2 s 2 ARISTO CRA CY AND E VOL UTION 



Book in upon this truth again, as it has been explained at 



great length already, and it is impossible that any 



reader can misunderstand it. What it is necessary 



for us here to explain and insist upon is its converse 



the ordinary namely, that if the essence of technical greatness is 



opposed to so to influence the actions or thoughts of other men 



be^tupid. " ' tnat tne productivity of human labour is increased 



or the scope of human thought enlarged, no man is 



technically great who is not in this way influential. 



When we come to reflect closely on this definition, 



some of the results will strike us as not a little 



curious ; for if we exclude from the class of great 



He is merely men and relegate to the class of ordinary men all 



the man whose _ .. 11-11 



talents do not those whose greatness begins and ends with them- 



effidency o*f selves, and does not tend to communicate itself to 



any one beside themselves, so as to make others 



think or act more efficiently than they would unaided, 



ordinary men, or the many, in our present technical 



sense of the words, will include a number of men of 



the most brilliant capacities and accomplishments. 



poets, in this The greatest poets, for instance, will in this way 



technical sense, . . 1-11- r 



are ordinary be classed as ordinary men, whilst the inventor of 

 machinery for making good boots cheaply will be 

 classed as a great man. And the reason is as 

 follows. A great inventor is great as an agent of 

 progress because when the apparatus invented by 

 him is in process of being manufactured, and a 

 thousand workmen are shaping or multiplying its 

 separate parts, or again, when ten thousand other 

 workmen are using the machines when completed, 

 he makes each workman do precisely what he would 



men. 



