Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/189

for those who are ambitious, to rise by utilizing their fellow-citizens. I will show that this is a genuine advantage. Every nation, and especially those still engaged in an ascending self-development, inspired by an inexhaustible vital energy, produces in each generation some individual in whom an especially powerfully organized personality clamors for room for expansion. These are men born to rule, who refuse to bear another's yoke or to submit to another's control. They want to have their head and their elbows free. They are only able to yield to the discipline of their own will and judgment, never to those of another. They submit because they choose or think best, never because they are compelled to do so. These individuals never meet with a barrier that they do not demolish or ride over it. Life does not seem worth living to them unless they experience that satisfaction produced alone by the unchecked play of all their capabilities and inclinations. The consciousness that a large part of their horizon is obscured by some alien consciousness, removed alike beyond their influence and observation, destroys their enjoyment of it, they look upon their Ego as a cramped and wretched Ego, incapable of stretching and asserting itself, their very existence appears insupportable to them if they consider it impelled and guided by alien forces. Such individuals require room. In solitude they find it without effort or difficulty. If they are anchorites, if they are hermits or fakirs, Canadian trappers or pioneers of the back-woods, they can live out their lives without conflicts with others. But if they are to remain in the society of man, there is but one place for them: that of leader. They would not remain an instant in the condition of my Hans. They are no soft plasma, but crystals, hard as diamonds. They can not squeeze into the hole which the structure of State has left open for them, without