n when they were only at the beginning of it.

"The formation of a secret society, including most of the minority, was
the natural result. You must not make the mistake of confusing this
minority with the old aristocracy. The old aristocracy was based on
lineage and wealth. The minority of which I speak was based on mind.
They were the people who could acquire knowledge and could use
knowledge. They included in their number some members of the old upper
classes, but many also of the old lower classes. The aim of the secret
society which they formed was not only the acquisition of knowledge,
principally of a practical character, but also the seclusion of it. The
members were sworn not to impart the secrets of the society to any of
the great but inactive majority. In this secret society we have the
origin of what are now called first-class beings. In the glutted and
lazy democracy who formed the majority we have the origin of what we
call second-class beings--beings who to-day are permitted to acquire no
other knowledge whatever than that which is necessary for the work which
they do under compulsion from us. At this moment by far the greater
number of them are unable to read or to write or to perform the simplest
operations of arithmetic.

"It is of course a commonplace of the text-books that no social
evolution follows exactly on lines laid down and planned. The secret
society, which was known as the Crypt, was formed originally for the
purposes of self-defence. The only means by which a few superior beings
could protect themselves against the aggression of the many inferior was
by the possession of secret knowledge. To take a case in point:
improvements of the first importance in the accumulation and
transmission of electricity were made by a member of the Crypt whose
formula was H401. H401 was called upon to specify and to explain what he
had done. He produced a written statement which was from the first word
to the last abject nonsense veiled in pompous scientific phraseology. It
was accepted as perfectly satisfactory and deposited in the archives.
Every electrician--every man of sufficient education to detect the
fraud--was already a member of the Crypt. With this came the first
inkling of the tremendous power which was now in the hands of
comparatively few men. By the simplest dislocation of machinery they
could deprive the great majority of light and heat, and could, if they
would, choose a severe mid-winter for