though no more able to draw than a child of four years old, may put himself on a level with a Millais or an Alma Tadema. To the production of the result the canvas is as necessary as the painter. [Sidenote ◆1 The socialistic view of production would be true only were a certain fact of life quite different to what it is.] The nature of the fallacy which leads us to such conclusions as these is revealed almost instantly by the light such conclusions throw on it. It consists in ignoring the fact that whilst anybody, not a cripple or idiot, can blow the bellows of an organ, or stretch the canvas for a picture, only one man in a million can make music like Handel, or cover the canvas with pictures like Millais or Alma Tadema. The nature of the situation will be understood most accurately if we imagine the bellows-blower at the key-board of the organ, and the canvas-stretcher with the painter’s brushes. The one, no doubt, could elicit a large volume of sound; the other could cover the canvas with daubs of unmeaning colour. These men, then, when they work for the artists of whom we speak, may very properly be credited with a share in as much of the result as would have been produced if they had been in the artists’ places. That is to say, to the production of mere sound the bellows-blower may be held to contribute as much as the great musician; and the canvas-stretcher as much as the painter to the mere laying on of colour. But all the difference between an unmeaning discord and music, all the difference between an unmeaning daub and a picture, is due to qualities that are possessed by no one except the musician and the painter.[40] ◆¹ The socialistic theory of production would be true only on the supposition that the faculties employed in production were all equally common, and that everybody is equally capable of exertion of every grade. Now is this supposition true, or is it not true? A moment ago I spoke of it, assuming it to be obviously false; and many people will think it is hardly worth discussion. That, however, is far from being the case. It is a supposition which, as we have seen, lies at the very root of Socialism: the question it involves is a broad question of fact; and it is necessary, by an appeal to fact, to show that it is as false as I have assumed it to be. [Sidenote ◆1 The great feature in modern production is the progress in the productivity of the same number of men.]