From this low and stagnant condition of affairs, which demagogues
and dreamers in later times have lauded as the ideal state, the
Golden Age, of humanity, everything that helps to raise society by
opening a career to talent and proportioning the degrees of
authority to men's natural abilities, deserves to be welcomed by all
who have the real good of their fellows at heart. Once these
elevating influences have begun to operate--and they cannot be for
ever suppressed--the progress of civilisation becomes comparatively
rapid. The rise of one man to supreme power enables him to carry
through changes in a single lifetime which previously many
generations might not have sufficed to effect; and if, as will often
happen, he is a man of intellect and energy above the common, he
will readily avail himself of the opportunity. Even the whims and
caprices of a tyrant may be of service in breaking the chain of
custom which lies so heavy on the savage. And as soon as the tribe
ceases to be swayed by the timid and divided counsels of the elders,
and yields to the direction of a single strong and resolute mind, it
becomes formidable to its neighbours and enters on a career of
aggrandisement, which at an early stage of history is often highly
favourable to social, industrial, and intellectual progress.
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