scarcely real exceptions, since such persons commonly fall back
on the putative approbation of some supernatural witness of their
deeds.

So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of
popular esteem, therefore, it becomes also a requisite to the
complacency which we call self-respect. In any community where
goods are held in severalty it is necessary, in order to his own
peace of mind, that an individual should possess as large a
portion of goods as others with whom he is accustomed to class
himself; and it is extremely gratifying to possess something more
than others. But as fast as a person makes new acquisitions, and
becomes accustomed to the resulting new standard of wealth, the
new standard forthwith ceases to afford appreciably greater
satisfaction than the earlier standard did. The tendency in any
case is constantly to make the present pecuniary standard the
point of departure for a fresh increase of wealth; and this in
turn gives rise to a new standard of sufficiency and a new
pecuniary classification of one's self as compared with one's
neighbours. So far as concerns the present question, the end
sought by accumulation is to rank high in comparison with the
rest of the community in point of pecuniary strength. So long as
the comparison is distinctly unfavourable to himself, the normal,
average individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction with his
present lot; and when he has reached what may be called the
normal pecuniary standard of the community, or of his class in
the community, this chronic dissatisfaction will give place to a
restless straining to place a wider and ever-widening pecuniary
interval between himself and this average standard. The invidious
comparison can never become so favourable to the individual