others to
share their satisfaction with things as they are.

The phrase "the good things of life" is significant, and explains
much. It means that an outward standard of reality has fully
established itself in the community, that money and the possessions
of various kinds which money can buy are regarded as the good things
of life,--things which are intrinsically good, and therefore
legitimate ends of Man's ambition and endeavour, things to pursue
which is to fulfil one's destiny and to win which is to achieve
salvation. It means, in other words, that the life of the community
is a scramble for material possessions and outward and visible
"results"--a scramble which on its lowest level becomes a struggle
for bare existence, and on the next level a struggle for the
"necessaries of life"--and that this legalised scramble is the basis
of the whole social order. In such a scramble the great prizes are
necessarily few, and the number of complete failures is always
considerable; for the wealthier a country, the higher is its standard
of comfort, so that the _proportion_ of failures--the percentage of
men who are submerged and outcast, who are in want and misery--is at
least as great in the wealthiest as in the poorest community, while
the extremes of wealth and poverty are as a rule greatest where the
pursuit of riches is carried on with the keenest vigour and the most
complete success.

There are many persons, rich as well as poor, who, viewing the
legalised scramble from an entirely impersonal standpoint, are filled
with disgust and dismay, and who dream of making an end of it, by
substituting what they call _collectivism_ for the individualism
which they regard as the source of all our troubles. These persons
are known as _Socialists_. Their ruling idea is that the "State"
should become the sole owner of property, and that this radical
change should be effected by a series of legislative measures. With
their social ideal, regarded as an ideal, one has of course the
deepest sympathy. Their motto is, I believe, "Each for all, and all
for each"; and if this ideal could be realised, the social millennium
would indeed have begun. But in trying to compass their ends by
legislation, _before the standard of reality has been changed_, they
are making a disastrous mistake. For, to go no further, our schools
are hotbeds of individualism, the spirit of "competitive selfishness"
being actively and systematically fostered in all of