THE GREAT MAN AT AN ADVANTAGE 277 



that by looking at him we could tell that he was a Book iv 

 potential inventor, or organiser of industry, or philo- Cha P ter I 

 sopher, as easily as by looking at a common man we These living 

 can tell that he can trundle a wheelbarrow, the entire masJelTonh 

 force of the foregoing argument would be lost. The Sl1 

 community would then know what each great man 

 could do for it, and could force him to do it by 

 flogging or starving him if he refused. The ordinary 

 faculties the faculties of manual labour can be 

 made to exert themselves precisely in this way. A 

 large number of the great works of antiquity were 

 due to labour successfully stimulated by the whip. 

 But it is only a man's commonest faculties that can 

 be called into action thus ; and they can be called 

 into action thus only for this reason that those who 

 coerce him know that these faculties are possessed 

 by him, and they also know the task which they 

 wish to make him accomplish. But in the case of 

 the great man both these conditions are wanting. 

 It is impossible to tell that he possesses any excep- 

 tional faculties till he himself chooses to show them ; because no 

 and until circumstances supply him with some motive that C they hav 



for exercising them, he will probably be hardly aware 



that he possesses such faculties himself. Moreover, the y cl ? oose to 



1 . show them. 



even if he gives the world some reason to suspect 

 their existence, the world will still not know what 

 he can do with them, and will consequently not be 

 able to impose on him any task until he himself 

 chooses to show of what he is capable. Any farmer 

 by looking at Burns could have told that he had the 

 makings of a ploughman in him, and have forced 



