 In previous ages, the existence of a leisured and spiritual class meant that it was relatively easy to establish who possessed the intellectual authority to function as leaders in thought and action (Spirit of the Age, XXII: 304–5). But the eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosophers had discredited these trusted forms of authority, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish “well-grounded opinion” from “charlatanerie” (Civilization, XVIII: 132,  135).[8]  The rise of the numerical majority in the modern-era meant that the individual was liable to become “so lost in the crowd, that though he depends more and more upon opinion, he is apt to depend less and less upon well-grounded opinion” (Civilization, XVIII: 132; cf. Liberty, VIII: 268).