Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/134

120 made by the superior to maintain their supremacy, pride. But these are only manifestations of that natural property of matter, inertia, which causes it to consider every effort, even if it be necessary and salutary, as unpleasant for the moment, and the apparent discontent with the compulsion to effort, can never be accepted as a proof against its usefulness.

Inequality is therefore a law of nature, and upon this fact an aristocracy founds its rightfulness. That the aristocratic position should be inherited, is also a claim which our reason can not dispute. If there is one observation whose truth can not be doubted, it is that the qualities of the individual are inherited by the offspring. If the father was fine-looking, strong, courageous, healthy, the probabilities are that the son can congratulate himself upon the possession of the same qualities, and if the former had through these qualities won his way to a distinguished station in society, there is no reason why the inheritors of his blood should not maintain it. It might be better however, for them and society, if they were obliged to fight their way up to the coveted positions and win them anew for the family; this would prevent any deterioration and retrogression in them; the chances are that even in a free-for-all race, the sons of superior men would form the majority of the victors.

An hereditary aristocracy is not only natural, it has moreover its advantages for the common welfare. In a democracy founded upon the mistaken equality of the French Revolution as its ideal, only men of a ripe age could attain to the positions in which they could first begin to exercise an influence upon the development of the people. Only in cases of the rarest occurrence would young men succeed in finding opportunities to be victorious over their rivals, and rise to the positions of