THE INFOLUTIONARY ASCENT 109 



" The value of a piece of land is the number of foot- 

 steps passing by it in twenty-four hours. The value of 

 a railroad is the number of people near it who cannot 

 keep still. If there are a great many of these people, 

 the railroad runs its trains for them. If there are only 

 a few, though they be heroes and prophets, Dantes, 

 Savonarolas, and George Washingtons, trains shall not be 

 run for them. The railroad is the characteristic prop- 

 erty and symbol of property in this modern age, and 

 the entire value of a railroad depends upon its getting 

 control of a crowd either a crowd that wants to be 

 where some other crowd is, or a crowd that wants a 

 great many tons of something that some other crowd 

 has. 



" When we turn from commerce to philosophy, we 

 find the same principle running through them both. 

 The main thing in the philosophy of to-day is the ex- 

 traordinary emphasis of environment and heredity. A 

 man's destiny is the way the crowd of his ancestors 

 ballot for his life. His soul if he has a soul is an 

 atom acted upon by a majority of other atoms. . . . 



" At the same time, I am glad that I have known and 

 faced, and that I shall have to know and face, the 

 Crowd Fear. 



" I know in some dogged, submerged, and speechless 

 way that it is not a true fear. And yet I want to move 

 along the sheer edge of it all my life. I want it. I 

 want all men to have it, and to keep having it, and to 

 keep conquering it. I have seen that no man who has 

 not felt it, who does not know this huge numbing, num- 

 berless fear before the crowd, and who may not know it 

 again almost any moment, will ever be able to lead the 

 crowd, glory in it, die for it, or help it. Nor will any 

 man who has not defied it, and lifted his soul up naked 



