This objective measure of the value of the producer puts talent into direct relation to the concept of social evolution and progress. Society has been an evolution. Collective humanity has gone through distinctive metamorphoses. Distinct strides in advance have been made, tendencies have manifested themselves, conditions have changed so that larger satisfactions have ensued, democracy in the essential wants of mankind has been wrought out. Society is more complex in its quantitative aspect. It is more serviceable by reason of its greater specialization. Since progress stands for improvement it has come to be regarded as a desirable thing. In the sociological conception of things the genius possesses a specific social function. He is not a passing curiosity. He is not produced for amusement. He does not stand unrelated. He is the product of his age, is articulated with its life, performs an office which is of consequence to it. He is the connecting link between the past and the future. He takes what was and so combines it anew as to produce what is to be. He is the innovator, the initiator, the agent of transformation, the creator of a new order. Hence he is the exceptional man. The masses of men are imitators. They make nothing new, add nothing to the mechanism of social structure, introduce no new functions, produce no achievements, do nothing which changes the order of things. The common people are quite as important for the purposes of society as are the talented. Society must be conserved most of the time or we should all float down the stream of change too rapidly for comfort. Hence the function of the great mass of individuals is to seize and use the achievements which the creators, the talented have brought into existence. We may conclude, therefore, that if society is to be improved and if the lives of the great body of human beings are to be endowed with more and more blessings, material and spiritual, we must look to the men of talent, the men of achievement, and to them 'alone, for the initiation of these results. We may say, then, that we have discovered not only the method of estimating the value of talent, but also in what its value consists. If progress is desirable, talent by means of which that progress is secured is likewise valuable. And, like other things, its value is measured by its scarcity. It is now incumbent on us to attempt to discover the extent of the supply of this commodity, both actual and possible. I shall refer to two estimates of the amount of talent in existence which have been made because they differ so much in their conclusions as to the extent of talent, and because they exhibit quite different view-points and methods.