288 



ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 



Book iv 



Chapter 2 



Are there any 



signs, then, 



that the desire 

 ' a 



We shall find 

 that the 

 socialists 

 themselves 

 maintain just 



the contrary; 



that other motives, on the other hand, are actually 

 acquiring and exercising it. 



Let us first, then, consider the passion of greed 

 itself, and ask whether there is anything in its con- 

 nection with wealth-production hitherto which may 

 lead us to think that in spite of its universality in 

 the past, it is merely a transitory propensity from 

 which exceptional men will free themselves, instead 

 of being a propensity rooted in the very constitution 

 of human nature. 



And here again the socialists will be amongst 

 our most important witnesses ; for just as they, 

 of all writers and thinkers, have done most to call 

 attention to the fact that up to the present time 

 greed has been the main motive by which the 

 exceptional wealth-producers have been actuated, so 

 they, of all writers and thinkers, have done most to 

 call attention to another fact as well, which shows 

 the motive in question to be as permanent as it 

 is universal. For that very desire of the producer 

 to possess what he himself produces, which, when 

 found in the exceptional man, they denounce as greed, 

 and which they tell us that the exceptional man will 

 get rid of in the course of a year or two, is the very 

 desire which, as existing in the common man, they 

 have assumed to be the foundation of his whole 

 industrial character ; and to it have all their most 

 fervid and powerful appeals been made. The 

 socialists, in their attempts to excite the masses 

 against the existing order, have relied less on 

 rhetorical declarations that the labouring man gets 



