THE TRUE SOCIAL CONTRACT 275 



ally being renewed, and the terms of which reformers Book iv 

 are continually trying to alter. Thus the socialists' 

 proposal to take from the founder of a new industry 

 all the wealth that his exceptional faculties have 

 created, and pay him, as they propose to do, with 

 the paper money of honour, is merely an attempt to 

 make a new bargain with the great man, which shall 

 secure his services on cheaper terms for the little 

 men. Similarly, all encouragement offered to art 

 and science by the State is a bargain offered to a 

 number of unknown persons, who are presumed to 

 be the possessors potentially of artistic and scientific 

 faculties ; the State engaging to give them certain 

 opportunities and rewards, if they on their part will 

 make their potential faculties actual. 



Now with regard to this bargain or contract and this is a 



i . i i .1 i i contract which 



which the community has not only made, but is is being con- 

 always remaking and revising with its great men, st 

 we must observe that it is a bargain which, from the 

 necessities of the case, is made by the community 

 solely with individual great men who are living. It 

 is not a bargain offered to the great men of the past, 

 no matter how much of his greatness the living 

 great man may owe to them. It is impossible to 

 bargain with the dead, and therefore to the present 

 question the claims of the dead are as irrelevant as 

 the claims of protoplasm. The present question is 

 how shall such and such living people be induced 

 to develop certain superiorities which are latent 

 in them, or to use to the best advantage superi- 

 orities which have been developed already. And 



