INTRODUCTION 15 



conceded by others who are not subject to the same deluding 

 influence. Such objects are valued because they are desired, 

 and not desired because they are valuable. 



The best information we possess as to the conduct or 

 personal qualities which are normally rated at a high value 

 is to be found in the history of the past, and the established 

 reputations of our predecessors on the stage of life. The 

 estimates of any one age, like the judgements of an individual 

 on his own conduct, are certain to be biased by the spirit 

 of that age ; and its distinctive principles of action will be 

 invested with a fictitious and partial value. The great 

 men of one age are not always the great men of the next. 

 It is only the highest values that maintain their position 

 for long, and it is to them we must turn for the primary 

 indications of a persistent universal end of action. When 

 we pass in review the great names whose title to reverence 

 has stood the proof of time, we shall find one point which 

 is common to all that is, the extent and direction of the 

 influence they have exerted on the fortunes of mankind. 

 This is common to every kind of greatness ; to the con 

 queror and the man of science, to the religious or the moral 

 reformer, to eminence in art or literature ; and the influence 

 has always been in the direction, not of greater net happi 

 ness, for that, as we have seen, has not been the result, 

 but of advance along that line of progress which separates 

 men from cattle, and the civilized man from the savage 

 an advance which constitutes the only form of improvement 

 which has a permanent and universal value. This criterion, 

 which may be easily discerned in the case of the higher 

 values, is equally applicable to lower values, degrees of 

 value being roughly proportionate to degrees of influence. 

 Personal eminence is no doubt admired on its own account, 

 but not so greatly if it bears no fruit, and solely as a con 

 crete exemplification of the advance which all men desire for 

 themselves. On the other hand, all conduct which degrades 

 a man, or threatens others with degradation, is the object 

 of contempt and aversion. Now the essential property of 

 forward evolution is increase of force, and force is not 



