The selective or eugenic value of party organization is that it allows men gifted with certain qualities to rise above their fellows into positions of superiority, which, for the considerations set forth above, are more or less permanent. This value is of the greater importance because the opportunities for able and ambitious workmen to rise by the economic ladder to the rank of employers are rapidly disappearing, at any rate, in old countries.
The qualities necessary for a successful party leader are discussed. Briefly stated, they consist of oratorical ability, which is partly a psychical and partly a physiological and anatomical character; energy of will; superiority of intellect and knowledge; a depth of conviction often bordering on fanaticism and self-confidence, pushed even to the point of self-conceit. Also in many countries, as for instance Italy, physical beauty is important in helping a man to rise, while in rarer cases goodness of heart and disinterestedness influence the crowd by reawakening religious sentiments.
We have seen that some elements of the crowd are seized by the selecting-machine of the party organisation that raises them above their companions, increasing automatically the social distance between them and their followers. To put this automatical selecting-machine into action, certain individuals appear, possessing special physical and intellectual gifts that distinguish them spontaneously from the mass of the party.
The history of Europe presents a long series of nations successively rising and falling in the scale of prosperity and influence. Such persistent alternations suggest a common cause underlying the phenomena. All history is the record of change. The outward change as recorded by the chronicler has probably its counterpart in unnoticed variations of the internal biological structure of the nation.
Most nations are composite in character. They contain two or more racial stocks, fulfilling different functions in the national life. It is probable that the proportion in which these stocks are present is not always constant. The variation in proportion is possibly the agent effecting the internal change in structure, which becomes manifest outwardly in the rise or decline of the nation.