In general it may be said that imposture is of considerable but always secondary importance; it is a sort of parasite upon human idealism and thrives only by the impulse to believe. A correct intuition on the part of mankind in the choice of their leaders is the only guaranty of the effectual organization of life in any or every sphere; and in the long run and on a large scale this correctness seems to exist. On the whole, the great men of history were real men, not shams, their characters were genuinely representative of the deeper needs and tendencies of human nature, so that in following them men were truly expressing themselves. We have seen that all leadership has an aspect of sympathy and conformity, as well as one of individuality and self-will, so that every leader must also be a follower, in the sense that he shares the general current of life. He leads by appealing to our own tendency, not by imposing something external upon us. Great men are therefore the symbols or expressions, in a sense, of the social conditions, under which they work, and if these conditions were not favorable the career of the great man would be impossible. Does the leader, then, really lead, in the sense that the course of history would have been essentially different if he had not lived? Is the individual a true cause, or would things have gone on about the same if the famous men had been cut off in infancy? Is not general tendency the great thing, and is it not bound to find expression independently of particular persons? Certainly many people have the impression that in an evolutionary view of life single individuals become insignificant, and that all great movements must be regarded as the outcome of vast, impersonal tendencies. If one accepts the view of the relation between particular individuals and society as a whole already stated in various connections, the answer to these questions must be that the individual _is_ a cause, as independent as a cause can be which is part of a living whole, that the leader does lead, and that the course of history must have been notably different if a few great men had been withdrawn from it.