148 THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 



ments. Most men would make hopeless errors in the piloting 

 of society. But they are generally pretty clear as to their 

 immediate personal interests. If these interests are in the 

 hands of the interested if people are minding their own 

 business they are in the custody of precisely those who are 

 best capable of handling them. People with common interests 

 make common cause and form competing groups; and out of 

 the competition of such groups selection affecting the destiny 

 of the whole society is bound to come. 



It is bound also, in the long run, to result in adjustment. 

 It is by such automatic, unplanned selection that all that we 

 call improvement in adjustment has come to pass. The big 

 man is the individual who correctly diagnoses the trend of 

 events and rides in upon a wave of public opinion formed 

 under a variety of motives which are often totally irrelevant to 

 the results attained. That a wave of public opinion shall be 

 raised, it is necessary that there shall exist a popular dis- 

 content, or irritability that can be excited to express itself in 

 action, and, given this condition, it is necessary to fit the appeal 

 to the variety of interests involved interests which will be 

 found to be for the most part personal, local, and but slightly 

 or not at all relevant to any central principles. Masses of 

 men do not look critically into the rational merits of a case. 

 In this country, for instance, it is generally assumed that dis- 

 comfort is due to governmental inefficiency or worse, and 

 therefore hard times are likely to result in the upset of an 

 administration. The process by ex parte conviction and snap- 

 judgment is natural enough, and is shocking to those only who 

 revolt at seeing things as they are. 



It will be a long time before public opinion will form itself 

 deliberately upon thought in terms of society. Few can en- 

 visage so large and complex a thing. The eugenists seem to 

 hope that people will come to mate or refrain from mating 

 with the interests of future generations in mind; but only the 



