The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.

Arnold’s line links “culture” (in his sense of disciplined acquaintance with “the best that has been thought and said”) to a moral and political outcome: equality. The claim is not that refined taste automatically makes one egalitarian, but that genuine cultivation of mind and sympathy tends to dissolve class prejudice and narrow self-interest. For Arnold, culture enlarges one’s sense of common humanity and checks the arrogance of caste, making its bearers natural “apostles” (missionaries) of equal regard. The statement also implies a critique of purely economic or partisan routes to equality: without inward formation—reason, imagination, and ethical sensibility—egalitarian reforms risk becoming coercive or resentful rather than humane.