THE GREAT MAN'S RE WARD 267 



the object of socialists is to level social conditions, Book in 

 to abolish all differences of rank, and to confiscate 

 all exceptional incomes, this book up to the present 

 .point might be accepted as a handbook of socialism. 

 For the reader will recollect that when it was said 

 that the great man's activity involved the existence 

 of motives which would lead him to develop his 

 faculties, and that without such motives these faculties 

 would be practically non-existent, the question of 

 what these motives were was for the time alto- 

 gether waived, and we assumed the development 

 and the subsequent exercise of his abilities as 

 something that would take place no matter under 

 what conditions. The question, however, which 

 we then put on one side must now be taken up and 

 submitted to a careful examination. It being granted 

 that the activity of the great man is necessary, on 

 what conditions can his activity be secured ? Can it 

 be secured on the conditions that are proposed by 

 socialism, or on .any others that even remotely 

 resemble them ? 



