CHAPTER I 



THE NATURE AND DEGREES OF THE SUPERIORITIES 

 OF GREAT MEN 



THAT great men are true causes of progress is The causality 

 admitted by Mr. Spencer himself to be the natural man being 

 opinion of mankind. What has been done, then, in 

 the preceding book is not much more than this : a 

 sound popular judgment, which is of the highest is - 

 sociological importance, has been rescued from the 

 discredit cast on it by the sophisms of modern 

 theorists. These very theorists themselves, when 

 they reason as practical men, have been shown to 

 the reader blowing all their disproofs of it to the 

 winds, and holding and appealing to it as tenaciously 

 and as passionately as anybody ; and it is consequently 

 given back to us, with its old authority unimpaired. 

 Sound popular judgments, however, are not science. 

 They lack what is the essence of science that is to 

 say, analytical precision. We must now, therefore, 

 take this judgment with regard to the great man, 

 and endeavour to invest it with a meaning exact and 

 full enough to enable us to apply it to the detailed 

 phenomena of society. 



And here Mr. Herbert Spencer shall once more 



