ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book I 

 Chapter 3 



If this argu- 

 ment means 

 anything 

 practical, it 

 must mean 

 that greatness 

 is commoner 

 than it is 

 vulgarly 

 thought. 



inventions if centuries of past progress had not 

 prepared the way for them. "A Laplace, for 

 instance" he says, "could not have got very far 

 with the Mecanique Celeste unless he had been 

 aided by the slowly developed system of mathematics, 

 which we trace back to its beginnings amongst the 

 ancient Egyptians " ; and his many other illustra- 

 tions are all of the same kind. 



If 'we consider the meaning of this argument 

 carefully we shall see that its logical outcome is not 

 to deny to the great man all superiority whatsoever, 

 but to exhibit his superiority as being less than it is 

 usually supposed to be. Laplace, Mr. Spencer would 

 say, may have been personally a little above the level 

 of his contemporaries, but he owed most of his eleva- 

 tion to sitting on the shoulders of his predecessors. 

 Now if this reduction of the great man's reputed 

 greatness to such very small proportions has any 

 practical meaning, it must mean that greatness is 

 not only less than it is supposed to be, but is also 

 a great deal commoner, and more easily procurable. 

 Whatever any particular great man has done, could 

 have been done, if he had not done it, by an in- 

 definite number of others. Let us then take as 

 an illustration some definite task, and see how far 

 such reasoning has any practical application. Our 

 illustration shall be taken from the domain of art; 

 for the great artist, according to Mr. Spencer's special 

 statement, owes his greatness to the achievements 

 of past generations, just as the great mathema- 

 tician does, or the great thinker, or the great 



