SOCIAL PROGRESS 253 



vation and eventually food production by synthetic chemistry in the 

 broader classifications, of house building, of useful clothing, of hygiene, 

 etc. These arts are known in varying degrees of detail to some mem- 

 bers of the society. 



There may be two specific arts known at a given time useful for 

 the accomplishing of the same result. We are apt to find that art in 

 current exercise which accomplishes the result with the smaller cost of 

 production. It is wonderful to contemplate how very closely cost of 

 production has been studied at all times. In the same classifications, 

 one art successively displaces another on the basis of reduction of cost 

 of production or saving of human effort. 



But the art is very different from a material thing. The art is 

 immaterial and useful. Wealth is commonly defined as material and 

 useful. The art as well as the object of wealth may be possessed. The 

 value of wealth, of the material things which are useful, is the shadow 

 of the force of the arts, the immaterial things which create value. We 

 must distinguish sharply some of the characteristics of the arts. Napo- 

 leon once said : " But you can not outnumber the one brain." 



In a great problem, a thousand ordinary brains put to work on the 

 same problem can not be added together. The results of all this medi- 

 ocre thinking will not surpass the products of the brain of a Newton, a 

 La Place, or a Napoleon. There is a degree or quality which can not 

 be gained at random by addition. In the mental tug-of-war, it is true 

 that we can not outnumber the one brain. The art is the product of the 

 " one brain," i. e., of the brain of a quality or degree slightly superior 

 to the brains around it. We, therefore, note that a superior brain is a 

 treasure for the community, provided the brain is put to work to solve 

 the problems of the present life. 



Now, Professor Karl Pearson and Sir Francis Galton are wont to 

 define the exceptional man as one in a certain proportion of the popula- 

 tion. It is assumed that in a strain of the population, there is the " one 

 brain " in a hundred, in a thousand, in a million and in a hundred 

 million of persons, of increasing quality for each classification. Around 

 the lives of the " one brains " are gathered the essential narrative of 

 the history of their times. 



But, our first theorem is that the value of an art or of an invention, 

 measured in a saving or a lessening of the previous cost of production, 

 is theoretically commensurable, and that this value for the same new art 

 varies with the population. In other words, the greater the population 

 at a given time, when a new art is discovered, the greater will be the 

 value of the art. If an art, say the invention of the sewing machine in 

 the clothing trade, is equal to saving two dollars per capita per annum 

 net over previous outlay, after making due allowance for new capital 

 invested in the machine, etc., the value of the new art is plainly the 



