[Sidenote ◆1 But it must not be supposed that Ability is rarer than it is.] [Sidenote ◆2 A rough indication of the number of able men in this country is found in the incomes earned that are above the average wages of Labour.] [Sidenote ◆3 The highest Ability very rare. Of all grades of Ability below the highest, there is always a plentiful supply.] ◆¹ Ability, however, is of different kinds and grades, some kinds being far commoner than others; and before summing up what has been said in this chapter, it will be well to give the reader some more or less definite idea of the numerical proportion which, judging by general evidence, the men of Ability bear to the mass of labourers. Such evidence, not indeed very exact, but still corresponding broadly to the underlying facts of the case, is to be found in the number of men paying income-tax on business incomes, as compared with the number of wage-earners whose incomes escape that tax; in the number of men, that is, who earn more than _one hundred and fifty pounds_ a year, as compared with the number of men who do not earn so much. It may seem at first sight that this division is purely arbitrary; but we shall see, on consideration, that it is not so. ◆² We shall find that, allowing for very numerous exceptions, men in this country do as a rule receive less than _one hundred and fifty pounds_ a year for Labour, and that when they receive for their exertions a larger income than this they receive it for the direction of Labour, or for the exercise of some sort of Ability. Now if we take the males who are over sixteen years of age, and who are actually engaged in some industrial occupation, we shall find that those who earn more than _one hundred and fifty pounds_ a year form of the entire number something like six per cent. We may therefore say that out of every thousand men there are, on an average, sixty who are distinctly superior to their fellows, who each add more to the gross amount of the product by directing Labour, than any one man does by labouring, and who possesses Ability to a greater or less extent. ◆³ The commoner kinds of Ability, however, depend as a rule on the higher kinds, and are efficacious only as working under their direction; and if we continue our estimate on the basis we have just adopted, and accept the amount that a man makes in industry as being on the whole an evidence of the amount of his Ability, we consider that, all allowance being made for mere luck or speculation, a business income of _fifty thousand pounds_ means, as a rule, Ability of the first class, of _fifteen thousand pounds_ Ability of the second, and _five thousand pounds_ Ability of the third, we shall find that men possessing these higher degrees of the faculty are, in comparison to the mass of employed males, very few indeed. We shall find that Ability