Now, the achievements of the human race have been accomplished
by the élite of the race. There is no ground at all in history for the notion that the masses of mankind have provided
the wisdom and done the work. There are, in this whole region
of thought, a vast mass of dogmas and superstitions which will
have to be corrected either by hard thinking or great suffering.
A man is good for something only so far as he thinks, knows,
tries, or works. If we put a great many men together, those of
them who carry on the society will be those who use reflection
and forethought, and exercise industry and self-control. Hence
the dogma that all men are equal is the most flagrant falsehood
and the most immoral doctrine which men have ever believed.
It means that the man who has not done his duty is as good as
the one who has done his duty, and it takes away all sense from
the teachings of the moralists, when they instruct youth that
men who pursue one line of action will go down to loss and
shame, and those who pursue another course will go up to honor
and success. It is, on the contrary, a doctrine of the first moral
and sociological importance that truth, wisdom and righteousness come only by painstaking, study, and striving. These
things are so hard that it is only the few who attain to them.
These few carry on human society now as they always have done.
Hence we see that so soon as the exigencies of life are felt,
men are differentiated according to their power to cope with
them into "better" or "worse" with reference to personal and
social value; and as soon as any conquest is achieved which contributes
to civilization, the inequality between the men who won
it and those who did not win it is established as a positive fact.
Men are very unequal in what they get out of life, but they are still more unequal in what they put into it. The most unequal
bargain has always been made by the men who have done the
world's thinking for it.
(W. G. Sumner, "Sociological Fallacies," The North American Review 138 [1884]: 574-9, at 578)
Note from KBJ: Word!
