ual within that sphere, and the real significance of his influence as thus limited. He says:—
"A great man is great not because his individual peculiarities give individual form to great historical events, but because of the fact that he possesses peculiarities which make him best able to serve the great social needs of his time, needs which have developed under the influence of general and special causes. Carlyle, in his "Heroes and Hero Worship," calls great men 'beginners.' This is a very apt appellation. A great man is in fact a beginner, for he sees further than others and desires more intensely than others. He solves the scientific problems placed on the order of the day by the preceding intellectual development of society; he uncovers new social needs created by the preceding development of social relations; he takes upon himself the task of beginning the satisfaction of those needs. He is a hero. Not in the sense that he can arrest or modify the natural course of events, but in the sense that his activity is the conscious and free expression of that necessary and unconscious course. In that is his importance; in that his power. But that is a colossal importance,—a tremendous power."
