eater pleasures, greater powers and greater
weaknesses, and often a greater play of character than is to be found in
ordinary men. He can assume the disguise of virtue or disinterestedness
without having them, or veil personal enmity in the language of
patriotism and philosophy,--he can say the word which all men are
thinking, he has an insight which is terrible into the follies and
weaknesses of his fellow-men. An Alcibiades, a Mirabeau, or a Napoleon
the First, are born either to be the authors of great evils in states,
or 'of great good, when they are drawn in that direction.'

Yet the thesis, 'corruptio optimi pessima,' cannot be maintained
generally or without regard to the kind of excellence which is
corrupted. The alien conditions which are corrupting to one nature, may
be the elements of culture to another. In general a man can only receive
his highest development in a congenial state or family, among friends
or fellow-workers. But also he may sometimes be stirred by adverse
circumstances to such a degree that he rises up against them and reforms
them. And while weaker or coarser characters will extract good out of
evil, say in a corrupt state of the church or of society, and live on
happily, allowing the evil to remain, the finer or stronger natures may
be crushed or spoiled by surrounding influences--may become misanthrope
and philanthrope by turns; or in a few instances, like the founders
of the monastic orders, or the Reformers, owing to some peculiarity in
themselves or in their age, may break away entirely from the world and
from the church, sometimes into great good, sometimes into great evil,
sometimes into both. And the same holds in the lesser sphere of a
convent, a school, a family.

Plato would have us consider how easily the best natures are overpowered
by public opinion, and what efforts the rest of mankind will make to
get possession of them. The world, the church, their own profession, any
political or party organization, are always carrying them off their legs
and teaching them to apply high and holy names to their own prejudices
and interests. The 'monster' corporation to which they belong judges
right and truth to be the pleasure of the community. The individual
becomes one with his order; or, if he resists, the world is too much for
him, and will sooner or later be revenged on him. This is, perhaps, a
one-sided but not wholly untrue picture of the maxims and practice of
mankind when they 'si