248 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in choice between them, alike presupposes the few who 



will make the supply a possibility. 



The power of And if the power of the many over supply is 

 thus limited even in the domain of politics, in the 

 th " domain of economic production it is more limited 



civilisation and st jn anc j j n ^g domain of intellectual progress it is 



progress, not 



to produce absolutely non-existent. Their true power is in 

 their demand for completed results for knowledge 

 which they can assimilate, for dogmas logically 

 stated, which reveal to them clearly what they 

 already believe dimly, for food they can enjoy, for 

 clothes that please their eyes, for commodities and 

 appliances that minister to their comfort and con- 

 venience, for social security, for freedom, and for 

 personal and national prosperity. In other words, 

 the truth, when properly understood, is a truism. 

 The many are all powerful in determining the quality 

 of progress and civilisation because it is their own 

 tastes and wants to which civilisation must minister, 

 and their own qualities which civilisation must draw 

 out ; but of initiating civilisation, of advancing it, or 

 even maintaining it, the many are absolutely in- 

 capable unless they have the few to guide them. 

 They contain within themselves the things that 

 have to be developed, but they cannot themselves 

 provide themselves with the conditions of their own 

 development. Without the few to assist them they 

 could no more progress than a train of railway 

 carriages could progress in the absence of the 

 locomotive. 



It is impossible, however, to state these conclu- 



