The opportunities open to his fellows remain what they were before.

But when we come to industrial activity of those higher and rarer kinds, on which the sustained and progressive welfare of the entire community depends, such as invention, or any form of far-reaching and original enterprise, the kind of opportunity which a man requires is not an opportunity of exerting his own faculties in isolation, like a sorter who is specially expert in deciphering illegible addresses.

It is an opportunity of directing the efforts of a large number of other men.
Apart from the case of craftsmanship and artistic production, all the higher industrial efforts are reducible to a control of others, and can be made only by men who have the means of controlling them.

Since this is one of the principal truths that have been elucidated in the present volume, it is sufficient to reassert it here, without further comment.
If, therefore, a man is to be given the opportunity of embodying and trying an invention in a really practical form, it will be necessary to put at his disposal, let us disguise the fact as we may, the services of a number of other men who will work in accordance with his orders.

This, as we have seen already, is what is done by the ordinary investor whenever he lends capital to an inventor.