So long as matters stand thus, the majority of men are unaffected.

But wishes which are naturally confined to exceptional men, who are more or less capable of realising them, are susceptible by education of indefinite extension to others who are not so qualified; and in the case of these last, the results which they produce are different.

They multiply the number of those who demand preferential opportunities, in order that they may enter on a struggle in which they must ultimately fail.
They multiply the number of those, to a still greater extent, who demand that positions or possessions shall be somehow provided for them by society, without reference to any struggle on their own part at all.

The artificial diffusion of "wish" among these two distinguishable classes is thus accomplished by education in somewhat different ways; but the _modus operandi_ is in one respect the same in both.

It consists of an artificial enlarging, in the case of all individuals alike, of the ideas entertained by them of their natural social rights; and an active craving is thus generalised for possessions and modes of life, which nine men out of ten would otherwise have never wasted a thought upon, and which not one out of ten can possibly make his own.