u8 



ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book II 

 Chapter i 



We see this 

 in poetry, 



m singers, 



How great the inequality is between the natural 

 powers of men is perhaps most clearly evidenced by 

 the case of art, and more especially the art of poetry. 

 In certain domains of effort it may be urged that 

 unequal results are caused by unequal circumstances, 

 quite as much as by unequal capacities. But about 

 poetry, at all events, this cannot be said. Some of the 

 greatest poets the world has ever known it is enough 

 to instance the cases of Burns and Shakespeare- 

 have been men of no wealth and of very imperfect 

 education. Obviously, therefore, in poetry one man 

 has as good a chance as another. It is no doubt 

 often argued -and this argument has already been 

 examined that great poets, of whom Shakespeare is 

 a favourite example, owe part of their greatness not to 

 themselves, but to their age. But this does nothing to 

 explain the differences between poets who belong to 

 the same age, and who, all of them, in this respect, 

 start with the same advantage. Let us confine our 

 comparisons then to men who were each other's 

 contemporaries, and ask what made Burns a better 

 poet than Pye, Shakespeare a greater poet than 

 the feeblest of his forgotten rivals, Pope than 

 Ambrose Philips, Byron than " the hoarse Fitz- 

 gerald" ? There is only one answer possible. 

 These men in respect of poetry had been made 

 giants by nature ; those were condemned by nature 

 to live and to die dwarfs. 



And the same inequality that exhibits itself in 

 the domain of poetry will be found in every other 

 domain of human effort. What can be more 



