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 BOOK II CHAPTER I THE NATURE AND THE DEGREES OF THE SUPERIORITIES OF GREAT MEN The causality of the great man being established, we must consider more precisely what greatness is • 111 Mr. Spencer will help us to a general definition of it • 112 He divides the human race into the clever, the ordinary, and the stupid • 113 Now if all the race were stupid, it is plain there would be no progress; • 114 nor would there be any if all the race were ordinary; • 114 therefore progress must be due to the clever, who are, as Mr. Spencer says, a “_scattered few_” • 115 This is the great-man theory reasonably stated • 115 For great men are not necessarily heroes, as Carlyle thought, • 116 nor divided absolutely from all other men • 116 Greatness is various in kind and degree, • 117 but, at all events, there is a certain minority of men who resemble each other in being more efficient than the majority • 117 We see this in poetry • 118 in singers, • 118 in the scholarship of boys at the same school, • 119 and similarly in practical life • 119 Enough men, as it is, have equal opportunities, to show how unequal men are in their powers of using them • 120 No doubt a man may be ordinary in one respect and great in another; • 120 but the majority are not great in any • 121 The measure of a man’s greatness as an agent of social progress is the overt results actually produced by him • 121