hile they predetermine the core of all
possible variations, increase their number, since every advance opens up
new vistas; and growth, in extending the periphery of the substance
organised, multiplies the number of points at which new growths may
begin. Thus it is only in recent times that discoveries in science have
been frequent, because natural science until lately possessed no settled
method and no considerable fund of acquired truths. So, too, in
political society, statesmanship is made possible by traditional
policies, generalship by military institutions, great financiers by
established commerce.

If we ventured to generalise these observations we might say that such
an unequal distribution of capacity as might justify aristocracy should
be looked for only in civilised states. Savages are born free and equal,
but wherever a complex and highly specialised environment limits the
loose freedom of those born into it, it also stimulates their capacity.
Under forced culture remarkable growths will appear, bringing to light
possibilities in men which might, perhaps, not even have been
possibilities had they been left to themselves; for mulberry leaves do
not of themselves develop into brocade. A certain personal idiosyncrasy
must be assumed at bottom, else cotton damask would be as good as silk
and all men having like opportunities would be equally great. This
idiosyncrasy is brought out by social pressure, while in a state of
nature it might have betrayed itself only in trivial and futile ways, as
it does among barbarians.

[Sidenote: Sophistical envy.]

Distinction is thus in one sense artificial, since it cannot become
important or practical unless a certain environment gives play to
individual talent and preserves its originality; but distinction
nevertheless is perfectly real, and not merely imputed. In vain does the
man in the street declare that he, too, could have been a king if he had
been born in the purple; for that potentiality does not belong to him as
he is, but only as he might have been, if _per impossibile_ he had not
been himself. There is a strange metaphysical illusion in imagining that
a man might change his parents, his body, his early environment, and
yet retain his personality. In its higher faculties his personality is
produced by his special relations. If Shakespeare had been born in Italy
he might, if you will, have been a great poet, but Shakespeare he could
never have been. Nor can it be