366 



AR1STOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book IV 

 Chapter 4 



It only be- 

 comes general 

 by the 



popularising of 

 false theories 



attainable by 

 all, without 

 exceptional 

 talent or 

 exceptional 

 exertion. 



can really produce exceptional wealth are the only 

 men who believe it to be a thing attainable by 

 them, and are consequently the only men who feel 

 any actual craving for it, all goes well and healthily, 

 and the desire of all classes may be at least approxi- 

 mately satisfied. Unfortunately, however, the belief 

 that wealth is attainable, though it is naturally con- 

 fined to men who have exceptional powers of creating 

 it, is capable of being implanted under certain circum- 

 stances artificially in men who possess no exceptional 

 powers at all. 



A familiar case like the following will show how 

 this is effected. A man, we will say, occupies an 

 ornamental cottage, which is beautiful in itself, 

 is embowered in beautiful gardens, and also 

 commands views of a picturesque and magnificent 

 park, into the glades of which one of the gates of 

 his garden opens, and which the owner allows him 

 to use precisely as if it were his own. All his 

 friends tell him, and tell him truly, that there is 

 no such place of its size within fifty miles of London. 

 They envy him his dainty drawing-room, his 

 verandah festooned with roses, his prospect of the 

 timbered park, and his free access to its solitudes. 

 His friends envy him, and he feels himself that he is 

 enviable. One morning, however, he receives a 

 lawyer's letter, which gives him to understand that he 

 is really the legal owner, not of his cottage only, but 

 of the park and property adjoining, and that with 

 previously he adequate legal assistance he could certainly substan- 



never thought . , , , . T . i . i i 



of coveting, tiate his claim to them. In an instant his whole 



It is roused, 

 for instance, 

 in a man who 

 suddenly is 

 told that he 

 has a legal 

 right to an 

 estate which 



