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