1 36 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book ii This confusion of statement, however, on the 



part of Mill, is merely mentioned here in passing, 

 as one more example of the nature of that inveterate 

 error namely the ignoring of the differences 

 between one class of men and another which has 

 made modern sociology so useless for practical 

 purposes. The sole point which really now con- 

 cerns us is this. In spite of the verbal, and indeed 

 the mental confusion into which Mill lapses, the 

 truth which he was struggling to express, and 

 which no one, he says, would be likely to contradict, 

 is not that, as he nonsensically puts it, the speculative 

 faculties are weak in mankind generally, but that 

 amongst the larger part of mankind they have 

 hardly any efficiency at all, whilst " in decidedly 

 exceptional individuals " they are intense, active, 

 and conquering ; and that consequently it is these 

 "decidedly exceptional individuals" who practically 

 constitute "the one social element which is pre- 

 dominant, and almost paramount, amongst the agents 

 of social progression. " 



NOW how do Now such being the case, let us resume our 

 present inquiry, and ask how do these individuals who 

 - alone strongly desire truth, and have the faculties 

 r discovering it, perform the practical part which 



doing so? Mill so rightly assigns to them? By what kind of 

 conduct do they become " agents of social pro- 

 gression," so as to raise communities from the level 

 of helpless savagery and gradually endow them with 

 all the resources of civilisation ? One thing is 

 perfectly clear. They do not so by the mere act 



