have never wasted a thought upon, and which not one out of ten can possibly make his own.  How easily this idea of rights is susceptible of enlargement by teaching, and how efficient it is in creating a desire where none would have existed otherwise, is vividly illustrated by those not infrequent cases in which men, who for half their lives have considered themselves fortunate in the possession of moderate affluence, have suddenly been led to suppose themselves the heirs of peerages or great estates, and have died insane or bankrupt in consequence of their vain endeavours to secure rank or property which, had it not been for a purely adventitious idea, would have affected their hopes and wishes no more than the moon did.  It is precisely in this manner that much of the education of to-day operates in consequence of current attempts to equalise it[30]; and since education is the cause of the evils here in question, it is in some reform of education that we must hope to find a cure.  What the general nature of this reform would be can be indicated in a few words.  It would not involve a reversal, it would involve a modification only, of the principle now in vogue, and can, indeed, best be expressed by means of the same formula, if we do but add to it a single qualifying word—­that is to say, the word “relative” prefixed to the word “equality,” when we speak of equality of opportunity as the end at which we ought to aim.  Let me explain my meaning.

The logical end of all action is happiness; and happiness, so far as it depends on economic conditions at all, is an equation between desire and attainment.  The capacities of men being unequal, and the objects of desire which they could, under the most favourable circumstances, make their own, being unequal likewise, the ideal object of education, as a means to happiness, is twofold.  It is, on the one hand, so to develop each man’s congenital faculties as to raise them to their maximum power of providing him with what he desires; and on the other hand to limit his desires, by a due regulation of his expectations, to such objects as his faculties, when thus developed, render approximately if not completely attainable.  Thus, relatively to the individual, the ideal object of education is in all cases the same; but since individuals are not equal to one another, education, if it is to perform an equal service for each, must be in its absolute character to an indefinite extent various; just as a tailor, if he is to give to all his customers equal opportunities of being well dressed, will not offer them coats of the same size and pattern.  He will offer them coats which are equal only in this—­namely, their equally successful adaptation to the figures of their respective wearers.