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"Oh, you needn't worry about that either," Raskolnikov went on in

the same tone. "People with new ideas, people with the faintest

capacity for saying something new, are extremely few in number,

extraordinarily so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the

appearance of all these grades and sub-divisions of men must

follow with unfailing regularity some law of nature. That law, of

course, is unknown at present, but I am convinced that it exists,

and one day may become known. The vast mass of mankind is mere

material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some

mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and

stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a

thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand

perhaps--I speak roughly, approximately--is born with some

independence, and with still greater independence one in a

hundred thousand.