Prince who planned and directed and was the source and centre of all

power are ended. We are in acondition of affairs infinitely more

complex, in which every prince and statesman is something of a

servant and every intelligent humanbeing something of a Prince. No

magnificent pensive Lorenzos remain any more in this world for

secretarial hopes.

In a sense it is wonderful how power has vanished, in a sense

wonderful how it has increased. I sit here, an unarmed discredited

man, at a small writing-table in a little defenceless dwelling among

the vines, and no humanbeing can stop my pen except by the

deliberate self-immolation of murdering me, nor destroy its fruits

except by theft and crime. No King, no council, can seize and

torture me; no Church, no nation silence me. Such powers of

ruthless and complete suppression have vanished. But that is not

because power has diminished, but because it has increased and

become multitudinous, because it has dispersed itself and

specialised. It is no longer a negative power we have, but

positive; we cannot prevent, but we can do. This age, far beyond

all previous ages, is full of powerful men, men who might, if they

had the will for it, achieve stupendous things.

The things that might be done to-day! The things indeed that are

being done! It is the latter that give one so vast a sense of the

former. When Ithink of the progress of physical and mechanical

science, of medicine and sanitation during the last century, when I

measure the increase in general education and average efficiency,

the power now available for human service, the merely physical

increment, and compare it with anything that has ever been at man's

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