CHAPTER II 



THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF PURELY DEMOCRATIC 

 ACTION, OR THE ACTION OF AVERAGE MEN IN 

 CO-OPERATION. 



THE great-man theory as held by the conventional cariyie 

 historian, and expressed by Carlyle and others in *j 

 those vehement formulas which have so justly 



excited the ridicule of Mr. Herbert Spencer, errs failedtonote 



. , . . . . , that his powers 



not because it emphasises the fact that the great were con- 



, . r . . ditioned by the 



man is the sole cause of progress in the sense that capacities of 



no progress could have taken place without him, 

 but because it ignores the fact that the ordinary by hlm - 

 men of his time, being the tools with which he 

 works, or the instrument on which he plays, the 

 result is conditioned not only by his capacities, but 

 by theirs ; just as the kind of music that can be 

 produced by a pianist is determined not only by his 

 own skill, but by the character of the piano also. 

 Writers like Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, and The socialists 

 with him the whole school of socialists, impressed 

 by the obvious fact that the many do something, * 

 never pause to inquire what they do, or how much *J^ y . * 

 they do, or how little, but rush to the conclusion that thin &- 



