If we cut away in society men of genius, leaves, and blossoms, in trees, men who reach down Heaven to us, they grow out again.
If we cut away in society great masses of roots, common men who hew out the earth in the ground and get earth ready to be heaved up to the sky—the roots grow out again.
But if we cut a little faint rim around it of artists, of inventive men-controllers, of the Sap-conductors, the men who make the Hewers run up to the sky and who make the geniuses come down to the ground, the men who run the tree together, who out of dark earth and bright sunshine build it softly—if we destroy these, this little rim of great men or men who save others, a totally new tree has to be begun.
It is the essence of a democracy to acknowledge that some men for the time being are more important in it than others, and that these men, whosoever they are, in whatever order of society they may be—poor, rich, famous, obscure—these men who think for others, who save others and invent others, who make it possible for others to invent themselves, these men shall be saved first.
One always thinks at first that one would like to make a diagram of human nature. It would be neat and convenient.
Then one discovers that no diagram one can make of human nature—unless one makes what might be called a kind of squirming diagram will really work.
Then one tries to imagine what a flowing diagram would be like.
Then it occurs to one, one has seen a flowing diagram.