And even among those who are of an exceptionally optimistic disposition there must be some who realise that the grounds of their optimism are personal to themselves, and that they cannot expect many others to share their satisfaction with things as they are.
The phrase "the good things of life" is significant, and explains much.

It means that an outward standard of reality has fully established itself in the community, that money and the possessions of various kinds which money can buy are regarded as the good things of life,--things which are intrinsically good, and therefore legitimate ends of Man's ambition and endeavour, things to pursue which is to fulfil one's destiny and to win which is to achieve salvation.

It means, in other words, that the life of the community is a scramble for material possessions and outward and visible "results"-- a scramble which on its lowest level becomes a struggle for bare existence, and on the next level a struggle for the "necessaries of life"-- and that this legalised scramble is the basis of the whole social order.

In such a scramble the great prizes are necessarily few, and the number of complete failures is always considerable; for the wealthier a country, the higher is its standard of comfort, so that the _proportion_ of failures--the percentage of men who are submerged and outcast, who are in want and misery--is at least as great in the wealthiest as in the poorest community, while the extremes of wealth and poverty are as a rule greatest where the pursuit of riches is carried on with the keenest vigour and the most complete success.
There are many persons, rich as well as poor, who, viewing the legalised scramble from an entirely impersonal standpoint, are filled with disgust and dismay, and who dream of making an end of it, by substituting what they call _collectivism_ for the individualism which they regard as the source of all our troubles.

These persons are known as _Socialists_.