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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



by what they help others to do. Greatness, however, is not in all cases 

 equally beneficial, but the influence of some great men is more advan- 

 tageous than that of others. Progress, therefore, involves a struggle 

 through which the fittest great men shall secure influence over otliers and 

 destroy the influence of the less fit. The discussion, turns to the office of 

 the great man in wealth production and his power in politics, to the parts 

 contributed to a joint product by the few and the many, to the dependence 

 of exceptional action on the attainability of exceptional reward, and to the 

 motives of the exceptional wealth-producer. Under the last head the jus- 

 tification of income from capital is shown to rest on the fact tliat tlie power 

 of capital to yield income is what mainly makes men anxious to produce 

 it, and that it must be transmissible and heritable, else those social results 

 would not be produced which make it valuable. While the majority may 

 and do acquire a share of the increment produced by the great man, it can 

 never be such as to make social conditions equal, for opportunities can not 

 be made equal. Educational help may do much indeed to increase the 

 supply of exceptional though not great talent, but when applied to those 

 whose exceptional gifts are ill balanced or whose intellects are not sound, 

 it results in mischief, stimulating talents that will be ill applied and devel- 

 oping tastes that can not be satisfied, breeding agitators and causing dis- 

 content. " The average man should be taught to aim at embellishing his 

 position, not at escaping from it." The unequal distribution of wealth has 

 no natural tendency to cause unhappiness, for men's desires vary. Equal- 

 ity of desires exists only for the necessaries of life, for this desire rests on 

 men's physical natures, which are similar, while the desire for superfluities 

 depends on their mental powers, which vary, and the sj)ecial appeal of 

 luxury is mainly to the mind and the imagination. The desire for wealth 

 is speculative, and imi)lies no pain caused by the want of it, and is, in fact, 

 in proportion to each man's belief that wealth is attainable by him. 

 Finally, the socialistic teaching of to-day creates a spurious desire for 

 wealth by its doctrines of impossible rights to it, and its theories merely 

 cause a barren and artificial discontent that interferes with that har- 

 monious progress on which the welfare of the many depends. They make 

 enemies of classes who would otherwise be allies, to the incalculable injury 

 of the cause of true social reform. Mr. Mallock's purpose in this work is 

 to show the fallacy of these theories, and to demonstrate the dependence of 

 the many upon the co-ox)eration of the few. 



GENERAL NOTICES. 



We have already, in our sketch of James 

 Croll (Popular Science Monthly, August, 1897), 

 given a picture, however inadequate, of tlie 

 heroic struggles of that student who, to use 

 the words of Lord Kelvin, " presented in his 

 life a rare case of inborn passion for phi- 

 losophy and science conquering all obstacles 

 and attaining to the object of lifelong de- 

 votion in scientific research and philosophic 

 speculation " ; and can hardly have failed to 

 convey some idea of the incidents which his 

 life developed, and which are set forth more 



in detail and consecutively in the auto- 

 biographical sketch and memoir of his life 

 and work prepared by his friend James 

 Campbell Irons* to which we were most 

 largely indebted for the material for our 

 sketch. It is only necessary here to call at- 

 tention to this book for the information of 

 all persons who would like to know more of 

 Dr. Croll's life and work, as well as of those 



* Autobiographical Sketch of James Croll, 

 LL. D., F. R. S., etc. By James Campbell Irons. 

 London : Edward Stanford. Pp. 553. 



