From
The
Perennial Philosophy
By Aldous Huxley
A
"great
man"
can
be
good
—
good
enough
even
to
aspire
to
unitive
knowledge
of
the
divine
Ground
—
provided
that,
while
exercising
power,
he
fulfills
two
conditions:
First,
he
must
deny
himself
all
the
personal
advantages
of
power
and
must
practice
the
patience
and
recollectedness
without
which
there
cannot
be
love
either
of
man
or
God.
Second,
he
must
realize
that
the
accident
of
possessing
temporal
power
does
not
give
him
spiritual
authority,
which
belongs
only
to
those
seers,
living
or
dead,
who
have
achieved
a
direct
insight
into
the
Nature
of
Things.
A
society,
in
which
the
boss
is
mad
enough
to
believe
himself
a
prophet,
is
a
society
doomed
to
destruction.
A
viable
society
is
one
in
which
those
who
have
qualified
themselves
to see
indicate
the
goals
to
be
aimed
at,
while
those
whose
business
it
is
to
rule respect
the
authority
and listen
to
the
advice
of
the
seers.
In
theory,
at
least,
all
this
was
well
understood
in
India
and,
until
the
Reformation,
in
Europe,
where
"no
position
was
so
high
but
that
it
was
subject
to
a
spiritual
superior
in
what
concerned
the
conscience
and
the
soul."
Unfortunately
the
churches
tried
to
make
the
best
of
both
worlds
—
to
combine
spiritual
authority
with
temporal
power,
wielded
either
directly
or
at
one
remove,
from
behind
the
throne.
But
spiritual
authority
can
be
exercised
only
by
those
who
are
perfectly
disinterested
and
whose
motives
are
therefore
above
suspicion.
An
ecclesiastical
organization
may
call
itself
the
Mystical
Body
of
Christ;
but
if
its
prelates
are
slave-holders
and
the
rulers
of
states,
as
they
were
in
the
past,
or
if
the
corporation
is
a
large-scale
capitalist,
as
is
the
case
today,
no
titles,
however
honorific,
can
conceal
the
fact
that,
when
it
passes
judgment,
it
does
so
as
an
interested
party
with
some
political
or
economic
axe
to
grind…
In
actual
practice
how
many
great
men
have
ever
fulfilled,
or
are
ever
likely
to
fulfill,
the
conditions
which
alone render power innocuous
to
the
ruler
as
well
as
to
the
ruled?
Obviously,
very
few.
Except
by
saints,
the
problem
of
power
is
finally
insoluble.
But
since
genuine
self-government
is
possible
only
in
very
small
groups,
societies
on
a
national
or
super-national
scale
will
always
be
ruled
by
oligarchical
minorities,
whose
members
come
to
power
because
they
have
a
lust
for
power.
_________________
"People
who
are
fighting
for
temporal
power
should
not
be
leaders
and/or
educators."
—Vince
Milum
