If the desires
are low placed, if they extend to little beyond physical comfort,
and the show of riches, the immediate results of the energy will not
be much more than the continual extension of man's power over material
objects; but even this makes room, and prepares the mechanical
appliances, for the greatest intellectual and social achievements; and
while the energy is there, some persons will apply it, and it will
be applied more and more, to the perfecting not of outward
circumstances alone, but of man's inward nature. Inactivity,
unaspiringness, absence of desire, are a more fatal hindrance to
improvement than any misdirection of energy; and are that through
which alone, when existing in the mass, any very formidable
misdirection by an energetic few becomes possible. It is this, mainly,
which retains in a savage or semi-savage state the great majority of
the human race.
Now there can be no kind of doubt that the passive type of character
is favoured by the government of one or a few, and the active
self-helping type by that of the Many. Irresponsible rulers need the
quiescence of the ruled more than they need any activity but that
which they can compel. Submissiveness to the prescriptions of men as
necessities of nature is the lesson inculcated by all governments upon
those who are wholly without participation in them. The will of
superiors, and the law as the will of superiors, must be passively
yielded to.
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