Let us take a familiar illustration. In an ordinary foot-race the best man gets in first, provided he is in his proper form, and the race is looked upon as a test of merit. In order to encourage competitors who otherwise would be without a chance of winning, it is usual to handicap some of these races, giving points of advantage to all except the very best man who is termed “scratch.” The result of such a race is no proper test of merit, and the winner is often the worst of limb and wind in the whole competing team; he wins it because of the handicap he has received. Now while the wild beast and very primitive savage are all “scratch” and no “handicap” is given, on the other hand civilised communities, as soon as they have become firmly established, introduce the system of handicapping, which does not necessarily give the advantage to those most needing it, but which all the same causes the struggle or race to cease to be so true and efficient a test of pure merit as it was before. _Those Competing are Handicapped by Property._[26] This is brought about in many ways, but by none more effectively than by the amassing and transmission of property. Instead of living a hand-to-mouth existence, all communities have very naturally instituted what is known as personal property; they have permitted individuals to acquire and transmit large quantities of food or clothing, etc., or that which can be converted into this, namely money. By lending this property to those who are in need of it, and by exacting a percentage increase in payment of this loan, wealth may yield in perpetuity a sufficiency to support without further expenditure of labour. By the earning, with physical or mental labour, of wealth, and by the increments produced by the loan of wealth, this wealth has accumulated in certain families and in certain classes, and this power is handed down from generation to generation. In order to obtain wealth in any quantity, great physical skill or mental training is, as a rule, required, and this is only to be obtained for a child by the expenditure of wealth on the parent’s part. The wealthier families in a community have therefore either sufficient wealth to support their children in idleness, or, at any rate, they can put them in such positions as will enable them to produce wealth for themselves. The children of those families who possess little wealth are from the first at a disadvantage, and only those with very exceptional powers can possibly succeed in a struggle against their more fortunate neighbours. _Property is not always acquired by the Most Capable._