Now all these passages, if we consider them carefully, will be seen to consist of statements, every one of which is false to fact. To say that man’s wants are less stationary than those of the ox is not even rhetorically true, unless we mean by “_man_” certain special races of men; whilst the statements that follow are not true, rhetorically or otherwise, of any race at all, but only of scattered individuals. A really fine and discriminating taste in food is, as every epicure knows, rare even amongst the luxurious classes. Antony and Lucullus are types of what is not the rule, but the exception. So too are the individuals who either desire hanging gardens, or could design them; and more exceptional still are the individuals whose personal pride and power either desire or can secure the erection of pyramids for their tombs. {20} In M. de Lavelaye’s utterances there is an analogous misstatement and misconception of every fact with which he deals. The promises of political democracy, as he describes them, were never addressed to “_man_,” nor ever professed to be. The whole point of them was that they were addressed to certain classes of men only; and that, as addressed to other classes, they were not promises, but threats. But a still graver confusion arises when the “_Sovereign_” is spoken of as starving. If by the “_Sovereign_” M. de Lavelaye really means “_Man_” as a whole, it is perfectly obvious that the “_Sovereign_” never starves. The statement is equally untrue if the Sovereign is taken to mean not man as a whole, but the immense majority of men; and to ask why the Sovereign often does something which it never does, is not to formulate an actual problem loosely, but to convert an actual problem into one that is quite imaginary. The actual problem is not why the whole or the immense majority of mankind often starves, but why there are nearly always small sections of men who do so, the majority all the while obtaining its normal nutriment; and the absurd result of confusing these two very different things is seen in the second form which M. de Lavelaye gives his question. “_How is it_,” he asks, “_that those who are held to be the source of power often cannot, even by hard work, provide themselves with the necessaries of life?_” The answer is that the particular groups of workers who, at any given time, happen to be unemployed, {21} were never held to be _the_ source of power by anybody. M. de Lavelaye might as well take one half of the passengers on a Dover packet, and treating them as identical with the British nation at large, ask how it is that those who are held to rule the waves can hardly set foot on a deck without clamouring for the steward’s basin.