362 



ARISTOCRACY AND EVOLUTION 



Book IV 

 Chapter 4 



The desire 

 ceases to be 

 speculative 

 and becomes a 

 practical crav- 

 ing only when 

 the imagination 

 is exceptionally 

 strong, and a 

 strong belief 

 is present that 

 the attainment 

 of wealth is 

 possible. 



bility of spending Christmas with them. But no 

 ordinary man, unless he has lived amongst the very 

 rich, and his entire view of life has been practically 

 identified with theirs, has any similar craving for a 

 hundred thousand pounds, or for a million ; for he 

 has no personal experience and no detailed know- 

 ledge of the peculiar conditions of life which require 

 such sums to purchase them. Wealth is to him 

 little more than a name for a power which would 

 secure for him, if he possessed it, an indefinite 

 number of indefinite things, if he wanted them ; but 

 he is under ordinary circumstances no more troubled 

 by its absence than he is by the fact that he has 

 not a fairy for his godmother, or that he does not 

 happen to be the owner of Aladdin's lamp. 



How, then, does it come to be the object of that 

 keen hunger which is the strongest motive to 

 activity amongst the men who are the chief pro- 

 ducers of it ? What are the exceptional circum- 

 stances which convert it from a remote something, 

 held in a passionless and speculative way to be 

 desirable, into a near something, craved for, and 

 eagerly struggled for with the painful industry of a 

 lifetime ? 



The speculative desire for wealth, common to all 

 human beings, is converted into this practical crav- 

 ing by two causes, which act and re-act upon each 

 other. One of them is an exceptionally powerful 

 imagination ; the other is the belief on the part of 

 any given individual that wealth is a thing which 

 he actually may acquire if he will only make certain 



