2 1 2 



ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in their anxiety by saying that his life depends not 

 on the rope but on the rock. In either case it 

 would literally depend on both, and on a thousand 

 other things beside ; but in either case one cause 

 only is mentioned, or calls for mention, and that is 

 the cause whose cessation or continuance is doubt- 

 ful. For similar reasons, and in a similar sense, 

 great men are said to be the causes of all that is 

 done or produced in the communities to which they 

 belong, beyond a certain minimum which, even 

 when not insignificant, is stationary.; for though the 

 efforts of the average men are essential to the pro- 

 duction of this addition to the minimum, just as 

 they are to the production of the minimum itself, 

 there is no question of their efforts coming to an 

 end unless the men come to an end also ; whereas 

 the activities of the great men require special 

 circumstances for their development, and constitute 

 the only productive force which modern democratic 

 activity practically tends to paralyse, or at all events 

 diminish or impede. 



But there is But there is yet another method, still more neces- 



of SscrimfnTt- sarv to ^ e described, by which we are able to differen- 



ing between the t } ate j^g respective products of these tWO claSSCS of 

 products of r * . 



exceptional men a. method which will assist us not only to 



men and . . . ._... 



ordinary men. assign to each a certain portion oi one joint enect, 



but also to particularise many of the elements of 

 which each portion is composed. This method will 

 be explained more fully in the following chapter, 

 but it will be well to give a general and preliminary 

 explanation of it here. It is founded on the two 



