It would be unfair, however, not to acknowledge that great services are constantly rendered to society by persons whom inherited wealth enables to devote themselves earlier and more independently to high aims than would otherwise be possible. There is certainly something favorable to originality in an inherited competence, without which one is more apt to be coerced into seeking a kind of success already in vogue, and so having a market value. And the movement to foster originality by endowments depending upon merit rather than birth will be most difficult to make effectual, since such endowments almost inevitably fall into the control of an institutional sort of men who cannot be expected to subsidize heresy. Funds for this purpose will probably aid only those sorts of originality already recognized, and in a manner established; not the radical innovations from which important movements usually start. It is hard to see how they can do much outside of experimental science, in which there is a sort of conventional test of originality. On the whole, whatever is good in the principle of descent may be appropriated by a democratic society without going back to formal rank or exclusive opportunity. Freedom offers no bar to continuity of function in the family, so long as efficiency is maintained, but merely requires this, like everything else, to meet the test of service. There is no adequate reason why a hereditary group, transmitting special culture and fitness, should not continue their functions under a democratic system—as is actually the case to a certain extent with the political families of England. They will do their work all the better for not being too sure of their position. I see nothing but good in the fact that a military career has become traditional in a number of American families who have rendered distinguished service of this sort. The more special family ambitions we have, of a noble kind, the better for the country. No sober observer will imagine that the opposing forces are to abolish the power of inheritance; they merely set reasonable limits to its scope. When the way of ambition is opened to the most energetic individuals, the sharpest teeth of discontent are drawn, and the mass of men very willingly avoid trouble to themselves and to society by keeping on in the paternal road. The family is after all too natural and too convenient a channel of social continuity not to play a great part in every phase of organization, and there seems little reason to depart from the opinion of Comte that it must ordinarily be the main influence in determining occupation.