xxvin TRUE INDIVIDUALISM 515 



while even the refined and critical Tennyson could 

 say 



" Plowmen, shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still 



could find, 

 Sons of God and kings of men in utter nohleness of mind. '' 



And everywhere we see illustrations of the same fact in 

 the fortunate accidents that have here and there rescued 

 some great mind from a life of obscure drudgery. If Watt, 

 the mathematical instrument maker, had not lived in 

 Glasgow, where he had the model of a steam-engine sent 

 him from the University for repair, the advent of the 

 modern steam-engine might have been delayed half a 

 century. If Faraday had not had a ticket given him to 

 Sir Humphry Davy's lectures on chemistry at the Royal 

 Institution, he might have always remained a working 

 bookbinder, and the progress of electrical science might 

 have been seriously checked. Numbers of our inventors 

 and original thinkers have sprung from the ranks of 

 peasants and mechanics, and we may be sure that many 

 more who were equally gifted have been wholly lost to the 

 world owing to the absence of favourable conditions at the 

 right period of their lives, or to some inherent modesty or 

 timidity that prevented them from forcing their way in spite 

 of all obstacles. What we need in order to profit by all the 

 skill, and talent, and genius that may exist in our whole 

 population, is that all should have the education and the 

 opportunities for developing whatever abilities they may 

 possess, which are now accessible only to the higher and the 

 wealthier classes ; and when we find that this is also the 

 teaching of philosophy, and that only in this way can we 

 apply the fundamental principle of organic evolution to 

 the development of the social organism, we have both 

 experience and theory in favour of adopting it as a sure 

 guide. 



Equality of Opportunity. 



While discussing Herbert Spencer's "Justice" in an 

 address to the Land Nationalization Society in 1892, I 

 remarked : 



"It is strange that Mr. Spencer did not perceive that if this law 

 of the connection between individual character and conduct and their 



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