The organic view seems to be the only one that does justice to the significance of minorities. If you think of agreement as the essential thing they appear as mere remnants, refractory and irreconcilable factions of no great importance. But if you have an eye for organic development, it is obvious that minorities, even small ones, may be the most pregnant factors in the situation. All progress, all notable change of any kind, begins with a few, and it is, accordingly, among the small and beginning parties that we may always look for the tendencies that are likely to dominate the future. Originality, faith, and the resolution to make things better are always in a minority, while every majority is made up for the most part of inert and dependent elements. It is a fact of the utmost significance when a few, or even a single individual, are so convinced of something that they are willing to stand up for it in the midst of a hostile majority; their very isolation insuring that they have more convincing grounds for their action than the ordinary undecided and conforming citizen. So Liebknecht, who alone in the German Reichstag opposed and denounced the war, was perhaps of more significance than all the more docile mass of the Socialist party. All great movements have in their early history heroes and often martyrs who were the seed of their future success. There is nothing more democratic than intelligent and devoted non-conformity, because it means that the individual is giving his freedom and courage to the service of the whole. Subservience, to majorities, as to any other authority, tends to make vigorous democracy impossible. CHAPTER XXXII RATIONAL CONTROL THROUGH STANDARDS WHAT IS RATIONAL CONTROL?—STANDARDS AS TESTS OF FUNCTION—MINIMUM STANDARDS—MECHANICAL TREND OF STANDARDIZATION—HIGHER FUNCTIONS NOT NUMERICALLY MEASURABLE—THE JUDGMENT OF EXPERT GROUPS—NEED OF STANDARD-SETTING GROUPS—UNIVERSITIES AS STANDARD-MAKERS—THE CRITIC The ideal aim of intelligence seems to be the rational control of human life. Just what do we mean by this? Surely not that a conscious process must everywhere be substituted for an unconscious; common sense tells us that this is impracticable or inexpedient. Perhaps a fair statement would be that we mean by rational control a conduct of affairs such that their working, in a large way, commends itself to intelligence, even though not always guided by it.