1 1 4 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UT1ON 



Book ii Now it must be perfectly obvious to the reader 



that in this description of mankind we have the 



fundamental facts before us which the great- man 



theory formulates. For let us begin by supposing 



NOW if an the that the entire human race contained no individuals 



race were . , , , . , ,. . , , , . . 



stupid, it is superior to the "decidedly stupid, who, whenever 

 wou^be'no they are placed in official positions, do nothing, Mr. 

 progress; Spencer declares, but commit the most pernicious 

 blunders, either by their irrational conservatism, 

 or their still more irrational innovations. It is 

 obvious that in this case the world would never 

 have progressed at all. Let us next suppose that 

 in addition to the "decidedly stupid" men, the 

 nor would human race comprises also a large proportion of 

 if an the race "ordinary" men, but not a single man who deserves 

 ry 'to be called more than "ordinary" Could social 

 progress, as we know it, have taken place even 

 then ? Could thought, for example, ever have 

 made any advances, had everybody been as in- 

 capable as Mr. Spencer's "ordinary' man is of taking 

 a rational view of human affairs had everybody 

 been enslaved, like him, "to unwarranted opinions" 

 and been, like him, entirely lacking in the faculty 

 which enables a man to comprehend " assembled 

 propositions in their totality " ? Or to put the whole 

 matter in terms of a single instance, could Mr. 

 Spencer's own system of philosophy have been 

 written if he himself had not been immensely 

 superior not only to "ordinary" men, but even to 

 those rival thinkers whom, in every one of his 

 volumes, he treats with such supreme disdain ? 



