like • [241]
    • Now in politics also there is a similar demand and supply; • [242]
    • but the truly democratic demand in politics is not for laws • [242]
    • The demand for laws is not the counterpart of a demand for commodities, for commodities are demanded for their own sake, laws for the sake of their results • [243]
    • The demand for laws is like a demand that commodities shall be made by some special kind of machinery • [243]
    • No one makes this latter demand. Economic demand is single; political demand is double • [244]
    • Political democracy is vulgarly identified with the demand not for social goods, but for machinery • [244]
    • But in so far as democracy is a demand not for goods but for machinery, it is not purely democratic • [245]
    • The demands of the many are manipulated by the few • [245]
    • Why, then, is democracy especially associated with the demand in which its power is least? • [246]
    • Because it is the only sphere of activity in which the many can interfere with the machinery of supply at all; • [246]
    • and they can interfere with it here because the effects of political government on life are less close and important than the effects of business management on business; • [247]
    • and in any case the apparent power of the many is even here controlled by the few • [247]
    • The power of the many is a power to determine the quality of civilisation and progress, not to produce them • [248]
  • CHAPTER III
    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 • [250]
    • But they do not really do so; • [251]
    • for since the great man, as here technically defined, is the man who influences others so as to promote progress, • [251]
    • the ordinary man, as opposed to him, need not be stupid • [252]
    • He is merely the man whose talents do not increase the efficiency of other men • [252]
    • Poets, in this technical sense, are ordinary men • [252]
    • So are the most skilful manual workers, • [253]
    • for very great manual skill does not promote progress or influence others, • [254]
    • unless it can be metamorphosed into the shape of orders given to others • [256]
    • Again, brilliance or charm in private life does not promote progress • [256]
    • Therefore ordinary men, who do not promote progress, are not asserted to be lacking in high qualities • [257]
    • Indeed, what is really interesting in human nature is the typical part of it, not the exceptional, • [258]
    • as we may see by referring to art and poetry • [258]
    • Average opinion also on social matters is for each class the wise opinion; • [259]
    • and the average faculties shared by all are in one sense the test of truth • [259]
    • Therefore in denying to the average man the powers that promote progress • [260]
    • we are not degrading the average man. We are merely asserting that these powers form but a small part of life • [260]
    • Socialists can object to this conclusion only because it establishes the claim of exceptional men to exceptional wealth • [262]
    • They cannot have any theoretical objections to it, for they are beginning to recognise the importance of the exceptional man themselves, • [263]
    • and only obscure the fact for purposes of popular agitation • [264]
    • So far, however, as the reasoning of this book has gone already, no claim has been made for the great man to which socialists need object; • [264]
    • for we have assumed that he keeps none of the exceptional wealth he makes, for himself, • [265]
    • but that he works exactly on the terms the socialists would dictate to him • [266]
    • It now remains to consider whether he would really do so • [266]

• BOOK IV
  • CHAPTER I
    THE DEPENDENCE OF EXCEPTIONAL ACTION ON THE ATTAINABILITY 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 • [272]
    • Now let us take the most universal powers possessed by man, viz. those used in acquiring the simplest food • [272]
    • Man’s powers in agriculture would be latent unless man wanted food and the earth’s surface were cultivable • [272]
    • Thus the exercise of the simplest faculties depends on the want of some certain object, and the possibility of attaining it • [273]
    • If this is true of the commonest faculties which aim at supplying necessaries, much more is it true of rare faculties which aim at producing superfluities • [273]
    • 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 • [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 induced to work by a reward • [278]
    • which they themselves feel to be sufficient • [279]
    • Hence the great man’s character and requirements impress themselves on the structure of society • [279]
    • This is what socialists constantly forget • [280]
    • and they propose to equalise matters by not offering great men any exceptional reward • [281]
    • They forget to ask whether, under these circumstances, great men would exercise or reveal their exceptional powers at all • [281]
    • Exceptional rewards are essential to exceptional action • [282]
    • We must inquire what the required exceptional rewards are • [283]
  • CHAPTER II
    THE MOTIVES OF THE EXCEPTIONAL WEALTH-PRODUCER
    • Socialists, though often forgetting the necessity of exceptional motives, often remember it, • [284]
    • and endeavour to show that socialistic society would have sufficient rewards to offer to its great men, • [284]
    • such as the pleasure of doing good, of excelling, and of receiving honour • [285]
    • The fundamental question is, will such rewards as these stimulate great men to wealth-production? • [285]
    • Is the enjoyment of exceptional wealth superfluous as a motive to producing it? • [286]
    • If it is so, it is for the socialists to prove that it is so; • [286]
    • for they themselves admit that it has not been so in the past, and is not actually so now • [287]
    • Are there any signs, then, that the desire for exceptional wealth is beginning to lose its power? • [288]
    • We shall find that the socialists themselves maintain just the contrary; • [288]
    • for they appeal to the desire of each producer to possess all he produces as the most universal and permanent desire in man; • [289]
    • and never questioned this so long as they believed that the sole producer was the labourer • [289]
    • They questioned the doctrine only when they came to see that the great man is a producer also; and they confine their questioning to his case • [290]
    • But if the labourer desires to possess what he produces, much more will the great man do so; • [290]
    • for even if he gives away what he produces, he desires to possess it first • [291]
    • There is no sign, therefore, that the desire for exceptional wealth is losing force as a motive • [292]
    • Are, then, other desires acquiring new force as motives to wealth-production? • [292]
    • Are the joys of excelling, of benefiting others, or of being honoured by others, doing so? • [293]
    • The desire of these joys is a motive to certain kinds of exceptional conduct • [293]
    • It is a motive to benevolent action and religious work; • [293]
    • But neither of these is the same thing as wealth-production • [294]
    • It is a motive to artistic production, certainly, • [294]
    • and also to scientific discovery; • [295]
    • and works of art are wealth, and scientific discovery is the basis of industrial progress; • [296]
    • but great art forms but a small part of wealth, • [296]
    • and artistic effort other than the highest is motived by the desire of pecuniary reward, • [297]
    • whilst scientific discoveries, though made generally from the desire for truth, are applied to wealth-production because the men who apply them desire wealth • [297]
    • What, however, of the fact that the desire for honour makes the soldier work harder than any labourer? • [298]
    • Why, the socialists ask, should not the same desire make the great wealth-producer work? • [299]
    • Mr. Frederic Harrison has urged a similar argument • [299]
    • The answer to this is that the work of the soldier is exceptional; • [300]
    • and we cannot argue from it to the work of ordinary life • [301]
    • The fighting instinct is inherent in the dominant races, • [302]
    • in a way in which the industrial instinct is not • [303]
    • And even in war those who make the prolonged intellectual efforts required, ask for themselves other rewards besides honour • [303]
    • Still more will the great wealth-producers do so • [304]
    • There is therefore nothing to show that these other motives will supersede the desire of wealth • [304]
    • What they really do, and what socialists fail to see, is to mix with the desire for wealth, and add to its efficiency • [304]
    • As the desire of wealth has mixed with other desires in men like Bacon, Rubens, etc. • [305]
    • For in saying that the desire of wealth is essential as a motive to wealth-production we do not mean the desire of wealth for its own sake, • [305]
    • or for the sake of physical gratification • [306]
    • This forms a small part of its desirability • [306]
    • It is desired mainly as a means to power, and to those very pleasures which socialists offer instead of it • [307]
    • The great wealth-producers, susceptible to the motives on which socialists dwell, will desire exceptional wealth all the more because of them • [308]
    • It is argued, however, by semi-socialists that the actual producer may be allowed the income he produces, but that this must end with his life, and not be passed on to his family as interest on bequeathed capital • [309]
    • It is claimed that this arrangement would coincide with abstract justice, • [310]
    • for it is argued that all wealth which is not worked for must be stolen • [310]
    • This is utterly untrue, as the case of flocks and herds shows us; • [311]
    • but the chief producer of wealth that is not worked for is capital, which is past productive ability stored up and externalised • [311]
    • The dart of a savage hunter, • [312]
    • the manure heap or cart horse of a peasant, • [312]
    • are forms of capital which actually produce, and the product belongs to those who own them • [313]
    • The same is the case with such capital as engines and manufacturing plant • [313]
    • These implements are like a race of iron negroes, and are producers as truly as live negroes would be • [314]
    • Indirectly, wage capital is also a producer in the same way • [314]
    • And indeed, till they saw that this argument could be turned against themselves, it was strongly urged by the socialists • [315]
    • Practically, however, the justification of income from capital • [316]
    • rests on the fact that the power of capital to yield income is what mainly makes men anxious to produce it; • [316]
    • since if income-yielding capital could not be acquired and amassed, wealthy men could make no provision for their families, • [317]
    • nor could wealth give pleasure to those who might at any moment be beggars • [318]
    • Moreover, if incomes were not heritable, wealth would produce none of those social results, such as continuous culture, etc., which make it valuable • [319]
    • The wealth that ceased with the men that actually made it would produce a society of beasts • [319]
    • Wealth is desirable because it is the physical basis of an enlarged life; • [320]
    • and there must thus be continuity in the possession of wealth • [320]
    • Hence the great wealth-producer demands the possession not only of what he produces directly, but of what he produces indirectly through his past products • [321]
    • The majority not only may, but do, acquire a share of the increment produced by the great man; • [322]
    • but whatever this share may be, it can never be such as to make social conditions equal • [322]
  • CHAPTER III
    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 production • [324]
    • But though inheritance gives a certain permanence to the wealthy class, the families belonging to it are constantly, if slowly, changing, • [325]
    • and new men are constantly forcing their way into it • [326]
    • Indeed the wealth of the country depends on the men potentially great as producers actualising their talents and producing the wealth that raises them • [326]
    • It is therefore obvious that the wealth will increase in proportion as these potentially great men have the opportunity of actualising their productive powers • [327]
    • It is impossible, however, to make opportunities absolutely equal • [328]
    • The question is how near we can approach to equality • [328]
    • In a country where these opportunities have been made artificially unequal there will be room for a great deal of equalisation • [329]
    • But removing artificial impediments is only a negative kind of equalisation • [329]
    • It is probable, however, that for the development of genius of the highest order this is all that is needful, • [330]
    • and will secure the development of all the genius of the highest kind that exists • [331]
    • But genius of a lesser kind, which would else be lost, may, no doubt, be elicited by positive educational help from the State; • [332]
    • though the amount of such genius is overestimated by reformers, because they confuse talents rare in themselves with accomplishments that are only rare accidentally • [332]
    • The latter can be increased indefinitely, the former not • [333]
    • For real productive genius there is always room, • [333]
    • but the economic utility of mere accomplishments is limited by the conditions of production at the time • [333]
    • Thus to produce more possible clerks than are wanted merely lowers the wages of those employed, without increasing the utility of those who are not employed • [334]
    • Still, within limits, educational help from the State does much to increase the supply of exceptional, though not great, talent • [335]
    • But the main difficulty involved in the equalising of educational opportunity is not the production of good results, but the avoidance of bad • [335]
    • The bad results are the stimulating of discontent, not in average men, but in men who are really exceptional • [336]
    • but those exceptional gifts are ill-balanced or have some flaw in them • [337]
    • For if education sets free and stimulates sound intellectual powers • [337]
    • it will similarly stimulate intellects that are not sound, • [338]
    • or wills, with no intellect to match, and will generate a desire for wealth in men who are not capable of creating it, • [338]
    • and thus will merely produce needless misery and mischief • [339]
    • Education, again, stimulates faculties that can really produce exceptional results, but not results that are complete • [339]
    • The progressive struggle requires that the intellects of some should be stimulated, whose efforts fail • [340]
    • But those failures that promote progress are failures that partially succeed • [340]
    • But there are abortive talents which produce failures that have no relation to success. Those talents are purely mischievous; • [341]
    • for example, the failure of the would-be artist, • [341]
    • or that of the man who popularises wrong medical treatment • [342]
    • But the commonest example of this kind of man is the socialistic agitator, • [342]
    • who demands the redistribution of wealth, whilst absolutely powerless to produce it, • [343]
    • and who consequently invents false theories about its production, which do nothing but demoralise those who are duped by them • [343]
    • (though even these theories can be discussed with profit under certain circumstances) • [344]
    • Men like these embody the two chief dangers of the equalisation of educational opportunity, • [345]
    • namely, the rousing in the average man wants he cannot satisfy, and the stimulating of talents that are constitutionally imperfect • [345]
    • The latter of these dangers is the source of the former • [346]
    • It cannot be completely avoided, but the present theories of education tend to heighten, not to minimise it • [346]
    • The current theory that all talents should be developed is false, • [347]
    • so is the theory that all tastes should be cultivated in all alike. The education proper for the rich is not a type but an exception • [347]
    • These false theories rest on the false belief that equal education could ever produce equal social conditions • [348]
    • The majority of each class will remain in the class in which they were born • [348]
    • Only the efficiently exceptional can rise out of their own class, • [348]
    • and it is the ambition of the efficiently exceptional only that it is really desirable to stimulate • [349]
    • The average man should be taught to aim at embellishing his position, not at escaping from it • [349]
  • CHAPTER IV
    INEQUALITY, HAPPINESS, AND PROGRESS
    • The radical politician will object to the foregoing conclusions in terms with which we are familiar • [351]
    • The radical theorist will put the same objections more logically. If the desire of exceptional wealth is really the strongest motive, he will say that it follows that most men, since they cannot all be exceptionally rich, must always remain miserable • [352]
    • Now the first answer to this is that the fact that all men will never be equally wealthy does not prevent the conditions of all men from improving absolutely • [353]
    • Another answer is that if inequality in the possession of the most coveted prizes of life implies misery amongst the majority, this evil would be intensified rather than mitigated by socialists, who would substitute unequal honour for unequal wealth • [354]
    • The final answer is that the unequal distribution of wealth has no natural tendency to cause unhappiness; • [357]
    • for men’s desires vary. There is equality of desire for the necessaries of life only; for this desire rests on men’s physical natures, which are similar; • [357]
    • but the desire for superfluities depends on their mental powers, which vary • [358]
    • The special appeal of luxury is mainly to the mind and the imagination— • [358]
    • the luxury, for instance, of a large house, • [359]
    • or sleeping accommodation in a train • [359]
    • Consequently the desire for luxury and wealth, like the pleasure they give, depends on peculiar mental powers or peculiar mental states • [360]
    • Amongst most men the desire for wealth is naturally a speculative desire only • [361]
    • It implies no pain caused by the want of wealth • [361]
    • The desire ceases to be speculative and becomes a practical craving only when the imagination is exceptionally strong, and a strong belief is present that the attainment of wealth is possible • [362]
    • The desire for wealth, in fact, is in proportion to each man’s belief that by him personally it is attainable • [364]
    • This belief is naturally confined to men with exceptional imaginations and exceptional productive powers • [365]
    • It only becomes general by the popularising of false theories which represent wealth as attainable by all, without exceptional talent or exceptional exertion • [366]
    • It is roused, for instance, in a man who suddenly is told that he has a legal right to an estate which previously he never thought of coveting • [366]
    • The socialistic teaching of to-day creates a spurious desire for wealth by its doctrines of impossible rights to it • [367]
    • The practical craving for wealth is naturally confined to those who have some talent for creating it, and the pain caused by its absence is naturally confined to such men • [368]
    • The socialistic theories merely cause a barren and artificial discontent, • [368]
    • which interferes with that harmonious progress on which the welfare of the many depends • [369]
    • These theories make enemies of classes who would otherwise be allies, and the cause of true social reform suffers incalculable injury • [370]
    • The object of the present work is to show the fallacy of the theoretic basis of existing socialistic discontent and socialistic aspirations; • [371]
    • and to show that the many are not a self-existent power, • [372]
    • but depend for all the powers they possess on the co-operation of the few, • [373]
    • whose rights are as sacred, and whose power is as great, as their own • [375]
    • The recognition of the fact that the relations and positions of classes can never be fundamentally altered • [376]
    • (especially when we consider the facts of history to which Karl Marx drew attention) • [376]
    • shows us not only how chimerical are the hopes of the socialists, but what solid grounds there are for the hopes of more rational reformers • [378]