From apparently the basest metals we have the finest toned bells, and we are taught respect from simple manhood when we see how, from the various dregs of society, there come men who may well be regarded as the pride and as the watch towers of the race. Steel is improved by laying on damp ground, and the rusty razor gets a keener edge after giving its dross to the dirt in which it has been allowed to lie neglected and forgotten. In like manner, too, humanity, though it lay among the ports, covered with the dust of neglect and poverty, may still retain the divine impulse and the element of improvement and progress. It is natural to revolt at squalor, but we may well relax our lip of scorn and contempt when we stand among the lowly and despised, for out of the rags of the meanest cradle there may come a great man and this is a treasure richer than all the wealth of the Orient.

In the context of the passage as a whole, the author’s comparison between the qualities of people and of metals (paragraphs 5-6) primarily serves to

A. explain why some people are seen as great starting from birth

B. show that it is unremarkable if a few people achieve more than expected

C. limit the author’s earlier remarks about greatness to a certain subset of people

D. challenge the audience’s likely belief that the world is inherently fair

E. reinforce the author’s overarching claim about ordinary people’s capacity for success