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ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VGL UTION 



Book in 



what the 

 iTmited. We 



limits are. 



if a Russian 



employs a* 

 |^ u e n n d ^ d d j v g ork " 

 what they think 



is a cellar, 



but is a mine 



for blowing up 



the Czar, 



the many do everything. This conclusion is even 

 more meaningless than the doctrine which it is 

 intended to contradict. The many do something, 

 and they do what is of extreme importance ; but its 

 importance is strictly limited, and is indeed only 

 intelligible through its limitations, just as the 

 character of a profile is intelligible only through its 

 outlines. The object, therefore, of the sociological 

 inquirer must be to discover precisely what these 

 limitations are. The methods by which the dis- 

 covery is to be made have been already indicated. 

 Let us now g on to a ppty them. They are of two 

 kinds. One consists of an examination of what, in 

 any domain of activity, the many would produce, if 

 the influence of the few were absent. The other 

 consists in an examination of the kind of faculties 

 which the production of such or such a result implies. 

 If these faculties are common to all, we say the 

 result is produced by the many ; if the faculties are 

 rare, we say it is produced by the few. 



The practical validity of both these kinds of 

 reasoning is shown by the following imaginary, but 

 not impossible case. A hundred Russian workmen, 

 a u o f them loyal to the Czar, are employed by 



' r j j 



a citizen of Moscow to enlarge a subterranean 

 cellar, and another hundred are employed to fill it 

 with heavy wine-cases. A week after the work is 

 completed the Czar is driving outside, and, as he 

 passes the citizen's house, is killed by an explosion 

 f rom below. The so-called cellar was a mine, the 

 wine-cases were filled with dynamite. Now if all 



