POWER OF THE FEW INDESTRUCTIBLE 377 



have been analysed. For, though slavery, feudalism, Book iv 

 and capitalism differ from one another in many most 

 important points, they happen not to differ at all 

 as regards that one particular point in respect of 

 which socialism will have to differ from all three of 

 them. That is to say, in whatever way these three 

 systems differ from one another, they all agree with 

 one another in being systems under which the few, 

 the strongest, the most intellectual, the most ener- 

 getic, not only controlled the actions of the average 

 many, but received for their exceptional action a 

 correspondingly exceptional recompense. The few 

 who occupied this commanding position differed, at 

 different times, in the nature of the powers which gave 

 them the command. Sometimes it was the great 

 fighters who were paramount, sometimes the great 

 legislators, sometimes the great industrialists. But 

 into whatever mould human society has been cast, 

 with whatever circumstances it has been surrounded, 

 and whatever kind of talent or strength has been most 

 essential to it at given periods, the few who have 

 possessed this kind of talent and strength to the 

 highest degree have, as a whole, and with them 

 their families, invariably occupied a position of ex- 

 ceptional wealth and power. We may deplore this 

 fact or no, but the fact still remains, and conse- 

 quently the argument of the socialists from the 

 facts of social evolution, when reduced to its true 

 terms, merely amounts to this that because many 

 social changes have taken place already, but one 

 particular change in spite of these has never taken 



