THE ARTIFICIAL CRA VING FOR WEALTH 367 



temper of mind with regard to his surroundings is 

 changed. His pride in his cottage is gone, and its 

 place is taken by indignation at having been kept 

 out of possession of the park, and by a feverish 

 craving to acquire it. He goes to law. The case is 

 long and difficult. He lives for months distracted by 

 fear and hope ; and when the case is finally given 

 against him, he comes back to his cottage with his 

 mind unhinged by the shock, contemptuous of the 

 dwelling which once was a source of pride to him, 

 and cursing the prospects which once were his 

 daily pleasure. 



Now this craving for wealth, by which the man's 

 life is blighted, has been produced, precisely as such 

 a craving normally is, by the belief on his part that 

 certain wealth is attainable ; but the belief here does 

 not rest on a consciousness that he is able by his 

 own abilities to create or earn it for himself ; it rests 

 on his intellectual assent to a delusive proposition 

 that he has a legal right to it, or, in other words, 

 that the law will make him the possessor of it 

 without any exceptional productive effort of his 

 own. And here we have a counterpart to the 

 socialistic teaching of to-day. It excites, or aims at The socialistic 



.(.., ' ' r 11- i teaching of to- 



exciting, an artificial craving for wealth in men who day creates a 

 would not naturally trouble their heads about it, l*y Snireaith by 

 teaching them that they have a right to it, which i 

 wholly independent of any exceptional productive rights 

 power in themselves, or in any ancestors from 

 whom they might claim to inherit. The only 

 difference between men who are thus deluded, and 



