THE BEGINNINGS OP^ SOCIAL EVOLUTION 127 



Contrast this with the possibilities within the reach 

 of the ruler of a nation. The monarch may by a 

 word change the face of nature by decreeing that a 

 canal shall connect two oceans, and the history of 

 the world may be deflected in one way or another by 

 the will of the leader of a powerful nation. What is 

 it that gives him this power? Not his intelligence 

 necessarily, for, while possibly there may be more 

 intelligence in the monarch than in the savage chief- 

 tain, no one would claim that this explains the dif- 

 ference between the powers of the two individuals. 

 "Whether Frederick the Great, when he decided to 

 claim Silicia, was more intelligent than a warrior 

 chief when he plans an Indian raid is a matter of 

 no special concern, for there can be no question 

 that the reason why the one altered the history of 

 the world, while the other accomplished nothing, 

 was not because of the difference in intelligence of 

 the two leaders. Civilization had placed in the, 

 hands of the one immense forces to wield. The sav- 

 age had little to aid him except his own individual 

 powers. The one, by means of the forces placed in 

 his hands by his ancestry, turns the destiny of the 

 world with a word ; the other has an influence hardly 

 extending beyond his own vision. 



A man standing alone can do little, no matter 

 how intelligent. Imagine the most intelligent man 

 living as a hermit, absolutely without contact with 

 his fellow men. He would accomplish nothing, and 

 his life would be simply an existence. But the same 

 man placed in a civilized community may do a work 

 that will live for all future history. Man owes his 

 powers not simply to what he is himself, but, rather, 

 to the fact that he is living in the midst of other 



