THE GREAT MAN'S DEBT TO THE PAST 71 



those two other arguments in which the case Book i 

 against the great man finds its main support, and 

 which, however misleading they may be, must be 

 examined at greater length. In both of these the AS for the two 

 distinctly exceptional character of the great man is 

 assumed, or at all events is not denied, but it is 

 represented as being, if it exists, not properly the ^t^ 

 great man's own. The first argument refers it to own, 

 aggregates of external conditions the knowledge 

 accumulated for the great man's use, the character 

 of his fellow-citizens, who are ready to carry out his 

 orders, and generally to what Mr. Bellamy calls his 

 "social inheritance and environment" The second 

 argument refers it to the great man's line of an- 

 cestors, insisting that he inherits from them his own 

 exceptional capacities, which capacities his ancestors 

 acquired by being members of society, and of which 

 it is accordingly contended that society is ultimately 

 the source. 



Now on both these arguments, before we con- they are both 



, ., . . . , . . . true speculat- 



sider them in detail, there is one broad criticism to iveiy, but are 

 be made, which applies to both equally. There is pr 

 a certain sense a remote and speculative sense 

 in which they are both of them quite true, and 

 indeed are almost truisms ; but for practical pur- 

 poses they are either not true v at all, or if true, are 

 altogether irrelevant ; and it is necessary to show 

 the reader, by a few simple examples, that in the 

 doctrine that statements can be at once true and 

 not true there is no philosophical hair-splitting, and 

 no Hegelian paradox, but merely the assertion of a 



untrue, or 

 irrelevant ; 



