330 ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv it ; which means that it depends on the absence of 

 everything that might obstruct the strong, rather than 

 on measures or institutions that should artificially 

 lend strength to the weak. Now, so far as industrial 

 ability of the highest kind is concerned, it is probable 

 that this negative condition of things, which is 

 merely the complete embodiment of a policy of 

 laisser-faire, represents the utmost that, in any 

 civilised country, can be done by the process of 

 equalisation with any beneficial result. For in 

 wealth-production the men whose capacities are 



it is probable, really of the first order will, when not positively 

 - impeded, make their own opportunities for them- 

 selves ; and the genius who is born with every 

 opportunity waiting for him has but a few years' 



needful, start of the genius who is born with none. That 

 such is the case is abundantly illustrated by history. 

 If we consider the most famous of the men whose 

 originality of mind and extraordinary spirit of enter- 

 prise have been chief amongst the forces which 

 have enriched the civilised world, we shall find that 

 those whose names most readily occur to us have had 

 no opportunities save such as their own genius made 

 for them. Arkwright, Cartwright, Watt, Stephen- 

 son, the intrepid and enduring adventurers who, in 

 the teeth of prolonged opposition, laid the founda- 

 tions of the modern manufacture of iron ; Columbus, 

 who gave to Europe a new hemisphere all these 

 have been men born amongst social circumstances 

 which conspired to deny them rather than to provide 

 them with opportunities. And if we turn from 



