THE WORK OF IDEAS IN HUMAN EVOLUTION. 545 



divinities of the subterranean temples of India which appear to 

 us invested with it. 



Prestige is a kind of domination exercised over our minds 

 which paralyzes all our critical faculties and fills our hearts with 

 astonishment and respect. The feeling provoked by it is, like all 

 our feelings, inexplicable, but it is probably of similar order to 

 the fascination experienced by a magnetized subject. It is the 

 strongest moving spring of all domination. The gods, kings, and 

 women would never have reigned without it. Many factors enter 

 into its genesis, of which one of the most important is always 

 success. Every man who succeeds, every idea which prevails, 

 cease by that fact to be disputed ; and when success ceases, pres- 

 tige vanishes with it. The hero applauded by the multitude in 

 the evening is spat upon in the morning if his fortune has failed 

 him ; and the reaction is quicker in proportion as the prestige has 

 been more brilliant. Prestige likewise tends to disappear under 

 the light of discussion. One must hold the multitude at a dis- 

 tance to keep their respect. 



The details of the psychology of prestige may be studied by 

 setting them at the end of a series that descends from the found- 

 ers of religions and empires to the particular person who is try- 

 ing to astonish his neighbors with a new coat or a decoration. 

 Between the extreme terms of such a series we should place all the 

 forms of prestige in the various elements of a civilization in the 

 sciences, arts, literature, etc. when we shall see that it constitutes 

 the fundamental element of persuasion. Whether consciously or 

 not, the being, the idea, or the thing possessing prestige is imi- 

 tated at once, and imposes on a whole generation certain ways of 

 thinking and of expressing thought. The four fifths of modern 

 painters who reproduce the faded colors and stiff attitudes of the 

 primitive school hardly suspect that they are imitators. They 

 believe they are sincere ; yet if an eminent master had not revived 

 this form of art, they would still have seen in it only the childish 

 side. Those who, at the instance of another illustrious master, 

 flood their canvases with violet shades, do not see any more vio- 

 let in Nature than was seen fifty years ago, but they have been 

 infected with the personal and special impression of a painter who, 

 in spite of this eccentricity, was able to gain great prestige. Simi- 

 lar examples might be found in all the elements of civilization. 



Thus, through repetition, contagion, and prestige, men of each 

 age come to possess a fund of ideas of an average sort which 

 render them like one another, and to such a point that when 

 centuries have accumulated over them, we recognize, by their 

 artistic, scientific, philosophical, and literary productions, the age 

 in which they lived. It is true that we can not say that they 

 absolutely copied one another, but that they had in common 



