That is one reason why the rich Englishman is so much less generous in
his public gifts than the rich American. In the long run men inevitably
become the victims of their wealth. They adapt their lives and habits to
their money, not their money to their lives. It pre-occupies their
thoughts, creates artificial needs, and draws a curtain between them and
the world. If the American people believe that large wealth really
requires to be justified by proportionately large public benefactions,
they should assuredly adopt measures which will guarantee public service
for a larger proportion of such wealth.
Whether or not the state shall permit the inheritance of large fortunes
is a question which stands on a totally different footing from the
question of their permissible accumulation. Many millions may, at least
in part, be earned by the men who accumulate them; but they cannot in
the least be earned by the people who inherit them. They could not be
inherited at all save by the intervention of the state; and the state
has every right to impose conditions in its own interest upon the whole
business of inheritance.
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