no two individuals are alike.  History is filled with examples of men who had the instinctive power of getting money combined with the instinct for keeping it.  Their names are familiar, all the way from Midas and Croesus down to the prominent captains of industry today.  It is common for them and their adherents who criticise new schemes of social organization to remark with the greatest assurance that before wealth can be equal, brains must be equal.  The truth is that brains have little to do with either the making or accumulating of money.  This depends mainly, like all other activities, on the strength or weakness of the instincts involved.  One’s brain capacity cannot be measured by his bank account, any more than by the strength of his body or the color of his hair.  His bank account simply shows his innate tendencies.  There is no doubt that brain capacity as well as physical perfection adds to power, but it is the instinct that determines the tendency and strength of the activity.

To say that the one who gets money the most easily and keeps it the most safely has the best brain is no more reasonable than to say that the foxhound is more intelligent than the bull-dog because it can run faster.  Nature formed one for running and the other for holding on.  The brain power is not involved.

There are manifold ways of gratifying all these instincts.  The desire for property calls simply for getting it and keeping it.  It does not involve the method to be used.  The way is determined by other faculties, by education, by opportunities, by the strength and weakness of inhibitions.  It does not follow that all legal ways are morally right and all illegal ones morally wrong.  Society in its development has established certain ways in which it may be done.  These ways are easy for some, they are hard for others, and for many quite impossible.

Still the instinct for getting is always present, leading and urging to acquire and to keep.  Endless are the ways that men have contrived to gratify this instinct.  If, perchance, a law stands in the way, means are always sought to get around the law.  Every desire is always seeking its own gratification or satisfaction.  This means life.  Most men believe that the way they adopt for getting money or gratifying other instincts is really no worse than some other person’s way.  The man who uses the confidence game contends with great assurance that his methods are like other business methods; that all men are using every means to get the largest return for the least effort, and one way is no better than another.  A considerable portion of society has always supported him in these ideas.  The law is full of shadowy lines which divide legal acquisition from the illegal, some of which are so fine that no one can see more than a technical difference.  For instance, under an indictment for obtaining money by false pretenses, one may make all sorts of statements as to the quality, value, style and desirability of