CHAPTER IV

THE GREAT MAN AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THE PHYSIOLOGICALLY FITTEST SURVIVOR

It may be objected that modern sociology does not, as here asserted, neglect the great man, for it adopts the doctrine of the survival of the fittest • 89

It may be asked, on the other hand, what place the great man has in an exclusively evolutionary theory of progress • 90

The fittest survivor is not the same as the great man • 90

He plays a part in progress, but not the same part • 90

The fittest men, by surviving, raise the general level of the race, and promote progress only in this way • 91

The great man promotes progress by being superior to his contemporaries • 92

The movement of progress is double; • 93

one movement being very slow, the other rapid • 93

The survival of the fittest causes the slow movement • 93

The rapid movement is caused by the great man • 95

Next, as to evolution—what does the word mean? • 95

Its great practical characteristic, as put forward by Darwin, is that it is opposed to the doctrine of design, or divine intention; • 96

and yet, according to Darwin, species resulted from the intention of each animal to live and propagate • 96

Species, therefore, according to the evolutionist, is the result of intention, but not the result intended • 97

Evolution, in fact, is the reasonable sequence of the unintended • 97

This is as true of social evolution as it is of biological • 97

Many of the social conditions of any age result from the past, but were intended by nobody in the past; • 98

for instance, many of the social effects of railways and cheap printing • 98

Therefore, whenever any great man produces some change intentionally he has to work with unintended materials • 99

We can see this in the progress of dramatic art; • 99

also in the progress of philosophy • 100

And yet in each case the intended elements are equal or are greater than the unintended • 100

We see the same thing in the history of the _Times_ printing press • 101

It was the result of many kinds of unintended progress, constantly recombined by intention • 102

Evolution, in fact, is the unintended result of the intentions of great men • 104

The unintended or evolved element in progress is what concerns the speculative philosopher • 105

The intended element, which originates directly in the great man, is what is of interest for practical purposes • 106