The Chain of Responsibility Pattern

Could somebody provide a simple explanation of the chain of responsibility pattern? I found the wiki article a bit confusing.

A very good example are java servlet filters - pieces of code that are executed before the HTTP request arrives at its target.

• the chain contains multiple instances, and each of them performs a different action
• each instance in the chain can choose to propagate to the next instance, or stop the flow

So, with servlet filters, you can have

• a filter that checks if the user is authenticated. If he is, the filter propagates to the next filter

• the next filter checks if the user has permissions to the current resource. If it does, it propagate to the next

• the next logs the current request URL and the username, and always propagate to the next

• there is nothing else in the chain, so the target object is finally invoked