GREA TNESS NO T AN E THICAL Q UALITY 1 2 3 



general conversation, and that a number of other Book n 

 men who produce no such results are scholars, 

 critics, thinkers, keen judges of men and things ; and 

 contrasting the brilliancy of those who have pro- 

 duced no great social results with the narrow ideas 

 and dulness of those who have produced many, 

 they proceed to argue that great social results can- 

 not possibly require great men to produce them ; 

 or, in other words, that they might be produced by 

 almost anybody. 



But the whole of this class of objections will But the most 



111- . . , . efficient forms 



altogether disappear when we more closely examine of greatness 



what the qualities are on which the production 



given social results depends. Let us take a few ^^ nl about 



of these results as examples. Let us take the 



formulation and the popularising of some particular 



political demand, by which the whole course of a 



country's history is affected, and the increasing and 



cheapening the supply of some articles of popular 



consumption sugar, let us say, or workmen's boots 



and clothing. The persons who urge the objections 



we are now discussing assume that all greatness, 



other than physical strength and dexterity, must be 



necessarily ethical or intellectual, and be calculated 



to excite our ethical or intellectual admiration. But 



let them consider the qualities requisite to produce 



such results as have just been mentioned, and they 



will see that no assumption could be more wide of 



the truth. 



A man who should, without underpaying his 

 employees, succeed in manufacturing for the poorer 



