276 



ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv 



the answer depends on these men themselves. It 

 depends on the characters which they personally 

 possess, and not on the parents or ancestors from 

 whom their characters have been derived. We can 

 no more go behind the personality of the great man 

 in bargaining with him, than we can go behind the 

 personality of the dipsomaniac in attempting to cure 

 him. We may excuse the failing of the latter as 

 something which he has inherited from his ancestors ; 

 we can cure it only as something for which he is 

 himself responsible. I f civilisation, therefore, depends 

 The great men on the great man, no community can become or 

 remain civilised which does not so arrange itself as 

 to accor d to its living great men such rewards as 

 they themselves feel to be a sufficient inducement 

 firstly to develop their faculties, and secondly to 

 employ them to the utmost. 



Here, then, we have a new and final verification 

 of that truth which has already been established 

 against the arguments of Mr. Spencer namely, that 

 the great man is a vera causa of progress, and that 



& , . _ , 



no explanation ot progress has any practical value 

 which does not base itself on an examination of the 

 great man's character. And that such is the case 

 will become yet more apparent when we take into 

 consideration the following additional facts, which 

 are quite distinct from any we have yet touched 

 upon, and which practically have an equal, or perhaps 

 even a superior, importance. 



If the exceptional faculties of the great man 

 were so far like the faculties possessed by all men, 



own 5 rice heir 



Here is the 



the causes 



practically 



involved in 



