5 6 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book i not really produce those great changes of which he 



is nevertheless " the proximate initiator" ; the other 



(2) by saying is that, outside the sphere of primitive warfare, he 



that what he , *. i *.. L 



to do is does not even proximately initiate any great changes 

 at all. The first of these two contentions is ex- 

 pressed with sufficient clearness in his^ statement 

 " if there is to be anything like a re&l explanation" 

 of those changes of which the great man is the 

 "proximate initiator" changes, to quote an example 

 which he himself gives, such as those produced by 

 the conquests of Julius Caesar this explanation 

 must be sought not in the great man himself, but 

 ' ' in the aggregate of social conditions out of which 

 he and they (i.e. the changes commonly supposed to 

 have been produced by him"] have arisen" Mr. 

 Spencer's second contention is expressed in the 

 following passage, the concluding words of which 

 have been quoted already, but on which it will be 

 presently necessary for us to insist again. ''Re- 

 cognising? he says, "what truth there is in the 

 great-man theory, we may say that, if limited to the 

 history of primitive societies, the histories of which 

 are histories of little else than endeavours to destroy 

 one another, it approximately expresses fact in repre- 

 senting the great leader as all-important. But its 

 immense error lies in the assumption that what was 

 once true was true for ever, and that a relation 

 of ruler and ruled which was good at one time is 

 good for all time. Just as fast as the predatory 

 activity of early tribes diminishes, just as fast as 

 large aggregates are formed, so fast do societies 



