204 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in resulting from its application to the least productive 

 soils which the labourer can live by cultivating ; 

 and it is only in the case of soils which are more 

 productive than these, and which yield to similar 

 labour a product above this minimum, that land, 

 apart from labour, can be said practically to produce 

 anything at all. 

 and in an kinds Now just as we can argue with regard to land 



of production. 111 i 11 



and labour, so can we argue with regard to the 

 average men and the great men, and measure what 

 they contribute respectively to any given civilisation; 

 for just as a thousand men from some good soil will 

 elicit twice the produce they would be able to elicit 

 from a bad soil, so from a bad soil may a thousand 

 average men manage to elicit, if directed by some 

 agricultural genius, twice the product which they 

 would elicit if left to themselves ; and just as in 

 the former case, according to the principles above 

 stated, we shall ascribe the smaller product to labour 

 without any reference to land, and ascribe to land 

 the excess only of the larger product over the 

 smaller, so in the second shall we ascribe the smaller 

 product to the average men, and the excess of the 

 larger product over the smaller to the great man. 

 The great man We shall say, in fact, that the great man produces 

 1 that so much of the product as comes annually into 

 existence when he directs the others, and disappears 



labour if his as SO on as he ceases to direct them. 



influence 



ceased. Here, however, the original objection of Mill 



will suggest itself again, though in a somewhat 

 different form ; for in spite of all that has been 



