Can equality be postulated of no two objects on earth then? Provided that the mathematical abstracts, or arbitrary identities, size, weight, bulk and number, alone, are in question, equality can be postulated; but the moment mathematical abstractions are departed from, it is not only unsafe, it is positively dishonest to speak of equality. For instance, you can say that these hundred rails are equal to those hundred rails in number, in weight, or in length. You could not say that these hundred rails are equal to those hundred rails in durability, resilience, or frangibility. You might say they are approximately equal in these attributes, or as nearly as possible equal; but apart from the arbitrary identities or abstractions of the mathematicians, you could not postulate perfect equality. Does the term “Equality” mean anything at all apart from these mathematical [p65] abstractions then?----Absolutely nothing! What, then, are those people who earnestly and warmly claim and advocate equality among men--_men_ who are so different in their ancestry, size, shape, endowments, beauty, desires, appetites, and spirit, whose very features proclaim their inequality as they approach us? Are such clamourers for equality all liars? They are certainly liars, but the majority of them are probably perfectly unconscious liars. From childhood onwards they may have heard the word “Equality” pronounced as if it implied a very certain reality, a very much coveted desideratum. Deep emotions over which they have no control, and concerning which they have even less understanding, are therefore stirred every time they hear the word, or see it written or printed; and thus they live and die earnestly believing that this meaningless principle “Equality,” if it could be realised, would be an unqualified boon. How the equality is to be achieved, whether by bleeding the too sanguine, truncating the too tall, deliberately debilitating the too healthy, delicately injuring the brains of the too intelligent, or systematically fattening the too thin, nobody troubles definitely to specify. Egalitarians have a vague notion concerning a still more vague desideratum, and this, coupled with the word “Equality,” that is utterly meaningless outside the abstractions of the mathematicians, completes the content of their hallucination. But, it may be objected, the world is surely not so foolish. What men mean [p66] when they demand equality, is equality before the law--that is to say, that the law-officers should regard them, for the purposes of law-administration as equal to one another in their chances of being right. This may be true of a few cases in which the cry “Equality” is set up; but is it true of all? Do all egalitarians court equality because at some time or another they may have to confront the officers of the law?