the French (r. 1804-14, 1815)], may win battles and campaigns and
establish states. If he is a prophet like Mohammed, wise in the means of
inspiring men, his words may raise a poor and disadvantaged people to
unpremeditated ambitions and surprising power. A Pasteur [Pasteur, Louis
(1822-95)], a Morse [Morse, Samuel F. B. (1791-1872)], an Edison
[Edison, Thomas Alva (1847-1931)], a Ford [Ford, Henry (1863-1947)], a
Wright, a Marx [Marx, Karl (1818-83)], a Lenin [Lenin, Nikolai (1870-
1924)], a Mao Tse-tung [Mao Tse-tung
毛 澤 東 (26/12/1893 –
09/09/1976) – [QuocSan]
] are effects of numberless causes, and causes
of endless effects.
In our table of character elements imitation is opposed to innovation, but
in vital ways it co-operates with it. As submissive natures unite with
masterful individuals to make the order and operation of a society, so the
imitative majority follows the innovating minority, and this follows the
originative individual, in adapting new responses to the demands of
environment or survival. History in the large is the conflict of minorities;
the majority applauds the victor and supplies the human material of social
experiment.
Intellect is therefore a vital force in history, but it can also be a dissolvent
and destructive power. Out of every hundred new ideas ninety-nine or more
will probably be inferior to the traditional responses which they propose to
replace. No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one
lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the
customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of
generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A
youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full
freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or
laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that
sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints
if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group.
