3 7 2 ARISTOCRA CY AND E VOL UT1ON 



Book iv and in every sense they contribute as truly ; and 

 they contribute not primarily because they possess 

 capital, but because as a class they possess excep- 

 tional faculties, of which the capital possessed by 

 them is at once the creation and the instrument. 

 In other words, the inequalities which socialists 

 regard as accidental are the natural result of the 

 inequalities of human nature, and constitute also the 

 sole social conditions under which men's unequal 

 faculties can co-operate towards a common end. 

 and to show Socialists contend that the source of all power is 



that the many . t 1-1 T -11 



are not a self- in the multitude. It is impossible to imagine a 

 r> greater or more abject error. The multitude, or the 

 mass of average men the men undistinguished by 

 any exceptional faculties are the source of certain 

 powers, or rather they possess certain powers. 

 That is true ; but what may these powers be ? 

 Their most striking characteristic is their limita- 

 tion. In the domain of industry the many, if left to 

 themselves, could produce only a very small amount, 

 which would have, moreover, no appreciable tendency 

 to increase. In the domain of government they 

 could initiate the simplest movements only, and carry 

 out only the simplest measures. The powers which 

 they actually possess under existing circumstances are 

 as much greater than these as the man is greater than 

 the child ; but these added powers acquired by the 

 average men, or by the many, do not depend upon 

 average men alone. They are developed only with 

 the development of another set of powers altogether 

 the powers belonging to the exceptional men or to 



