8 8 ARISTO CRA CY AND E VOL UTION 



Book i social evolution" even if they do not result entirely, 

 as Carlyle would have it, from the actions of great 

 men, yet cannot, at all events, be possibly explained 

 without them ; and that great men, their natures, 

 and the details of their active lives, are primary 

 factors to be studied by every practical sociologist, 

 and are not to be merged in "society" in " ante- 

 cedents" and in "aggregates of conditions" 

 so much, then, The practically independent character of the 



being estab- , .. *n i 



, we must great man s causality will be yet more apparent 



at another stage of our argument, and we shall 

 suggested byit. see t jj at fa e wno le structure of all civilised 

 societies depends on it. But we may, for the 

 present, regard it as being sufficiently established, 

 and the absurd and unreal character of the attempts 

 to get rid of it demonstrated. So much, then, 

 being assumed, we will, in the following chapter, 

 consider two objections of a character very different 

 from any of those of which we have now disposed. 

 They are objections which will very possibly have 

 suggested themselves to the reader's mind, but 

 which, instead of conflicting with the truth which 

 has been just elucidated, will be found, when ex- 

 amined carefully, to emphasise and to enlarge its 

 significance. 



