It must be remembered that the strength of a man’s will, though depending as a potentiality on the character with which he happens to be born, depends as an actual force on his desire for certain objects or results, coupled with the belief that he can attain these by action. Now, when a man’s powers of action are capable of realising his desires—as when a man who desires to be wealthy has the talents that produce wealth, or when the man who desires to be Prime Minister has the talents of a great statesman—his career satisfies himself, and is presumably serviceable to his country. In many cases, however, desire is exceptionally great, and generates also a strong impulse to act, but the capacity for that kind of action by which the desired object might be obtained is small. Thus many men desire exceptional wealth, but find themselves incapable of the peculiar kind of action that produces it. Their will, accordingly, if it makes them act at all, is like a steam-engine which merely puts useless machinery into motion; or if it fails to make them act, as it very often does, it shakes them to pieces with a kind of intellectual retching. These unhappy persons owe the condition in which they find themselves mainly to an over-estimate of their own powers; and this over-estimate is generally the direct result of education, which, by making them {339} falsely imagine themselves capable of attaining wealth, actualises a fruitless desire for it, which might otherwise have remained latent. When education has this effect on a man it is an unmitigated evil for himself, and very frequently for others.