526 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



admitted that nothing has so demoralizing an effect on 

 the young as the certainty of inheriting great wealth ; 

 and examples of this come before us every year and 

 almost every month. This is the real teaching of the 

 parable of Dives and Lazarus ; this gives us the true 

 meaning of Christ's saying that a rich man shall hardly 

 enter into the kingdom of heaven. 



Now, many who dislike the idea of Socialism chiefly, 

 I think, through not understanding what it really implies 

 will perhaps look more favourably on this great 

 principle of "equality of opportunity/' since it would 

 leave individualism untouched, would in fact render it 

 far more complete arid effective than it is now. For our 

 present state of society is not true individualism, because 

 the inequalities of opportunity in early life are so great 

 that often the worst are forced to the top, while many 

 of the best struggle throughout life without a chance of 

 using their highest faculties, or developing the best part 

 of their nature. Even Tennyson, whose mind was of an 

 aristocratic bent, could say 



1 ' Plowmen, shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still 



could find, 



Sons of God and 1? ings of men in utter nobleness of mind ; 

 Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar ; 

 So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher. 

 Here and there a cotter's babe is royal-born by right divine ; 

 Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine." 



Equality of opportunity would put all this right ; 

 every one would be able to show what power for good he 

 possessed, and society would be enormously benefited in 

 consequence. At the same time, there would be all the 

 stimulus to be derived from individual effort. The man 

 who could surpass his fellows under such equal and fair 

 conditions would be truly great. Some would achieve 

 honour, some would acquire wealth; but it would be all 

 due to their own "nature and consequent actions," and 

 neither the honour nor the wealth would be handed on to 

 individuals who might not be worthy of the one or be 

 able to acquire, or properly to use, the other. 



I believe myself that such a perfectly fair competition, 



