126 ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 



Book ii prise, and only becomes great, as a social force, by 



doing so. Such unions are often sufficiently strange 



and has to J n appearance. We see some man whose intellect is 



ally himself * 



with men the finest machine imaginable, but he is only redeemed 

 gifts are from absolute and grotesque uselessness by his 



partner, who is little better than an inspired bag- 

 man. But such a bagman's gifts, however the 

 inefficient theorist may despise them, are, though 

 less striking than the inventor's, often quite as rare. 

 No doubt many great inventors have the practical 

 gifts as well as the intellectual, and their greatness, 

 in such cases, is comprehended completely in them- 

 selves. It remains, however, an equally composite 

 thing, no matter whether it takes two men or only 

 one to complete it ; and exceptional intellect is only 

 one of its elements. The other qualities with which 

 it requires to be allied, and which alone give it its 

 practical value, such as determination, shrewdness, 

 and a certain thickness of skin, though often re- 

 markable individually for the exceptional degree 

 to which they are developed, just as often unite 

 to produce practical greatness, not because of the 

 exceptional degree to which they are developed, 

 but of the exceptional proportions in which they are 

 combined. Some of the most essential of them, 

 indeed, need not be exceptional at all, except from 

 the fact of their association with others that are so. 

 Much greatness, for instance, of the most powerful 

 kind, consists mainly of very ordinary sense in con- 

 junction with extraordinary energy ; and energy is 

 often, as has already been pointed out, in proportion 



