SOCIOLOGY AND HERO-WORSHIP 



our attention, and the other does. In any spe- 

 cies whatever, the greater number of individuals 

 are no doubt variations, either in one respect or 

 in another. Throughout nature, where a great 

 number of mutually balancing forces cooperate 

 to produce a set of results, we are likely to find 

 the results distributed about a certain average, 

 very much like the shots at a target. A little 

 way from the centre there is a spot where the 

 shots are thickly gathered ; some few have hit 

 the bull's-eye ; some have been caught away 

 out on the rim ; some have perhaps flown by 

 without hitting at all. It is just the same with 

 the distribution of sizes, strengths, forms, or 

 any attributes, physical or mental, in a species 

 of animals, or in a race of men. These things 

 all differ, according to the general laws of devi- 

 ation from an average ; and the forces concerned 

 in the result are so hopelessly complicated it 

 is so utterly beyond our power to unravel them 

 that this is all we know about the matter. 

 We cannot tell why a given moth has a pro- 

 boscis exactly an inch and a quarter in length 

 any more than we can tell why Shakespeare was 

 a great dramatist. 



I agree, therefore, with Dr. James, that " the 

 causes of production of great men lie in a sphere 

 wholly inaccessible to the social philosopher. 

 He must simply accept geniuses as data, just as 

 Darwin accepts his spontaneous variations." 



