The Theory of the Leisure Class ........................................................................................................................1

Thorstein Veblen ......................................................................................................................................1

The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture;

as, for instance, in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. In such communities the distinction between classes is very

rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking economic significance in these class differences is the

distinction maintained between the employments proper to the several classes. The upper classes are by

custom exempt or excluded from industrial occupations, and are reserved for certain employments to which a

degree of honour attaches. Chief among the honourable employments in any feudal community is warfare;

and priestly service is commonly second to warfare. If the barbarian community is not notably warlike, the

priestly office may take the precedence, with that of the warrior second. But the rule holds with but slight

exceptions that, whether warriors or priests, the upper classes are exempt from industrial employments, and

this exemption is the economic expression of their superior rank. Brahmin India affords a fair illustration of

the industrial exemption of both these classes. In the communities belonging to the higher barbarian culture

there is a considerable differentiation of subclasses within what may be comprehensively called the leisure

class; and there is a corresponding differentiation of employments between these subclasses. The leisure

class as a whole comprises the noble and the priestly classes, together with much of their retinue. The

occupations of the class are correspondingly diversified; but they have the common economic characteristic

of being nonindustrial. These nonindustrial upperclass occupations may be roughly comprised under

At an earlier, but not the earliest, stage of barbarism, the leisure class is found in a less differentiated form.

Neither the class distinctions nor the distinctions between leisureclass occupations are so minute and

intricate. The Polynesian islanders generally show this stage of the development in good form, with the

exception that, owing to the absence of large game, hunting does not hold the usual place of honour in their

scheme of life. The Icelandic community in the time of the Sagas also affords a fair instance. In such a

community there is a rigorous distinction between classes and between the occupations peculiar to each class.

Manual labour, industry, whatever has to do directly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is the

exclusive occupation of the inferior class. This inferior class includes slaves and other dependents, and

ordinarily also all the women. If there are several grades of aristocracy, the women of high rank are

commonly exempt from industrial employment, or at least from the more vulgar kinds of manual labour. The

men of the upper classes are not only exempt, but by prescriptive custom they are debarred, from all

industrial occupations. The range of employments open to them is rigidly defined. As on the higher plane

already spoken of, these employments are government, warfare, religious observances, and sports. These four

lines of activity govern the scheme of life of the upper classes, and for the highest rank the kings or

chieftains these are the only kinds of activity that custom or the common sense of the community will allow.

Indeed, where the scheme is well developed even sports are accounted doubtfully legitimate for the members

of the highest rank. To the lower grades of the leisure class certain other employments are open, but they are

employments that are subsidiary to one or another of these typical leisureclass occupations. Such are, for

instance, the manufacture and care of arms and accoutrements and of war canoes, the dressing and handling

of horses, dogs, and hawks, the preparation of sacred apparatus, etc. The lower classes are excluded from

these secondary honourable employments, except from such as are plainly of an industrial character and are

If we go a step back of this exemplary barbarian culture, into the lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find

the leisure class in fully developed form. But this lower barbarism shows the usages, motives, and

circumstances out of which the institution of a leisure class has arisen, and indicates the steps of its early

growth. Nomadic hunting tribes in various parts of the world illustrate these more primitive phases of the

differentiation. Any one of the North American hunting tribes may be taken as a convenient illustration.

These tribes can scarcely be said to have a defined leisure class. There is a differentiation of function, and

there is a distinction between classes on the basis of this difference of function, but the exemption of the

superior class from work has not gone far enough to make the designation "leisure class" altogether

applicable. The tribes belonging on this economic level have carried the economic differentiation to the point

at which a marked distinction is made between the occupations of men and women, and this distinction is of

an invidious character. In nearly all these tribes the women are, by prescriptive custom, held to those

employments out of which the industrial occupations proper develop at the next advance. The men are

exempt from these vulgar employments and are reserved for war, hunting, sports, and devout observances. A

This division of labour coincides with the distinction between the working and the leisure class as it appears

in the higher barbarian culture. As the diversification and specialisation of employments proceed, the line of

demarcation so drawn comes to divide the industrial from the nonindustrial employments. The man's

occupation as it stands at the earlier barbarian stage is not the original out of which any appreciable portion of

later industry has developed. In the later development it survives only in employments that are not classed as

industrial, war, politics, sports, learning, and the priestly office. The only notable exceptions are a portion

of the fishery industry and certain slight employments that are doubtfully to be classed as industry; such as

the manufacture of arms, toys, and sporting goods. Virtually the whole range of industrial employments is an

outgrowth of what is classed as woman's work in the primitive barbarian community.

The work of the men in the lower barbarian culture is no less indispensable to the life of the group than the

work done by the women. It may even be that the men's work contributes as much to the food supply and the

other necessary consumption of the group. Indeed, so obvious is this "productive" character of the men's

work that in the conventional economic writings the hunter's work is taken as the type of primitive industry.

But such is not the barbarian's sense of the matter. In his own eyes he is not a labourer, and he is not to be

classed with the women in this respect; nor is his effort to be classed with the women's drudgery, as labour or

industry, in such a sense as to admit of its being confounded with the latter. There is in all barbarian

communities a profound sense of the disparity between man's and woman's work. His work may conduce to

the maintenance of the group, but it is felt that it does so through an excellence and an efficacy of a kind that

cannot without derogation be compared with the uneventful diligence of the women.

At a farther step backward in the cultural scale among savage groups the differentiation of

employments is still less elaborate and the invidious distinction between classes and employments is less

consistent and less rigorous. Unequivocal instances of a primitive savage culture are hard to find. Few of

these groups or communities that are classed as "savage" show no traces of regression from a more advanced

cultural stage. But there are groups some of them apparently not the result of retrogression which show

the traits of primitive savagery with some fidelity. Their culture differs from that of the barbarian

communities in the absence of a leisure class and the absence, in great measure, of the animus or spiritual

attitude on which the institution of a leisure class rests. These communities of primitive savages in which

there is no hierarchy of economic classes make up but a small and inconspicuous fraction of the human race.

As good an instance of this phase of culture as may be had is afforded by the tribes of the Andamans, or by

the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills. The scheme of life of these groups at the time of their earliest contact with

Europeans seems to have been nearly typical, so far as regards the absence of a leisure class. As a further

instance might be cited the Ainu of Yezo, and, more doubtfully, also some Bushman and Eskimo groups.

Some Pueblo communities are less confidently to be included in the same class. Most, if not all, of the

communities here cited may well be cases of degeneration from a higher barbarism, rather than bearers of a

culture that has never risen above its present level. If so, they are for the present purpose to be taken with the

allowance, but they may serve none the less as evidence to the same effect as if they were really "primitive"

These communities that are without a defined leisure class resemble one another also in certain other features

of their social structure and manner of life. They are small groups and of a simple (archaic) structure; they are

commonly peaceable and sedentary; they are poor; and individual ownership is not a dominant feature of

their economic system. At the same time it does not follow that these are the smallest of existing

communities, or that their social structure is in all respects the least differentiated; nor does the class

necessarily include all primitive communities which have no defined system of individual ownership. But it

is to be noted that the class seems to include the most peaceable perhaps all the characteristically

peaceable primitive groups of men. Indeed, the most notable trait common to members of such

communities is a certain amiable inefficiency when confronted with force or fraud.

The evidence afforded by the usages and cultural traits of communities at a low stage of development

indicates that the institution of a leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive

savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from a peaceable to a consistently warlike

habit of life. The conditions apparently necessary to its emergence in a consistent form are: (1) the

community must be of a predatory habit of life (war or the hunting of large game or both); that is to say, the

men, who constitute the inchoate leisure class in these cases, must be habituated to the infliction of injury by

force and stratagem; (2) subsistence must be obtainable on sufficiently easy terms to admit of the exemption

of a considerable portion of the community from steady application to a routine of labour. The institution of

leisure class is the outgrowth of an early discrimination between employments, according to which some

employments are worthy and others unworthy. Under this ancient distinction the worthy employments are

those which may be classed as exploit; unworthy are those necessary everyday employments into which no

This distinction has but little obvious significance in a modern industrial community, and it has, therefore,

received but slight attention at the hands of economic writers. When viewed in the light of that modern

common sense which has guided economic discussion, it seems formal and insubstantial. But it persists with

great tenacity as a commonplace preconception even in modern life, as is shown, for instance, by our habitual

aversion to menial employments. It is a distinction of a personal kind of superiority and inferiority. In the

earlier stages of culture, when the personal force of the individual counted more immediately and obviously

in shaping the course of events, the element of exploit counted for more in the everyday scheme of life.

Interest centred about this fact to a greater degree. Consequently a distinction proceeding on this ground

seemed more imperative and more definitive then than is the case today. As a fact in the sequence of

development, therefore, the distinction is a substantial one and rests on sufficiently valid and cogent grounds.

The ground on which a discrimination between facts is habitually made changes as the interest from which

the facts are habitually viewed changes. Those features of the facts at hand are salient and substantial upon

which the dominant interest of the time throws its light. Any given ground of distinction will seem

insubstantial to any one who habitually apprehends the facts in question from a different point of view and

values them for a different purpose. The habit of distinguishing and classifying the various purposes and

directions of activity prevails of necessity always and everywhere; for it is indispensable in reaching a

working theory or scheme of life. The particular point of view, or the particular characteristic that is pitched

upon as definitive in the classification of the facts of life depends upon the interest from which a

discrimination of the facts is sought. The grounds of discrimination, and the norm of procedure in classifying

the facts, therefore, progressively change as the growth of culture proceeds; for the end for which the facts of

life are apprehended changes, and the point of view consequently changes also. So that what are recognised

as the salient and decisive features of a class of activities or of a social class at one stage of culture will not

retain the same relative importance for the purposes of classification at any subsequent stage.

But the change of standards and points of view is gradual only, and it seldom results in the subversion of

entire suppression of a standpoint once accepted. A distinction is still habitually made between industrial and

nonindustrial occupations; and this modern distinction is a transmuted form of the barbarian distinction

between exploit and drudgery. Such employments as warfare, politics, public worship, and public

merrymaking, are felt, in the popular apprehension, to differ intrinsically from the labour that has to do with

elaborating the material means of life. The precise line of demarcation is not the same as it was in the early

The tacit, commonsense distinction today is, in effect, that any effort is to be accounted industrial only so

far as its ultimate purpose is the utilisation of nonhuman things. The coercive utilisation of man by man is

not felt to be an industrial function; but all effort directed to enhance human life by taking advantage of the

nonhuman environment is classed together as industrial activity. By the economists who have best retained

and adapted the classical tradition, man's "power over nature" is currently postulated as the characteristic fact

of industrial productivity. This industrial power over nature is taken to include man's power over the life of

the beasts and over all the elemental forces. A line is in this way drawn between mankind and brute creation.

In other times and among men imbued with a different body of preconceptions this line is not drawn precisely

as we draw it today. In the savage or the barbarian scheme of life it is drawn in a different place and in

another way. In all communities under the barbarian culture there is an alert and pervading sense of antithesis

between two comprehensive groups of phenomena, in one of which barbarian man includes himself, and in

the other, his victual. There is a felt antithesis between economic and noneconomic phenomena, but it is not

conceived in the modern fashion; it lies not between man and brute creation, but between animate and inert

It may be an excess of caution at this day to explain that the barbarian notion which it is here intended to

convey by the term "animate" is not the same as would be conveyed by the word "living". The term does not

cover all living things, and it does cover a great many others. Such a striking natural phenomenon as a storm,

a disease, a waterfall, are recognised as "animate"; while fruits and herbs, and even inconspicuous animals,

such as houseflies, maggots, lemmings, sheep, are not ordinarily apprehended as "animate" except when

taken collectively. As here used the term does not necessarily imply an indwelling soul or spirit. The concept

includes such things as in the apprehension of the animistic savage or barbarian are formidable by virtue of a

real or imputed habit of initiating action. This category comprises a large number and range of natural objects

and phenomena. Such a distinction between the inert and the active is still present in the habits of thought of

unreflecting persons, and it still profoundly affects the prevalent theory of human life and of natural

processes; but it does not pervade our daily life to the extent or with the farreaching practical consequences

To the mind of the barbarian, the elaboration and utilisation of what is afforded by inert nature is activity on

quite a different plane from his dealings with "animate" things and forces. The line of demarcation may be

vague and shifting, but the broad distinction is sufficiently real and cogent to influence the barbarian scheme

of life. To the class of things apprehended as animate, the barbarian fancy imputes an unfolding of activity

directed to some end. It is this teleological unfolding of activity that constitutes any object or phenomenon an

"animate" fact. Wherever the unsophisticated savage or barbarian meets with activity that is at all obtrusive,

he construes it in the only terms that are ready to hand the terms immediately given in his consciousness

of his own actions. Activity is, therefore, assimilated to human action, and active objects are in so far

assimilated to the human agent. Phenomena of this character especially those whose behaviour is notably

formidable or baffling have to be met in a different spirit and with proficiency of a different kind from

what is required in dealing with inert things. To deal successfully with such phenomena is a work of exploit

Under the guidance of this naive discrimination between the inert and the animate, the activities of the

primitive social group tend to fall into two classes, which would in modern phrase be called exploit and

industry. Industry is effort that goes to create a new thing, with a new purpose given it by the fashioning hand

of its maker out of passive ("brute") material; while exploit, so far as it results in an outcome useful to the

agent, is the conversion to his own ends of energies previously directed to some other end by an other agent.

We still speak of "brute matter" which something of the barbarian's realisation of a profound significance in

The distinction between exploit and drudgery coincides with a difference between the sexes. The sexes differ,

not only in stature and muscular force, but perhaps even more decisively in temperament, and this must early

have given rise to a corresponding division of labour. The general range of activities that come under the

head of exploit falls to the males as being the stouter, more massive, better capable of a sudden and violent

strain, and more readily inclined to self assertion, active emulation, and aggression. The difference in mass, in

physiological character, and in temperament may be slight among the members of the primitive group; it

appears, in fact, to be relatively slight and inconsequential in some of the more archaic communities with

which we are acquainted as for instance the tribes of the Andamans. But so soon as a differentiation of

function has well begun on the lines marked out by this difference in physique and animus, the original

difference between the sexes will itself widen. A cumulative process of selective adaptation to the new

distribution of employments will set in, especially if the habitat or the fauna with which the group is in

contact is such as to call for a considerable exercise of the sturdier virtues. The habitual pursuit of large game

requires more of the manly qualities of massiveness, agility, and ferocity, and it can therefore scarcely fail to

hasten and widen the differentiation of functions between the sexes. And so soon as the group comes into

hostile contact with other groups, the divergence of function will take on the developed form of a distinction

In such a predatory group of hunters it comes to be the ablebodied men's office to fight and hunt. The

women do what other work there is to do other members who are unfit for man's work being for this

purpose classed with women. But the men's hunting and fighting are both of the same general character. Both

are of a predatory nature; the warrior and the hunter alike reap where they have not strewn. Their aggressive

assertion of force and sagacity differs obviously from the women's assiduous and uneventful shaping of

materials; it is not to be accounted productive labour but rather an acquisition of substance by seizure. Such

being the barbarian man's work, in its best development and widest divergence from women's work, any

effort that does not involve an assertion of prowess comes to be unworthy of the man. As the tradition gains

consistency, the common sense of the community erects it into a canon of conduct; so that no employment

and no acquisition is morally possible to the self respecting man at this cultural stage, except such as proceeds

on the basis of prowess force or fraud. When the predatory habit of life has been settled upon the group by

long habituation, it becomes the ablebodied man's accredited office in the social economy to kill, to destroy

such competitors in the struggle for existence as attempt to resist or elude him, to overcome and reduce to

subservience those alien forces that assert themselves refractorily in the environment. So tenaciously and with

such nicety is this theoretical distinction between exploit and drudgery adhered to that in many hunting tribes

the man must not bring home the game which he has killed, but must send his woman to perform that baser

As has already been indicated, the distinction between exploit and drudgery is an invidious distinction

between employments. Those employments which are to be classed as exploit are worthy, honourable, noble;

other employments, which do not contain this element of exploit, and especially those which imply

subservience or submission, are unworthy, debasing, ignoble. The concept of dignity, worth, or honour, as

applied either to persons or conduct, is of firstrate consequence in the development of classes and of class

distinctions, and it is therefore necessary to say something of its derivation and meaning. Its psychological

As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own apprehension, a centre of unfolding

impulsive activity "teleological" activity. He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some

concrete, objective, impersonal end. By force of his being such an agent he is possessed of a taste for

effective work, and a distaste for futile effort. He has a sense of the merit of serviceability or efficiency and

of the demerit of futility, waste, or incapacity. This aptitude or propensity may be called the instinct of

workmanship. Wherever the circumstances or traditions of life lead to an habitual comparison of one person

with another in point of efficiency, the instinct of workmanship works out in an emulative or invidious

comparison of persons. The extent to which this result follows depends in some considerable degree on the

temperament of the population. In any community where such an invidious comparison of persons is

habitually made, visible success becomes an end sought for its own utility as a basis of esteem. Esteem is

gained and dispraise is avoided by putting one's efficiency in evidence. The result is that the instinct of

During that primitive phase of social development, when the community is still habitually peaceable, perhaps

sedentary, and without a developed system of individual ownership, the efficiency of the individual can be

shown chiefly and most consistently in some employment that goes to further the life of the group. What

emulation of an economic kind there is between the members of such a group will be chiefly emulation in

industrial serviceability. At the same time the incentive to emulation is not strong, nor is the scope for

When the community passes from peaceable savagery to a predatory phase of life, the conditions of

emulation change. The opportunity and the incentive to emulate increase greatly in scope and urgency. The

activity of the men more and more takes on the character of exploit; and an invidious comparison of one

hunter or warrior with another grows continually easier and more habitual. Tangible evidences of prowess

trophies find a place in men's habits of thought as an essential feature of the paraphernalia of life. Booty,

trophies of the chase or of the raid, come to be prized as evidence of preeminent force. Aggression becomes

the accredited form of action, and booty serves as prima facie evidence of successful aggression. As accepted

at this cultural stage, the accredited, worthy form of selfassertion is contest; and useful articles or services

obtained by seizure or compulsion, serve as a conventional evidence of successful contest. Therefore, by

contrast, the obtaining of goods by other methods than seizure comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his

best estate. The performance of productive work, or employment in personal service, falls under the same

odium for the same reason. An invidious distinction in this way arises between exploit and acquisition on the

other hand. Labour acquires a character of irksomeness by virtue of the indignity imputed to it.

With the primitive barbarian, before the simple content of the notion has been obscured by its own

ramifications and by a secondary growth of cognate ideas, "honourable" seems to connote nothing else that

assertion of superior force. "Honourable" is "formidable"; "worthy" is "prepotent". A honorific act is in the

last analysis little if anything else than a recognised successful act of aggression; and where aggression means

conflict with men and beasts, the activity which comes to be especially and primarily honourable is the

assertion of the strong hand. The naive, archaic habit of construing all manifestations of force in terms of

personality or "will power" greatly fortifies this conventional exaltation of the strong hand. Honorific

epithets, in vogue among barbarian tribes as well as among peoples of a more advance culture, commonly

bear the stamp of this unsophisticated sense of honour. Epithets and titles used in addressing chieftains, and

in the propitiation of kings and gods, very commonly impute a propensity for overbearing violence and an

irresistible devastating force to the person who is to be propitiated. This holds true to an extent also in the

more civilised communities of the present day. The predilection shown in heraldic devices for the more

Under this commonsense barbarian appreciation of worth or honour, the taking of life the killing of

formidable competitors, whether brute or human is honourable in the highest degree. And this high office

of slaughter, as an expression of the slayer's prepotence, casts a glamour of worth over every act of slaughter

and over all the tools and accessories of the act. Arms are honourable, and the use of them, even in seeking

the life of the meanest creatures of the fields, becomes a honorific employment. At the same time,

employment in industry becomes correspondingly odious, and, in the commonsense apprehension, the

handling of the tools and implements of industry falls beneath the dignity of ablebodied men. Labour

It is here assumed that in the sequence of cultural evolution primitive groups of men have passed from an

initial peaceable stage to a subsequent stage at which fighting is the avowed and characteristic employment of

the group. But it is not implied that there has been an abrupt transition from unbroken peace and goodwill to

a later or higher phase of life in which the fact of combat occurs for the first time. Neither is it implied that all

peaceful industry disappears on the transition to the predatory phase of culture. Some fighting, it is safe to

say, would be met with at any early stage of social development. Fights would occur with more or less

frequency through sexual competition. The known habits of primitive groups, as well as the habits of the

anthropoid apes, argue to that effect, and the evidence from the wellknown promptings of human nature

It may therefore be objected that there can have been no such initial stage of peaceable life as is here

assumed. There is no point in cultural evolution prior to which fighting does not occur. But the point in

question is not as to the occurrence of combat, occasional or sporadic, or even more or less frequent and

habitual; it is a question as to the occurrence of an habitual; it is a question as to the occurrence of an habitual

bellicose from of mind a prevalent habit of judging facts and events from the point of view of the fight.

The predatory phase of culture is attained only when the predatory attitude has become the habitual and

accredited spiritual attitude for the members of the group; when the fight has become the dominant note in

the current theory of life; when the commonsense appreciation of men and things has come to be an

The substantial difference between the peaceable and the predatory phase of culture, therefore, is a spiritual

difference, not a mechanical one. The change in spiritual attitude is the outgrowth of a change in the material

facts of the life of the group, and it comes on gradually as the material circumstances favourable to a

predatory attitude supervene. The inferior limit of the predatory culture is an industrial limit. Predation can

not become the habitual, conventional resource of any group or any class until industrial methods have been

developed to such a degree of efficiency as to leave a margin worth fighting for, above the subsistence of

those engaged in getting a living. The transition from peace to predation therefore depends on the growth of

technical knowledge and the use of tools. A predatory culture is similarly impracticable in early times, until

weapons have been developed to such a point as to make man a formidable animal. The early development of

tools and of weapons is of course the same fact seen from two different points of view.

The life of a given group would be characterised as peaceable so long as habitual recourse to combat has not

brought the fight into the foreground in men's every day thoughts, as a dominant feature of the life of man. A

group may evidently attain such a predatory attitude with a greater or less degree of completeness, so that its

scheme of life and canons of conduct may be controlled to a greater or less extent by the predatory animus.

The predatory phase of culture is therefore conceived to come on gradually, through a cumulative growth of

predatory aptitudes habits, and traditions this growth being due to a change in the circumstances of the

group's life, of such a kind as to develop and conserve those traits of human nature and those traditions and

The evidence for the hypothesis that there has been such a peaceable stage of primitive culture is in great part

drawn from psychology rather than from ethnology, and cannot be detailed here. It will be recited in part in a

later chapter, in discussing the survival of archaic traits of human nature under the modern culture.

In the sequence of cultural evolution the emergence of a leisure class coincides with the beginning of

ownership. This is necessarily the case, for these two institutions result from the same set of economic forces.

In the inchoate phase of their development they are but different aspects of the same general facts of social

It is as elements of social structure conventional facts that leisure and ownership are matters of interest

for the purpose in hand. An habitual neglect of work does not constitute a leisure class; neither does the

mechanical fact of use and consumption constitute ownership. The present inquiry, therefore, is not

concerned with the beginning of indolence, nor with the beginning of the appropriation of useful articles to

individual consumption. The point in question is the origin and nature of a conventional leisure class on the

one hand and the beginnings of individual ownership as a conventional right or equitable claim on the other

The early differentiation out of which the distinction between a leisure and a working class arises is a division

maintained between men's and women's work in the lower stages of barbarism. Likewise the earliest form of

ownership is an ownership of the women by the able bodied men of the community. The facts may be

expressed in more general terms. and truer to the import of the barbarian theory of life, by saying that it is an

There was undoubtedly some appropriation of useful articles before the custom of appropriating women

arose. The usages of existing archaic communities in which there is no ownership of women is warrant for

such a view. In all communities the members, both male and female, habitually appropriate to their individual

use a variety of useful things; but these useful things are not thought of as owned by the person who

appropriates and consumes them. The habitual appropriation and consumption of certain slight personal

effects goes on without raising the question of ownership; that is to say, the question of a conventional,

The ownership of women begins in the lower barbarian stages of culture, apparently with the seizure of

female captives. The original reason for the seizure and appropriation of women seems to have been their

usefulness as trophies. The practice of seizing women from the enemy as trophies, gave rise to a form of

ownershipmarriage, resulting in a household with a male head. This was followed by an extension of

slavery to other captives and inferiors, besides women, and by an extension of ownershipmarriage to other

women than those seized from the enemy. The outcome of emulation under the circumstances of a predatory

life, therefore, has been on the one hand a form of marriage resting on coercion, and on the other hand the

custom of ownership. The two institutions are not distinguishable in the initial phase of their development;

both arise from the desire of the successful men to put their prowess in evidence by exhibiting some durable

result of their exploits. Both also minister to that propensity for mastery which pervades all predatory

communities. From the ownership of women the concept of ownership extends itself to include the products

of their industry, and so there arises the ownership of things as well as of persons.

In this way a consistent system of property in goods is gradually installed. And although in the latest stages of

the development, the serviceability of goods for consumption has come to be the most obtrusive element of

their value, still, wealth has by no means yet lost its utility as a honorific evidence of the owner's prepotence.

Wherever the institution of private property is found, even in a slightly developed form, the economic process

bears the character of a struggle between men for the possession of goods. It has been customary in economic

theory, and especially among those economists who adhere with least faltering to the body of modernised

classical doctrines, to construe this struggle for wealth as being substantially a struggle for subsistence. Such

is, no doubt, its character in large part during the earlier and less efficient phases of industry. Such is also its

character in all cases where the "niggardliness of nature" is so strict as to afford but a scanty livelihood to the

community in return for strenuous and unremitting application to the business of getting the means of

subsistence. But in all progressing communities an advance is presently made beyond this early stage of

technological development. Industrial efficiency is presently carried to such a pitch as to afford something

appreciably more than a bare livelihood to those engaged in the industrial process. It has not been unusual for

economic theory to speak of the further struggle for wealth on this new industrial basis as a competition for

an increase of the comforts of life, primarily for an increase of the physical comforts which the

The end of acquisition and accumulation is conventionally held to be the consumption of the goods

accumulated whether it is consumption directly by the owner of the goods or by the household attached to

him and for this purpose identified with him in theory. This is at least felt to be the economically legitimate

end of acquisition, which alone it is incumbent on the theory to take account of. Such consumption may of

course be conceived to serve the consumer's physical wants his physical comfort or his socalled

higher wants spiritual, aesthetic, intellectual, or what not; the latter class of wants being served indirectly

But it is only when taken in a sense far removed from its naive meaning that consumption of goods can be

said to afford the incentive from which accumulation invariably proceeds. The motive that lies at the root of

ownership is emulation; and the same motive of emulation continues active in the further development of the

institution to which it has given rise and in the development of all those features of the social structure which

this institution of ownership touches. The possession of wealth confers honour; it is an invidious distinction.

Nothing equally cogent can be said for the consumption of goods, nor for any other conceivable incentive to

It is of course not to be overlooked that in a community where nearly all goods are private property the

necessity of earning a livelihood is a powerful and ever present incentive for the poorer members of the

community. The need of subsistence and of an increase of physical comfort may for a time be the dominant

motive of acquisition for those classes who are habitually employed at manual labour, whose subsistence is

on a precarious footing, who possess little and ordinarily accumulate little; but it will appear in the course of

the discussion that even in the case of these impecunious classes the predominance of the motive of physical

want is not so decided as has sometimes been assumed. On the other hand, so far as regards those members

and classes of the community who are chiefly concerned in the accumulation of wealth, the incentive of

subsistence or of physical comfort never plays a considerable part. Ownership began and grew into a human

institution on grounds unrelated to the subsistence minimum. The dominant incentive was from the outset the

invidious distinction attaching to wealth, and, save temporarily and by exception, no other motive has

Property set out with being booty held as trophies of the successful raid. So long as the group had departed

and so long as it still stood in close contact with other hostile groups, the utility of things or persons owned

lay chiefly in an invidious comparison between their possessor and the enemy from whom they were taken.

The habit of distinguishing between the interests of the individual and those of the group to which he belongs

is apparently a later growth. Invidious comparison between the possessor of the honorific booty and his less

successful neighbours within the group was no doubt present early as an element of the utility of the things

possessed, though this was not at the outset the chief element of their value. The man's prowess was still

primarily the group's prowess, and the possessor of the booty felt himself to be primarily the keeper of the

honour of his group. This appreciation of exploit from the communal point of view is met with also at later

But as soon as the custom of individual ownership begins to gain consistency, the point of view taken in

making the invidious comparison on which private property rests will begin to change. Indeed, the one

change is but the reflex of the other. The initial phase of ownership, the phase of acquisition by naive seizure

and conversion, begins to pass into the subsequent stage of an incipient organization of industry on the basis

of private property (in slaves); the horde develops into a more or less selfsufficing industrial community;

possessions then come to be valued not so much as evidence of successful foray, but rather as evidence of the

prepotence of the possessor of these goods over other individuals within the community. The invidious

comparison now becomes primarily a comparison of the owner with the other members of the group.

Property is still of the nature of trophy, but, with the cultural advance, it becomes more and more a trophy of

successes scored in the game of ownership carried on between the members of the group under the

Gradually, as industrial activity further displaced predatory activity in the community's everyday life and in

men's habits of thought, accumulated property more and more replaces trophies of predatory exploit as the

conventional exponent of prepotence and success. With the growth of settled industry, therefore, the

possession of wealth gains in relative importance and effectiveness as a customary basis of repute and

esteem. Not that esteem ceases to be awarded on the basis of other, more direct evidence of prowess; not that

successful predatory aggression or warlike exploit ceases to call out the approval and admiration of the

crowd, or to stir the envy of the less successful competitors; but the opportunities for gaining distinction by

means of this direct manifestation of superior force grow less available both in scope and frequency. At the

same time opportunities for industrial aggression, and for the accumulation of property, increase in scope and

availability. And it is even more to the point that property now becomes the most easily recognised evidence

of a reputable degree of success as distinguished from heroic or signal achievement. It therefore becomes the

conventional basis of esteem. Its possession in some amount becomes necessary in order to any reputable

standing in the community. It becomes indispensable to accumulate, to acquire property, in order to retain

one's good name. When accumulated goods have in this way once become the accepted badge of efficiency,

the possession of wealth presently assumes the character of an independent and definitive basis of esteem.

The possession of goods, whether acquired aggressively by one's own exertion or passively by transmission

through inheritance from others, becomes a conventional basis of reputability. The possession of wealth,

which was at the outset valued simply as an evidence of efficiency, becomes, in popular apprehension, itself a

meritorious act. Wealth is now itself intrinsically honourable and confers honour on its possessor. By a

further refinement, wealth acquired passively by transmission from ancestors or other antecedents presently

becomes even more honorific than wealth acquired by the possessor's own effort; but this distinction belongs

at a later stage in the evolution of the pecuniary culture and will be spoken of in its place.

Prowess and exploit may still remain the basis of award of the highest popular esteem, although the

possession of wealth has become the basis of common place reputability and of a blameless social standing.

The predatory instinct and the consequent approbation of predatory efficiency are deeply ingrained in the

habits of thought of those peoples who have passed under the discipline of a protracted predatory culture.

According to popular award, the highest honours within human reach may, even yet, be those gained by an

unfolding of extraordinary predatory efficiency in war, or by a quasipredatory efficiency in statecraft; but

for the purposes of a commonplace decent standing in the community these means of repute have been

replaced by the acquisition and accumulation of goods. In order to stand well in the eyes of the community, it

is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite, conventional standard of wealth; just as in the

earlier predatory stage it is necessary for the barbarian man to come up to the tribe's standard of physical

endurance, cunning, and skill at arms. A certain standard of wealth in the one case, and of prowess in the

other, is a necessary condition of reputability, and anything in excess of this normal amount is meritorious.

Those members of the community who fall short of this, somewhat indefinite, normal degree of prowess or of

property suffer in the esteem of their fellowmen; and consequently they suffer also in their own esteem,

since the usual basis of selfrespect is the respect accorded by one's neighbours. Only individuals with an

aberrant temperament can in the long run retain their selfesteem in the face of the disesteem of their fellows.

Apparent exceptions to the rule are met with, especially among people with strong religious convictions. But

these apparent exceptions are scarcely real exceptions, since such persons commonly fall back on the putative

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 selfrespect. 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

everwidening pecuniary interval between himself and this average standard. The invidious comparison can

never become so favourable to the individual making it that he would not gladly rate himself still higher

In the nature of the case, the desire for wealth can scarcely be satiated in any individual instance, and

evidently a satiation of the average or general desire for wealth is out of the question. However widely, or

equally, or "fairly", it may be distributed, no general increase of the community's wealth can make any

approach to satiating this need, the ground of which approach to satiating this need, the ground of which is

the desire of every one to excel every one else in the accumulation of goods. If, as is sometimes assumed, the

incentive to accumulation were the want of subsistence or of physical comfort, then the aggregate economic

wants of a community might conceivably be satisfied at some point in the advance of industrial efficiency;

but since the struggle is substantially a race for reputability on the basis of an invidious comparison, no

What has just been said must not be taken to mean that there are no other incentives to acquisition and

accumulation than this desire to excel in pecuniary standing and so gain the esteem and envy of one's

fellowmen. The desire for added comfort and security from want is present as a motive at every stage of the

process of accumulation in a modern industrial community; although the standard of sufficiency in these

respects is in turn greatly affected by the habit of pecuniary emulation. To a great extent this emulation

shapes the methods and selects the objects of expenditure for personal comfort and decent livelihood.

Besides this, the power conferred by wealth also affords a motive to accumulation. That propensity for

purposeful activity and that repugnance to all futility of effort which belong to man by virtue of his character

as an agent do not desert him when he emerges from the naive communal culture where the dominant note of

life is the unanalysed and undifferentiated solidarity of the individual with the group with which his life is

bound up. When he enters upon the predatory stage, where selfseeking in the narrower sense becomes the

dominant note, this propensity goes with him still, as the pervasive trait that shapes his scheme of life. The

propensity for achievement and the repugnance to futility remain the underlying economic motive. The

propensity changes only in the form of its expression and in the proximate objects to which it directs the

man's activity. Under the regime of individual ownership the most available means of visibly achieving a

purpose is that afforded by the acquisition and accumulation of goods; and as the selfregarding antithesis

between man and man reaches fuller consciousness, the propensity for achievement the instinct of

workmanship tends more and more to shape itself into a straining to excel others in pecuniary

achievement. Relative success, tested by an invidious pecuniary comparison with other men, becomes the

conventional end of action. The currently accepted legitimate end of effort becomes the achievement of a

favourable comparison with other men; and therefore the repugnance to futility to a good extent coalesces

with the incentive of emulation. It acts to accentuate the struggle for pecuniary reputability by visiting with a

sharper disapproval all shortcoming and all evidence of shortcoming in point of pecuniary success.

Purposeful effort comes to mean, primarily, effort directed to or resulting in a more creditable showing of

accumulated wealth. Among the motives which lead men to accumulate wealth, the primacy, both in scope

and intensity, therefore, continues to belong to this motive of pecuniary emulation.

In making use of the term "invidious", it may perhaps be unnecessary to remark, there is no intention to extol

or depreciate, or to commend or deplore any of the phenomena which the word is used to characterise. The

term is used in a technical sense as describing a comparison of persons with a view to rating and grading

them in respect of relative worth or value in an aesthetic or moral sense and so awarding and defining

the relative degrees of complacency with which they may legitimately be contemplated by themselves and by

others. An invidious comparison is a process of valuation of persons in respect of worth.

If its working were not disturbed by other economic forces or other features of the emulative process, the

immediate effect of such a pecuniary struggle as has just been described in outline would be to make men

industrious and frugal. This result actually follows, in some measure, so far as regards the lower classes,

whose ordinary means of acquiring goods is productive labour. This is more especially true of the labouring

classes in a sedentary community which is at an agricultural stage of industry, in which there is a

considerable subdivision of industry, and whose laws and customs secure to these classes a more or less

definite share of the product of their industry. These lower classes can in any case not avoid labour, and the

imputation of labour is therefore not greatly derogatory to them, at least not within their class. Rather, since

labour is their recognised and accepted mode of life, they take some emulative pride in a reputation for

efficiency in their work, this being often the only line of emulation that is open to them. For those for whom

acquisition and emulation is possible only within the field of productive efficiency and thrift, the struggle for

pecuniary reputability will in some measure work out in an increase of diligence and parsimony. But certain

secondary features of the emulative process, yet to be spoken of, come in to very materially circumscribe and

modify emulation in these directions among the pecuniary inferior classes as well as among the superior

But it is otherwise with the superior pecuniary class, with which we are here immediately concerned. For this

class also the incentive to diligence and thrift is not absent; but its action is so greatly qualified by the

secondary demands of pecuniary emulation, that any inclination in this direction is practically overborne and

any incentive to diligence tends to be of no effect. The most imperative of these secondary demands of

emulation, as well as the one of widest scope, is the requirement of abstention from productive work. This is

true in an especial degree for the barbarian stage of culture. During the predatory culture labour comes to be

associated in men's habits of thought with weakness and subjection to a master. It is therefore a mark of

inferiority, and therefore comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. By virtue of this tradition

labour is felt to be debasing, and this tradition has never died out. On the contrary, with the advance of social

differentiation it has acquired the axiomatic force due to ancient and unquestioned prescription.

In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men it is not sufficient merely to possess wealth or power. The

wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence. And not only does the

evidence of wealth serve to impress one's importance on others and to keep their sense of his importance

alive and alert, but it is of scarcely less use in building up and preserving one's selfcomplacency. In all but

the lowest stages of culture the normally constituted man is comforted and upheld in his selfrespect by

"decent surroundings" and by exemption from "menial offices". Enforced departure from his habitual

standard of decency, either in the paraphernalia of life or in the kind and amount of his everyday activity, is

felt to be a slight upon his human dignity, even apart from all conscious consideration of the approval or

The archaic theoretical distinction between the base and the honourable in the manner of a man's life retains

very much of its ancient force even today. So much so that there are few of the better class who are no

possessed of an instinctive repugnance for the vulgar forms of labour. We have a realising sense of

ceremonial uncleanness attaching in an especial degree to the occupations which are associated in our habits

of thought with menial service. It is felt by all persons of refined taste that a spiritual contamination is

inseparable from certain offices that are conventionally required of servants. Vulgar surroundings, mean (that

is to say, inexpensive) habitations, and vulgarly productive occupations are unhesitatingly condemned and

avoided. They are incompatible with life on a satisfactory spiritual plane __ with "high thinking". From the

days of the Greek philosophers to the present, a degree of leisure and of exemption from contact with such

industrial processes as serve the immediate everyday purposes of human life has ever been recognised by

thoughtful men as a prerequisite to a worthy or beautiful, or even a blameless, human life. In itself and in its

consequences the life of leisure is beautiful and ennobling in all civilised men's eyes.

This direct, subjective value of leisure and of other evidences of wealth is no doubt in great part secondary

and derivative. It is in part a reflex of the utility of leisure as a means of gaining the respect of others, and in

part it is the result of a mental substitution. The performance of labour has been accepted as a conventional

evidence of inferior force; therefore it comes itself, by a mental shortcut, to be regarded as intrinsically base.

During the predatory stage proper, and especially during the earlier stages of the quasipeaceable

development of industry that follows the predatory stage, a life of leisure is the readiest and most conclusive

evidence of pecuniary strength, and therefore of superior force; provided always that the gentleman of leisure

can live in manifest ease and comfort. At this stage wealth consists chiefly of slaves, and the benefits

accruing from the possession of riches and power take the form chiefly of personal service and the immediate

products of personal service. Conspicuous abstention from labour therefore becomes the conventional mark

of superior pecuniary achievement and the conventional index of reputability; and conversely, since

application to productive labour is a mark of poverty and subjection, it becomes inconsistent with a reputable

standing in the community. Habits of industry and thrift, therefore, are not uniformly furthered by a

prevailing pecuniary emulation. On the contrary, this kind of emulation indirectly discountenances

participation in productive labour. Labour would unavoidably become dishonourable, as being an evidence

indecorous under the ancient tradition handed down from an earlier cultural stage. The ancient tradition of the

predatory culture is that productive effort is to be shunned as being unworthy of ablebodied men. and this

tradition is reinforced rather than set aside in the passage from the predatory to the quasipeaceable manner

Even if the institution of a leisure class had not come in with the first emergence of individual ownership, by

force of the dishonour attaching to productive employment, it would in any case have come in as one of the

early consequences of ownership. And it is to be remarked that while the leisure class existed in theory from

the beginning of predatory culture, the institution takes on a new and fuller meaning with the transition from

the predatory to the next succeeding pecuniary stage of culture. It is from this time forth a "leisure class" in

fact as well as in theory. From this point dates the institution of the leisure class in its consummate form.

During the predatory stage proper the distinction between the leisure and the labouring class is in some

degree a ceremonial distinction only. The able bodied men jealously stand aloof from whatever is in their

apprehension, menial drudgery; but their activity in fact contributes appreciably to the sustenance of the

group. The subsequent stage of quasipeaceable industry is usually characterised by an established chattel

slavery, herds of cattle, and a servile class of herdsmen and shepherds; industry has advanced so far that the

community is no longer dependent for its livelihood on the chase or on any other form of activity that can

fairly be classed as exploit. From this point on, the characteristic feature of leisure class life is a conspicuous

The normal and characteristic occupations of the class in this mature phase of its life history are in form very

much the same as in its earlier days. These occupations are government, war, sports, and devout observances.

Persons unduly given to difficult theoretical niceties may hold that these occupations are still incidentally and

indirectly "productive"; but it is to be noted as decisive of the question in hand that the ordinary and

ostensible motive of the leisure class in engaging in these occupations is assuredly not an increase of wealth

by productive effort. At this as at any other cultural stage, government and war are, at least in part, carried on

for the pecuniary gain of those who engage in them; but it is gain obtained by the honourable method of

seizure and conversion. These occupations are of the nature of predatory, not of productive, employment.

Something similar may be said of the chase, but with a difference. As the community passes out of the

hunting stage proper, hunting gradually becomes differentiated into two distinct employments. On the one

hand it is a trade, carried on chiefly for gain; and from this the element of exploit is virtually absent, or it is at

any rate not present in a sufficient degree to clear the pursuit of the imputation of gainful industry. On the

other hand, the chase is also a sport �an exercise of the predatory impulse simply. As such it does not afford

any appreciable pecuniary incentive, but it contains a more or less obvious element of exploit. It is this latter

development of the chase purged of all imputation of handicraft that alone is meritorious and fairly

Abstention from labour is not only a honorific or meritorious act, but it presently comes to be a requisite of

decency. The insistence on property as the basis of reputability is very naive and very imperious during the

early stages of the accumulation of wealth. Abstention from labour is the convenient evidence of wealth and

is therefore the conventional mark of social standing; and this insistence on the meritoriousness of wealth

leads to a more strenuous insistence on leisure. Nota notae est nota rei ipsius. According to well established

laws of human nature, prescription presently seizes upon this conventional evidence of wealth and fixes it in

men's habits of thought as something that is in itself substantially meritorious and ennobling; while

productive labour at the same time and by a like process becomes in a double sense intrinsically unworthy.

Prescription ends by making labour not only disreputable in the eyes of the community, but morally

This tabu on labour has a further consequence in the industrial differentiation of classes. As the population

increases in density and the predatory group grows into a settled industrial community, the constituted

authorities and the customs governing ownership gain in scope and consistency. It then presently becomes

impracticable to accumulate wealth by simple seizure, and, in logical consistency, acquisition by industry is

equally impossible for high minded and impecunious men. The alternative open to them is beggary or

privation. Wherever the canon of conspicuous leisure has a chance undisturbed to work out its tendency,

there will therefore emerge a secondary, and in a sense spurious, leisure class abjectly poor and living in a

precarious life of want and discomfort, but morally unable to stoop to gainful pursuits. The decayed

gentleman and the lady who has seen better days are by no means unfamiliar phenomena even now. This

pervading sense of the indignity of the slightest manual labour is familiar to all civilized peoples, as well as to

peoples of a less advanced pecuniary culture. In persons of a delicate sensibility who have long been

habituated to gentle manners, the sense of the shamefulness of manual labour may become so strong that, at a

critical juncture, it will even set aside the instinct of selfpreservation. So, for instance, we are told of certain

Polynesian chiefs, who, under the stress of good form, preferred to starve rather than carry their food to their

mouths with their own hands. It is true, this conduct may have been due, at least in part, to an excessive

sanctity or tabu attaching to the chief's person. The tabu would have been communicated by the contact of his

hands, and so would have made anything touched by him unfit for human food. But the tabu is itself a

derivative of the unworthiness or moral incompatibility of labour; so that even when construed in this sense

the conduct of the Polynesian chiefs is truer to the canon of honorific leisure than would at first appear. A

better illustration, or at least a more unmistakable one, is afforded by a certain king of France, who is said to

have lost his life through an excess of moral stamina in the observance of good form. In the absence of the

functionary whose office it was to shift his master's seat, the king sat uncomplaining before the fire and

suffered his royal person to be toasted beyond recovery. But in so doing he saved his Most Christian Majesty

from menial contamination. Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, Et propter vitam vivendi perdere

It has already been remarked that the term "leisure", as here used, does not connote indolence or quiescence.

What it connotes is nonproductive consumption of time. Time is consumed nonproductively (1) from a

sense of the unworthiness of productive work, and (2) as an evidence of pecuniary ability to afford a life of

idleness. But the whole of the life of the gentleman of leisure is not spent before the eyes of the spectators

who are to be impressed with that spectacle of honorific leisure which in the ideal scheme makes up his life.

For some part of the time his life is perforce withdrawn from the public eye, and of this portion which is

spent in private the gentleman of leisure should, for the sake of his good name, be able to give a convincing

account. He should find some means of putting in evidence the leisure that is not spent in the sight of the

spectators. This can be done only indirectly, through the exhibition of some tangible, lasting results of the

leisure so spent in a manner analogous to the familiar exhibition of tangible, lasting products of the labour

performed for the gentleman of leisure by handicraftsmen and servants in his employ.

The lasting evidence of productive labour is its material product commonly some article of consumption.

In the case of exploit it is similarly possible and usual to procure some tangible result that may serve for

exhibition in the way of trophy or booty. at a later phase of the development it is customary to assume some

badge of insignia of honour that will serve as a conventionally accepted mark of exploit, and which at the

same time indicates the quantity or degree of exploit of which it is the symbol. As the population increases in

density, and as human relations grow more complex and numerous, all the details of life undergo a process of

elaboration and selection; and in this process of elaboration the use of trophies develops into a system of

rank, titles, degrees and insignia, typical examples of which are heraldic devices, medals, and honorary

As seen from the economic point of view, leisure, considered as an employment, is closely allied in kind with

the life of exploit; and the achievements which characterise a life of leisure, and which remain as its decorous

criteria, have much in common with the trophies of exploit. But leisure in the narrower sense, as distinct from

exploit and from any ostensibly productive employment of effort on objects which are of no intrinsic use,

does not commonly leave a material product. The criteria of a past performance of leisure therefore

commonly take the form of "immaterial" goods. Such immaterial evidences of past leisure are

quasischolarly or quasiartistic accomplishments and a knowledge of processes and incidents which do not

conduce directly to the furtherance of human life. So, for instance, in our time there is the knowledge of the

dead languages and the occult sciences; of correct spelling; of syntax and prosody; of the various forms of

domestic music and other household art; of the latest properties of dress, furniture, and equipage; of games,

sports, and fancybred animals, such as dogs and racehorses. In all these branches of knowledge the initial

motive from which their acquisition proceeded at the outset, and through which they first came into vogue,

may have been something quite different from the wish to show that one's time had not been spent in

industrial employment; but unless these accomplishments had approved themselves as serviceable evidence

of an unproductive expenditure of time, they would not have survived and held their place as conventional

These accomplishments may, in some sense, be classed as branches of learning. Beside and beyond these

there is a further range of social facts which shade off from the region of learning into that of physical habit

and dexterity. Such are what is known as manners and breeding, polite usage, decorum, and formal and

ceremonial observances generally. This class of facts are even more immediately and obtrusively presented to

the observation, and they therefore more widely and more imperatively insisted on as required evidences of a

reputable degree of leisure. It is worth while to remark that all that class of ceremonial observances which are

classed under the general head of manners hold a more important place in the esteem of men during the stage

of culture at which conspicuous leisure has the greatest vogue as a mark of reputability, than at later stages of

the cultural development. The barbarian of the quasipeaceable stage of industry is notoriously a more

highbred gentleman, in all that concerns decorum, than any but the very exquisite among the men of a later

age. Indeed, it is well known, or at least it is currently believed, that manners have progressively deteriorated

as society has receded from the patriarchal stage. Many a gentleman of the old school has been provoked to

remark regretfully upon the underbred manners and bearing of even the better classes in the modern

industrial communities; and the decay of the ceremonial code or as it is otherwise called, the vulgarisation

of life among the industrial classes proper has become one of the chief enormities of latterday

civilisation in the eyes of all persons of delicate sensibilities. The decay which the code has suffered at the

hands of a busy people testifies all depreciation apart to the fact that decorum is a product and an

exponent of leisure class life and thrives in full measure only under a regime of status.

The origin, or better the derivation, of manners is no doubt, to be sought elsewhere than in a conscious effort

on the part of the wellmannered to show that much time has been spent in acquiring them. The proximate

end of innovation and elaboration has been the higher effectiveness of the new departure in point of beauty or

of expressiveness. In great part the ceremonial code of decorous usages owes its beginning and its growth to

the desire to conciliate or to show goodwill, as anthropologists and sociologists are in the habit of assuming,

and this initial motive is rarely if ever absent from the conduct of wellmannered persons at any stage of the

later development. Manners, we are told, are in part an elaboration of gesture, and in part they are symbolical

and conventionalised survivals representing former acts of dominance or of personal service or of personal

contact. In large part they are an expression of the relation of status, a symbolic pantomime of mastery on

the one hand and of subservience on the other. Wherever at the present time the predatory habit of mind, and

the consequent attitude of mastery and of subservience, gives its character to the accredited scheme of life,

there the importance of all punctilios of conduct is extreme, and the assiduity with which the ceremonial

observance of rank and titles is attended to approaches closely to the ideal set by the barbarian of the

quasipeaceable nomadic culture. Some of the Continental countries afford good illustrations of this spiritual

survival. In these communities the archaic ideal is similarly approached as regards the esteem accorded to

Decorum set out with being symbol and pantomime and with having utility only as an exponent of the facts

and qualities symbolised; but it presently suffered the transmutation which commonly passes over symbolical

facts in human intercourse. Manners presently came, in popular apprehension, to be possessed of a substantial

utility in themselves; they acquired a sacramental character, in great measure independent of the facts which

they originally prefigured. Deviations from the code of decorum have become intrinsically odious to all men,

and good breeding is, in everyday apprehension, not simply an adventitious mark of human excellence, but an

integral feature of the worthy human soul. There are few things that so touch us with instinctive revulsion as

a breach of decorum; and so far have we progressed in the direction of imputing intrinsic utility to the

ceremonial observances of etiquette that few of us, if any, can dissociate an offence against etiquette from a

sense of the substantial unworthiness of the offender. A breach of faith may be condoned, but a breach of

None the less, while manners have this intrinsic utility, in the apprehension of the performer and the beholder

alike, this sense of the intrinsic rightness of decorum is only the proximate ground of the vogue of manners

and breeding. Their ulterior, economic ground is to be sought in the honorific character of that leisure or

nonproductive employment of time and effort without which good manners are not acquired. The

knowledge and habit of good form come only by longcontinued use. Refined tastes, manners, habits of life

are a useful evidence of gentility, because good breeding requires time, application and expense, and can

therefore not be compassed by those whose time and energy are taken up with work. A knowledge of good

form is prima facie evidence that that portion of the wellbred person's life which is not spent under the

observation of the spectator has been worthily spent in acquiring accomplishments that are of no lucrative

effect. In the last analysis the value of manners lies in the fact that they are the voucher of a life of leisure.

Therefore, conversely, since leisure is the conventional means of pecuniary repute, the acquisition of some

proficiency in decorum is incumbent on all who aspire to a modicum of pecuniary decency.

So much of the honourable life of leisure as is not spent in the sight of spectators can serve the purposes of

reputability only in so far as it leaves a tangible, visible result that can be put in evidence and can be

measured and compared with products of the same class exhibited by competing aspirants for repute. Some

such effect, in the way of leisurely manners and carriage, etc., follows from simple persistent abstention from

work, even where the subject does not take thought of the matter and studiously acquire an air of leisurely

opulence and mastery. Especially does it seem to be true that a life of leisure in this way persisted in through

several generations will leave a persistent, ascertainable effect in the conformation of the person, and still

more in his habitual bearing and demeanour. But all the suggestions of a cumulative life of leisure, and all the

proficiency in decorum that comes by the way of passive habituation, may be further improved upon by

taking thought and assiduously acquiring the marks of honourable leisure, and then carrying the exhibition of

these adventitious marks of exemption from employment out in a strenuous and systematic discipline.

Plainly, this is a point at which a diligent application of effort and expenditure may materially further the

attainment of a decent proficiency in the leisureclass properties. Conversely, the greater the degree of

proficiency and the more patent the evidence of a high degree of habituation to observances which serve no

lucrative or other directly useful purpose, the greater the consumption of time and substance impliedly

involved in their acquisition, and the greater the resultant good repute. Hence under the competitive struggle

for proficiency in good manners, it comes about that much pains in taken with the cultivation of habits of

decorum; and hence the details of decorum develop into a comprehensive discipline, conformity to which is

required of all who would be held blameless in point of repute. And hence, on the other hand, this

conspicuous leisure of which decorum is a ramification grows gradually into a laborious drill in deportment

and an education in taste and discrimination as to what articles of consumption are decorous and what are the

In this connection it is worthy of notice that the possibility of producing pathological and other idiosyncrasies

of person and manner by shrewd mimicry and a systematic drill have been turned to account in the deliberate

production of a cultured class often with a very happy effect. In this way, by the process vulgarly known

as snobbery, a syncopated evolution of gentle birth and breeding is achieved in the case of a goodly number

of families and lines of descent. This syncopated gentle birth gives results which, in point of serviceability as

a leisureclass factor in the population, are in no wise substantially inferior to others who may have had a

There are, moreover, measureable degrees of conformity to the latest accredited code of the punctilios as

regards decorous means and methods of consumption. Differences between one person and another in the

degree of conformity to the ideal in these respects can be compared, and persons may be graded and

scheduled with some accuracy and effect according to a progressive scale of manners and breeding. The

award of reputability in this regard is commonly made in good faith, on the ground of conformity to accepted

canons of taste in the matters concerned, and without conscious regard to the pecuniary standing or the

degree of leisure practised by any given candidate for reputability; but the canons of taste according to which

the award is made are constantly under the surveillance of the law of conspicuous leisure, and are indeed

constantly undergoing change and revision to bring them into closer conformity with its requirements. So that

while the proximate ground of discrimination may be of another kind, still the pervading principle and

abiding test of good breeding is the requirement of a substantial and patent waste of time. There may be some

considerable range of variation in detail within the scope of this principle, but they are variations of form and

Much of the courtesy of everyday intercourse is of course a direct expression of consideration and kindly

goodwill, and this element of conduct has for the most part no need of being traced back to any underlying

ground of reputability to explain either its presence or the approval with which it is regarded; but the same is

not true of the code of properties. These latter are expressions of status. It is of course sufficiently plain, to

any one who cares to see, that our bearing towards menials and other pecuniary dependent inferiors is the

bearing of the superior member in a relation of status, though its manifestation is often greatly modified and

softened from the original expression of crude dominance. Similarly, our bearing towards superiors, and in

great measure towards equals, expresses a more or less conventionalised attitude of subservience. Witness the

masterful presence of the highminded gentleman or lady, which testifies to so much of dominance and

independence of economic circumstances, and which at the same time appeals with such convincing force to

our sense of what is right and gracious. It is among this highest leisure class, who have no superiors and few

peers, that decorum finds its fullest and maturest expression; and it is this highest class also that gives

decorum that definite formulation which serves as a canon of conduct for the classes beneath. And there also

the code is most obviously a code of status and shows most plainly its incompatibility with all vulgarly

productive work. A divine assurance and an imperious complaisance, as of one habituated to require

subservience and to take no thought for the morrow, is the birthright and the criterion of the gentleman at his

best; and it is in popular apprehension even more than that, for this demeanour is accepted as an intrinsic

attribute of superior worth, before which the baseborn commoner delights to stoop and yield.

As has been indicated in an earlier chapter, there is reason to believe that the institution of ownership has

begun with the ownership of persons, primarily women. The incentives to acquiring such property have

apparently been: (1) a propensity for dominance and coercion; (2) the utility of these persons as evidence of

Personal service holds a peculiar place in the economic development. During the stage of quasipeaceable

industry, and especially during the earlier development of industry within the limits of this general stage, the

utility of their services seems commonly to be the dominant motive to the acquisition of property in persons.

Servants are valued for their services. But the dominance of this motive is not due to a decline in the absolute

importance of the other two utilities possessed by servants. It is rather that the altered circumstance of life

accentuate the utility of servants for this lastnamed purpose. Women and other slaves are highly valued,

both as an evidence of wealth and as a means of accumulating wealth. Together with cattle, if the tribe is a

pastoral one, they are the usual form of investment for a profit. To such an extent may female slavery give its

character to the economic life under the quasipeaceable culture that the women even comes to serve as a

unit of value among peoples occupying this cultural stage as for instance in Homeric times. Where this is

the case there need be little question but that the basis of the industrial system is chattel slavery and that the

women are commonly slaves. The great, pervading human relation in such a system is that of master and

servant. The accepted evidence of wealth is the possession of many women, and presently also of other slaves

A division of labour presently sets in, whereby personal service and attendance on the master becomes the

special office of a portion of the servants, while those who are wholly employed in industrial occupations

proper are removed more and more from all immediate relation to the person of their owner. At the same time

those servants whose office is personal service, including domestic duties, come gradually to be exempted

This process of progressive exemption from the common run of industrial employment will commonly begin

with the exemption of the wife, or the chief wife. After the community has advanced to settled habits of life,

wifecapture from hostile tribes becomes impracticable as a customary source of supply. Where this cultural

advance has been achieved, the chief wife is ordinarily of gentle blood, and the fact of her being so will

hasten her exemption from vulgar employment. The manner in which the concept of gentle blood originates,

as well as the place which it occupies in the development of marriage, cannot be discussed in this place. For

the purpose in hand it will be sufficient to say that gentle blood is blood which has been ennobled by

protracted contact with accumulated wealth or unbroken prerogative. The women with these antecedents is

preferred in marriage, both for the sake of a resulting alliance with her powerful relatives and because a

superior worth is felt to inhere in blood which has been associated with many goods and great power. She

will still be her husband's chattel, as she was her father's chattel before her purchase, but she is at the same

time of her father's gentle blood; and hence there is a moral incongruity in her occupying herself with the

debasing employments of her fellowservants. However completely she may be subject to her master, and

however inferior to the male members of the social stratum in which her birth has placed her, the principle

that gentility is transmissible will act to place her above the common slave; and so soon as this principle has

acquired a prescriptive authority it will act to invest her in some measure with that prerogative of leisure

which is the chief mark of gentility. Furthered by this principle of transmissible gentility the wife's exemption

gains in scope, if the wealth of her owner permits it, until it includes exemption from debasing menial service

as well as from handicraft. As the industrial development goes on and property becomes massed in relatively

fewer hands, the conventional standard of wealth of the upper class rises. The same tendency to exemption

from handicraft, and in the course of time from menial domestic employments, will then assert itself as

regards the other wives, if such there are, and also as regards other servants in immediate attendance upon the

person of their master. The exemption comes more tardily the remoter the relation in which the servant stands

If the pecuniary situation of the master permits it, the development of a special class of personal or body

servants is also furthered by the very grave importance which comes to attach to this personal service. The

master's person, being the embodiment of worth and honour, is of the most serious consequence. Both for his

reputable standing in the community and for his selfrespect, it is a matter of moment that he should have at

his call efficient specialised servants, whose attendance upon his person is not diverted from this their chief

office by any byoccupation. These specialised servants are useful more for show than for service actually

performed. In so far as they are not kept for exhibition simply, they afford gratification to their master chiefly

in allowing scope to his propensity for dominance. It is true, the care of the continually increasing household

apparatus may require added labour; but since the apparatus is commonly increased in order to serve as a

means of good repute rather than as a means of comfort, this qualification is not of great weight. All these

lines of utility are better served by a larger number of more highly specialised servants. There results,

therefore, a constantly increasing differentiation and multiplication of domestic and body servants, along with

a concomitant progressive exemption of such servants from productive labour. By virtue of their serving as

evidence of ability to pay, the office of such domestics regularly tends to include continually fewer duties,

and their service tends in the end to become nominal only. This is especially true of those servants who are in

most immediate and obvious attendance upon their master. So that the utility of these comes to consist, in

great part, in their conspicuous exemption from productive labour and in the evidence which this exemption

After some considerable advance has been made in the practice of employing a special corps of servants for

the performance of a conspicuous leisure in this manner, men begin to be preferred above women for services

that bring them obtrusively into view. Men, especially lusty, personable fellows, such as footmen and other

menials should be, are obviously more powerful and more expensive than women. They are better fitted for

this work, as showing a larger waste of time and of human energy. Hence it comes about that in the economy

of the leisure class the busy housewife of the early patriarchal days, with her retinue of hardworking

In all grades and walks of life, and at any stage of the economic development, the leisure of the lady and of

the lackey differs from the leisure of the gentleman in his own right in that it is an occupation of an ostensibly

laborious kind. It takes the form, in large measure, of a painstaking attention to the service of the master, or to

the maintenance and elaboration of the household paraphernalia; so that it is leisure only in the sense that

little or no productive work is performed by this class, not in the sense that all appearance of labour is

avoided by them. The duties performed by the lady, or by the household or domestic servants, are frequently

arduous enough, and they are also frequently directed to ends which are considered extremely necessary to

the comfort of the entire household. So far as these services conduce to the physical efficiency or comfort of

the master or the rest of the household, they are to be accounted productive work. Only the residue of

employment left after deduction of this effective work is to be classed as a performance of leisure.

But much of the services classed as household cares in modern everyday life, and many of the "utilities"

required for a comfortable existence by civilised man, are of a ceremonial character. They are, therefore,

properly to be classed as a performance of leisure in the sense in which the term is here used. They may be

none the less imperatively necessary from the point of view of decent existence: they may be none the less

requisite for personal comfort even, although they may be chiefly or wholly of a ceremonial character. But in

so far as they partake of this character they are imperative and requisite because we have been taught to

require them under pain of ceremonial uncleanness or unworthiness. We feel discomfort in their absence, but

not because their absence results directly in physical discomfort; nor would a taste not trained to discriminate

between the conventionally good and the conventionally bad take offence at their omission. In so far as this is

true the labour spent in these services is to be classed as leisure; and when performed by others than the

economically free and selfdirected head of the establishment, they are to be classed as vicarious leisure.

The vicarious leisure performed by housewives and menials, under the head of household cares, may

frequently develop into drudgery, especially where the competition for reputability is close and strenuous.

This is frequently the case in modern life. Where this happens, the domestic service which comprises the

duties of this servant class might aptly be designated as wasted effort, rather than as vicarious leisure. But the

latter term has the advantage of indicating the line of derivation of these domestic offices, as well as of neatly

suggesting the substantial economic ground of their utility; for these occupations are chiefly useful as a

method of imputing pecuniary reputability to the master or to the household on the ground that a given

In this way, then, there arises a subsidiary or derivative leisure class, whose office is the performance of a

vicarious leisure for the behoof of the reputability of the primary or legitimate leisure class. This vicarious

leisure class is distinguished from the leisure class proper by a characteristic feature of its habitual mode of

life. The leisure of the master class is, at least ostensibly, an indulgence of a proclivity for the avoidance of

labour and is presumed to enhance the master's own wellbeing and fulness of life; but the leisure of the

servant class exempt from productive labour is in some sort a performance exacted from them, and is not

normally or primarily directed to their own comfort. The leisure of the servant is not his own leisure. So far

as he is a servant in the full sense, and not at the same time a member of a lower order of the leisure class

proper, his leisure normally passes under the guise of specialised service directed to the furtherance of his

master's fulness of life. Evidence of this relation of subservience is obviously present in the servant's carriage

and manner of life. The like is often true of the wife throughout the protracted economic stage during which

she is still primarily a servant that is to say, so long as the household with a male head remains in force. In

order to satisfy the requirements of the leisure class scheme of life, the servant should show not only an

attitude of subservience, but also the effects of special training and practice in subservience. The servant or

wife should not only perform certain offices and show a servile disposition, but it is quite as imperative that

they should show an acquired facility in the tactics of subservience a trained conformity to the canons of

effectual and conspicuous subservience. Even today it is this aptitude and acquired skill in the formal

manifestation of the servile relation that constitutes the chief element of utility in our highly paid servants, as

The first requisite of a good servant is that he should conspicuously know his place. It is not enough that he

knows how to effect certain desired mechanical results; he must above all, know how to effect these results in

due form. Domestic service might be said to be a spiritual rather than a mechanical function. Gradually there

grows up an elaborate system of good form, specifically regulating the manner in which this vicarious leisure

of the servant class is to be performed. Any departure from these canons of form is to be depreciated, not so

much because it evinces a shortcoming in mechanical efficiency, or even that it shows an absence of the

servile attitude and temperament, but because, in the last analysis, it shows the absence of special training.

Special training in personal service costs time and effort, and where it is obviously present in a high degree, it

argues that the servant who possesses it, neither is nor has been habitually engaged in any productive

occupation. It is prima facie evidence of a vicarious leisure extending far back in the past. So that trained

service has utility, not only as gratifying the master's instinctive liking for good and skilful workmanship and

his propensity for conspicuous dominance over those whose lives are subservient to his own, but it has utility

also as putting in evidence a much larger consumption of human service than would be shown by the mere

present conspicuous leisure performed by an untrained person. It is a serious grievance if a gentleman's butler

or footman performs his duties about his master's table or carriage in such unformed style as to suggest that

his habitual occupation may be ploughing or sheepherding. Such bungling work would imply inability on the

master's part to procure the service of specially trained servants; that is to say, it would imply inability to pay

for the consumption of time, effort, and instruction required to fit a trained servant for special service under

the exacting code of forms. If the performance of the servant argues lack of means on the part of his master, it

defeats its chief substantial end; for the chief use of servants is the evidence they afford of the master's ability

What has just been said might be taken to imply that the offence of an undertrained servant lies in a direct

suggestion of inexpensiveness or of usefulness. Such, of course, is not the case. The connection is much less

immediate. What happens here is what happens generally. Whatever approves itself to us on any ground at

the outset, presently comes to appeal to us as a gratifying thing in itself; it comes to rest in our habits of

though as substantially right. But in order that any specific canon of deportment shall maintain itself in

favour, it must continue to have the support of, or at least not be incompatible with, the habit or aptitude

which constitutes the norm of its development. The need of vicarious leisure, or conspicuous consumption of

service, is a dominant incentive to the keeping of servants. So long as this remains true it may be set down

without much discussion that any such departure from accepted usage as would suggest an abridged

apprenticeship in service would presently be found insufferable. The requirement of an expensive vicarious

leisure acts indirectly, selectively, by guiding the formation of our taste, of our sense of what is right in

these matters, and so weeds out unconformable departures by withholding approval of them.

As the standard of wealth recognized by common consent advances, the possession and exploitation of

servants as a means of showing superfluity undergoes a refinement. The possession and maintenance of

slaves employed in the production of goods argues wealth and prowess, but the maintenance of servants who

produce nothing argues still higher wealth and position. Under this principle there arises a class of servants,

the more numerous the better, whose sole office is fatuously to wait upon the person of their owner, and so to

put in evidence his ability unproductively to consume a large amount of service. There supervenes a division

of labour among the servants or dependents whose life is spent in maintaining the honour of the gentleman of

leisure. So that, while one group produces goods for him, another group, usually headed by the wife, or chief,

consumes for him in conspicuous leisure; thereby putting in evidence his ability to sustain large pecuniary

This somewhat idealized and diagrammatic outline of the development and nature of domestic service comes

nearest being true for that cultural stage which was here been named the "quasipeaceable" stage of industry.

At this stage personal service first rises to the position of an economic institution, and it is at this stage that it

occupies the largest place in the community's scheme of life. In the cultural sequence, the quasi�peaceable

stage follows the predatory stage proper, the two being successive phases of barbarian life. Its characteristic

feature is a formal observance of peace and order, at the same time that life at this stage still has too much of

coercion and class antagonism to be called peaceable in the full sense of the word. For many purposes, and

from another point of view than the economic one, it might as well be named the stage of status. The method

of human relation during this stage, and the spiritual attitude of men at this level of culture, is well summed

up under the term. But as a descriptive term to characterise the prevailing methods of industry, as well as to

indicate the trend of industrial development at this point in economic evolution, the term "quasipeaceable"

seems preferable. So far as concerns the communities of the Western culture, this phase of economic

development probably lies in the past; except for a numerically small though very conspicuous fraction of the

community in whom the habits of thought peculiar to the barbarian culture have suffered but a relatively

Personal service is still an element of great economic importance, especially as regards the distribution and

consumption of goods; but its relative importance even in this direction is no doubt less than it once was. The

best development of this vicarious leisure lies in the past rather than in the present; and its best expression in

the present is to be found in the scheme of life of the upper leisure class. To this class the modern culture

owes much in the way of the conservation of traditions, usages, and habits of thought which belong on a more

archaic cultural plane, so far as regards their widest acceptance and their most effective development.

In the modern industrial communities the mechanical contrivances available for the comfort and convenience

of everyday life are highly developed. So much so that body servants, or, indeed, domestic servants of any

kind, would now scarcely be employed by anybody except on the ground of a canon of reputability carried

over by tradition from earlier usage. The only exception would be servants employed to attend on the persons

of the infirm and the feebleminded. But such servants properly come under the head of trained nurses rather

than under that of domestic servants, and they are, therefore, an apparent rather than a real exception to the

The proximate reason for keeping domestic servants, for instance, in the moderately welltodo household of

today, is (ostensibly) that the members of the household are unable without discomfort to compass the work

required by such a modern establishment. And the reason for their being unable to accomplish it is (1) that

they have too many "social duties", and (2) that the work to be done is too severe and that there is too much

of it. These two reasons may be restated as follows: (1) Under the mandatory code of decency, the time and

effort of the members of such a household are required to be ostensibly all spent in a performance of

conspicuous leisure, in the way of calls, drives, clubs, sewingcircles, sports, charity organisations, and other

like social functions. Those persons whose time and energy are employed in these matters privately avow that

all these observances, as well as the incidental attention to dress and other conspicuous consumption, are very

irksome but altogether unavoidable. (2) Under the requirement of conspicuous consumption of goods, the

apparatus of living has grown so elaborate and cumbrous, in the way of dwellings, furniture, bricabrac,

wardrobe and meals, that the consumers of these things cannot make way with them in the required manner

without help. Personal contact with the hired persons whose aid is called in to fulfil the routine of decency is

commonly distasteful to the occupants of the house, but their presence is endured and paid for, in order to

delegate to them a share in this onerous consumption of household goods. The presence of domestic servants,

and of the special class of body servants in an eminent degree, is a concession of physical comfort to the

The largest manifestation of vicarious leisure in modern life is made up of what are called domestic duties.

These duties are fast becoming a species of services performed, not so much for the individual behoof of the

head of the household as for the reputability of the household taken as a corporate unit a group of which

the housewife is a member on a footing of ostensible equality. As fast as the household for which they are

performed departs from its archaic basis of ownershipmarriage, these household duties of course tend to fall

out of the category of vicarious leisure in the original sense; except so far as they are performed by hired

servants. That is to say, since vicarious leisure is possible only on a basis of status or of hired service, the

disappearance of the relation of status from human intercourse at any point carries with it the disappearance

of vicarious leisure so far as regards that much of life. But it is to be added, in qualification of this

qualification, that so long as the household subsists, even with a divided head, this class of nonproductive

labour performed for the sake of the household reputability must still be classed as vicarious leisure, although

in a slightly altered sense. It is now leisure performed for the quasipersonal corporate household, instead of,

In what has been said of the evolution of the vicarious leisure class and its differentiation from the general

body of the working classes, reference has been made to a further division of labour, that between the

different servant classes. One portion of the servant class, chiefly those persons whose occupation is vicarious

leisure, come to undertake a new, subsidiary range of duties the vicarious consumption of goods. The

most obvious form in which this consumption occurs is seen in the wearing of liveries and the occupation of

spacious servants' quarters. Another, scarcely less obtrusive or less effective form of vicarious consumption,

and a much more widely prevalent one, is the consumption of food, clothing, dwelling, and furniture by the

But already at a point in economic evolution far antedating the emergence of the lady, specialised

consumption of goods as an evidence of pecuniary strength had begun to work out in a more or less elaborate

system. The beginning of a differentiation in consumption even antedates the appearance of anything that can

fairly be called pecuniary strength. It is traceable back to the initial phase of predatory culture, and there is

even a suggestion that an incipient differentiation in this respect lies back of the beginnings of the predatory

life. This most primitive differentiation in the consumption of goods is like the later differentiation with

which we are all so intimately familiar, in that it is largely of a ceremonial character, but unlike the latter it

does not rest on a difference in accumulated wealth. The utility of consumption as an evidence of wealth is to

be classed as a derivative growth. It is an adaption to a new end, by a selective process, of a distinction

In the earlier phases of the predatory culture the only economic differentiation is a broad distinction between

an honourable superior class made up of the ablebodied men on the one side, and a base inferior class of

labouring women on the other. According to the ideal scheme of life in force at the time it is the office of the

men to consume what the women produce. Such consumption as falls to the women is merely incidental to

their work; it is a means to their continued labour, and not a consumption directed to their own comfort and

fulness of life. Unproductive consumption of goods is honourable, primarily as a mark of prowess and a

perquisite of human dignity; secondarily it becomes substantially honourable to itself, especially the

consumption of the more desirable things. The consumption of choice articles of food, and frequently also of

rare articles of adornment, becomes tabu to the women and children; and if there is a base (servile) class of

men, the tabu holds also for them. With a further advance in culture this tabu may change into simple custom

of a more or less rigorous character; but whatever be the theoretical basis of the distinction which is

maintained, whether it be a tabu or a larger conventionality, the features of the conventional scheme of

consumption do not change easily. When the quasipeaceable stage of industry is reached, with its

fundamental institution of chattel slavery, the general principle, more or less rigorously applied, is that the

base, industrious class should consume only what may be necessary to their subsistence. In the nature of

things, luxuries and the comforts of life belong to the leisure class. Under the tabu, certain victuals, and more

particularly certain beverages, are strictly reserved for the use of the superior class.

The ceremonial differentiation of the dietary is best seen in the use of intoxicating beverages and narcotics. If

these articles of consumption are costly, they are felt to be noble and honorific. Therefore the base classes,

primarily the women, practice an enforced continence with respect to these stimulants, except in countries

where they are obtainable at a very low cost. From archaic times down through all the length of the

patriarchal regime it has been the office of the women to prepare and administer these luxuries, and it has

been the perquisite of the men of gentle birth and breeding to consume them. Drunkenness and the other

pathological consequences of the free use of stimulants therefore tend in their turn to become honorific, as

being a mark, at the second remove, of the superior status of those who are able to afford the indulgence.

Infirmities induced by overindulgence are among some peoples freely recognised as manly attributes. It has

even happened that the name for certain diseased conditions of the body arising from such an origin has

passed into everyday speech as a synonym for "noble" or "gentle". It is only at a relatively early stage of

culture that the symptoms of expensive vice are conventionally accepted as marks of a superior status, and so

tend to become virtues and command the deference of the community; but the reputability that attaches to

certain expensive vices long retains so much of its force as to appreciably lesson the disapprobation visited

upon the men of the wealthy or noble class for any excessive indulgence. The same invidious distinction adds

force to the current disapproval of any indulgence of this kind on the part of women, minors, and inferiors.

This invidious traditional distinction has not lost its force even among the more advanced peoples of today.

Where the example set by the leisure class retains its imperative force in the regulation of the

conventionalities, it is observable that the women still in great measure practise the same traditional

This characterisation of the greater continence in the use of stimulants practised by the women of the

reputable classes may seem an excessive refinement of logic at the expense of common sense. But facts

within easy reach of any one who cares to know them go to say that the greater abstinence of women is in

some part due to an imperative conventionality; and this conventionality is, in a general way, strongest where

the patriarchal tradition the tradition that the woman is a chattel has retained its hold in greatest vigour.

In a sense which has been greatly qualified in scope and rigour, but which has by no means lost its meaning

even yet, this tradition says that the woman, being a chattel, should consume only what is necessary to her

sustenance, except so far as her further consumption contributes to the comfort or the good repute of her

master. The consumption of luxuries, in the true sense, is a consumption directed to the comfort of the

consumer himself, and is, therefore, a mark of the master. Any such consumption by others can take place

only on a basis of sufferance. In communities where the popular habits of thought have been profoundly

shaped by the patriarchal tradition we may accordingly look for survivals of the tabu on luxuries at least to

the extent of a conventional deprecation of their use by the unfree and dependent class. This is more

particularly true as regards certain luxuries, the use of which by the dependent class would detract sensibly

from the comfort or pleasure of their masters, or which are held to be of doubtful legitimacy on other

grounds. In the apprehension of the great conservative middle class of Western civilisation the use of these

various stimulants is obnoxious to at least one, if not both, of these objections; and it is a fact too significant

to be passed over that it is precisely among these middle classes of the Germanic culture, with their strong

surviving sense of the patriarchal proprieties, that the women are to the greatest extent subject to a qualified

tabu on narcotics and alcoholic beverages. With many qualifications with more qualifications as the

patriarchal tradition has gradually weakened the general rule is felt to be right and binding that women

should consume only for the benefit of their masters. The objection of course presents itself that expenditure

on women's dress and household paraphernalia is an obvious exception to this rule; but it will appear in the

sequel that this exception is much more obvious than substantial. During the earlier stages of economic

development, consumption of goods without stint, especially consumption of the better grades of goods,

ideally all consumption in excess of the subsistence minimum, pertains normally to the leisure class. This

restriction tends to disappear, at least formally, after the later peaceable stage has been reached, with private

ownership of goods and an industrial system based on wage labour or on the petty household economy. But

during the earlier quasi�peaceable stage, when so many of the traditions through which the institution of a

leisure class has affected the economic life of later times were taking form and consistency, this principle has

had the force of a conventional law. It has served as the norm to which consumption has tended to conform,

and any appreciable departure from it is to be regarded as an aberrant form, sure to be eliminated sooner or

The quasipeaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum

required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialisation as

regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics,

shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or

divinities. In the process of gradual amelioration which takes place in the articles of his consumption, the

motive principle and proximate aim of innovation is no doubt the higher efficiency of the improved and more

elaborate products for personal comfort and wellbeing. But that does not remain the sole purpose of their

consumption. The canon of reputability is at hand and seizes upon such innovations as are, according to its

standard, fit to survive. Since the consumption of these more excellent goods is an evidence of wealth, it

becomes honorific; and conversely, the failure to consume in due quantity and quality becomes a mark of

This growth of punctilious discrimination as to qualitative excellence in eating, drinking, etc. presently

affects not only the manner of life, but also the training and intellectual activity of the gentleman of leisure.

He is no longer simply the successful, aggressive male, the man of strength, resource, and intrepidity. In

order to avoid stultification he must also cultivate his tastes, for it now becomes incumbent on him to

discriminate with some nicety between the noble and the ignoble in consumable goods. He becomes a

connoisseur in creditable viands of various degrees of merit, in manly beverages and trinkets, in seemly

apparel and architecture, in weapons, games, dancers, and the narcotics. This cultivation of aesthetic faculty

requires time and application, and the demands made upon the gentleman in this direction therefore tend to

change his life of leisure into a more or less arduous application to the business of learning how to live a life

of ostensible leisure in a becoming way. Closely related to the requirement that the gentleman must consume

freely and of the right kind of goods, there is the requirement that he must know how to consume them in a

seemly manner. His life of leisure must be conducted in due form. Hence arise good manners in the way

pointed out in an earlier chapter. Highbred manners and ways of living are items of conformity to the norm

Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure. As wealth

accumulates on his hands, his own unaided effort will not avail to sufficiently put his opulence in evidence by

this method. The aid of friends and competitors is therefore brought in by resorting to the giving of valuable

presents and expensive feasts and entertainments. Presents and feasts had probably another origin than that of

naive ostentation, but they required their utility for this purpose very early, and they have retained that

character to the present; so that their utility in this respect has now long been the substantial ground on which

these usages rest. Costly entertainments, such as the potlatch or the ball, are peculiarly adapted to serve this

end. The competitor with whom the entertainer wishes to institute a comparison is, by this method, made to

serve as a means to the end. He consumes vicariously for his host at the same time that he is witness to the

consumption of that excess of good things which his host is unable to dispose of singlehanded, and he is

In the giving of costly entertainments other motives, of more genial kind, are of course also present. The

custom of festive gatherings probably originated in motives of conviviality and religion; these motives are

also present in the later development, but they do not continue to be the sole motives. The latterday

leisureclass festivities and entertainments may continue in some slight degree to serve the religious need

and in a higher degree the needs of recreation and conviviality, but they also serve an invidious purpose; and

they serve it none the less effectually for having a colorable noninvidious ground in these more avowable

motives. But the economic effect of these social amenities is not therefore lessened, either in the vicarious

consumption of goods or in the exhibition of difficult and costly achievements in etiquette.

As wealth accumulates, the leisure class develops further in function and structure, and there arises a

differentiation within the class. There is a more or less elaborate system of rank and grades. This

differentiation is furthered by the inheritance of wealth and the consequent inheritance of gentility. With the

inheritance of gentility goes the inheritance of obligatory leisure; and gentility of a sufficient potency to entail

a life of leisure may be inherited without the complement of wealth required to maintain a dignified leisure.

Gentle blood may be transmitted without goods enough to afford a reputably free consumption at one's ease.

Hence results a class of impecunious gentlemen of leisure, incidentally referred to already. These halfcaste

gentlemen of leisure fall into a system of hierarchical gradations. Those who stand near the higher and the

highest grades of the wealthy leisure class, in point of birth, or in point of wealth, or both, outrank the

remoterborn and the pecuniarily weaker. These lower grades, especially the impecunious, or marginal,

gentlemen of leisure, affiliate themselves by a system of dependence or fealty to the great ones; by so doing

they gain an increment of repute, or of the means with which to lead a life of leisure, from their patron. They

become his courtiers or retainers, servants; and being fed and countenanced by their patron they are indices of

his rank and vicarious consumer of his superfluous wealth. Many of these affiliated gentlemen of leisure are

at the same time lesser men of substance in their own right; so that some of them are scarcely at all, others

only partially, to be rated as vicarious consumers. So many of them, however, as make up the retainer and

hangerson of the patron may be classed as vicarious consumer without qualification. Many of these again,

and also many of the other aristocracy of less degree, have in turn attached to their persons a more or less

comprehensive group of vicarious consumer in the persons of their wives and children, their servants,

Throughout this graduated scheme of vicarious leisure and vicarious consumption the rule holds that these

offices must be performed in some such manner, or under some such circumstance or insignia, as shall point

plainly to the master to whom this leisure or consumption pertains, and to whom therefore the resulting

increment of good repute of right inures. The consumption and leisure executed by these persons for their

master or patron represents an investment on his part with a view to an increase of good fame. As regards

feasts and largesses this is obvious enough, and the imputation of repute to the host or patron here takes place

immediately, on the ground of common notoriety . Where leisure and consumption is performed vicariously

by henchmen and retainers, imputation of the resulting repute to the patron is effected by their residing near

his person so that it may be plain to all men from what source they draw. As the group whose good esteem is

to be secured in this way grows larger, more patent means are required to indicate the imputation of merit for

the leisure performed, and to this end uniforms, badges, and liveries come into vogue. The wearing of

uniforms or liveries implies a considerable degree of dependence, and may even be said to be a mark of

servitude, real or ostensible. The wearers of uniforms and liveries may be roughly divided into two

classesthe free and the servile, or the noble and the ignoble. The services performed by them are likewise

divisible into noble and ignoble. Of course the distinction is not observed with strict consistency in practice;

the less debasing of the base services and the less honorific of the noble functions are not infrequently

merged in the same person. But the general distinction is not on that account to be overlooked. What may add

some perplexity is the fact that this fundamental distinction between noble and ignoble, which rests on the

nature of the ostensible service performed, is traversed by a secondary distinction into honorific and

humiliating, resting on the rank of the person for whom the service is performed or whose livery is worn. So,

those offices which are by right the proper employment of the leisure class are noble; such as government,

fighting, hunting, the care of arms and accoutrements, and the like in short, those which may be classed as

ostensibly predatory employments. On the other hand, those employments which properly fall to the

industrious class are ignoble; such as handicraft or other productive labor, menial services and the like. But a

base service performed for a person of very high degree may become a very honorific office; as for instance

the office of a Maid of Honor or of a Lady in Waiting to the Queen, or the King's Master of the Horse or his

Keeper of the Hounds. The two offices last named suggest a principle of some general bearing. Whenever, as

in these cases, the menial service in question has to do directly with the primary leisure employments of

fighting and hunting, it easily acquires a reflected honorific character. In this way great honor may come to

attach to an employment which in its own nature belongs to the baser sort. In the later development of

peaceable industry, the usage of employing an idle corps of uniformed menatarms gradually lapses.

Vicarious consumption by dependents bearing the insignia of their patron or master narrows down to a corps

of liveried menials. In a heightened degree, therefore, the livery comes to be a badge of servitude, or rather

servility. Something of a honorific character always attached to the livery of the armed retainer, but this

honorific character disappears when the livery becomes the exclusive badge of the menial. The livery

becomes obnoxious to nearly all who are required to wear it. We are yet so little removed from a state of

effective slavery as still to be fully sensitive to the sting of any imputation of servility. This antipathy asserts

itself even in the case of the liveries or uniforms which some corporations prescribe as the distinctive dress of

their employees. In this country the aversion even goes the length of discrediting in a mild and uncertain

way those government employments, military and civil, which require the wearing of a livery or uniform.

With the disappearance of servitude, the number of vicarious consumers attached to any one gentleman tends,

on the whole, to decrease. The like is of course true, and perhaps in a still higher degree, of the number of

dependents who perform vicarious leisure for him. In a general way, though not wholly nor consistently,

these two groups coincide. The dependent who was first delegated for these duties was the wife, or the chief

wife; and, as would be expected, in the later development of the institution, when the number of persons by

whom these duties are customarily performed gradually narrows, the wife remains the last. In the higher

grades of society a large volume of both these kinds of service is required; and here the wife is of course still

assisted in the work by a more or less numerous corps of menials. But as we descend the social scale, the

point is presently reached where the duties of vicarious leisure and consumption devolve upon the wife alone.

In the communities of the Western culture, this point is at present found among the lower middle class.

And here occurs a curious inversion. It is a fact of common observance that in this lower middle class there is

no pretense of leisure on the part of the head of the household. Through force of circumstances it has fallen

into disuse. But the middleclass wife still carries on the business of vicarious leisure, for the good name of

the household and its master. In descending the social scale in any modern industrial community, the primary

factthe conspicuous leisure of the master of the householddisappears at a relatively high point. The head of

the middleclass household has been reduced by economic circumstances to turn his hand to gaining a

livelihood by occupations which often partake largely of the character of industry, as in the case of the

ordinary business man of today. But the derivative factthe vicarious leisure and consumption rendered by

the wife, and the auxiliary vicarious performance of leisure by menialsremains in vogue as a conventionality

which the demands of reputability will not suffer to be slighted. It is by no means an uncommon spectacle to

find a man applying himself to work with the utmost assiduity, in order that his wife may in due form render

for him that degree of vicarious leisure which the common sense of the time demands.

The leisure rendered by the wife in such cases is, of course, not a simple manifestation of idleness or

indolence. It almost invariably occurs disguised under some form of work or household duties or social

amenities, which prove on analysis to serve little or no ulterior end beyond showing that she does not occupy

herself with anything that is gainful or that is of substantial use. As has already been noticed under the head

of manners, the greater part of the customary round of domestic cares to which the middleclass housewife

gives her time and effort is of this character. Not that the results of her attention to household matters, of a

decorative and mundificatory character, are not pleasing to the sense of men trained in middleclass

proprieties; but the taste to which these effects of household adornment and tidiness appeal is a taste which

has been formed under the selective guidance of a canon of propriety that demands just these evidences of

wasted effort. The effects are pleasing to us chiefly because we have been taught to find them pleasing. There

goes into these domestic duties much solicitude for a proper combination of form and color, and for other

ends that are to be classed as aesthetic in the proper sense of the term; and it is not denied that effects having

some substantial aesthetic value are sometimes attained. Pretty much all that is here insisted on is that, as

regards these amenities of life, the housewife's efforts are under the guidance of traditions that have been

shaped by the law of conspicuously wasteful expenditure of time and substance. If beauty or comfort is

achievedand it is a more or less fortuitous circumstance if they arethey must be achieved by means and

methods that commend themselves to the great economic law of wasted effort. The more reputable,

"presentable" portion of middleclass household paraphernalia are, on the one hand, items of conspicuous

consumption, and on the other hand, apparatus for putting in evidence the vicarious leisure rendered by the

The requirement of vicarious consumption at the hands of the wife continues in force even at a lower point in

the pecuniary scale than the requirement of vicarious leisure. At a point below which little if any pretense of

wasted effort, in ceremonial cleanness and the like, is observable, and where there is assuredly no conscious

attempt at ostensible leisure, decency still requires the wife to consume some goods conspicuously for the

reputability of the household and its head. So that, as the latterday outcome of this evolution of an archaic

institution, the wife, who was at the outset the drudge and chattel of the man, both in fact and in theory the

producer of goods for him to consume has become the ceremonial consumer of goods which he produces.

But she still quite unmistakably remains his chattel in theory; for the habitual rendering of vicarious leisure

This vicarious consumption practiced by the household of the middle and lower classes can not be counted as

a direct expression of the leisureclass scheme of life, since the household of this pecuniary grade does not

belong within the leisure class. It is rather that the leisureclass scheme of life here comes to an expression at

the second remove. The leisure class stands at the head of the social structure in point of reputability; and its

manner of life and its standards of worth therefore afford the norm of reputability for the community. The

observance of these standards, in some degree of approximation, becomes incumbent upon all classes lower

in the scale. In modern civilized communities the lines of demarcation between social classes have grown

vague and transient, and wherever this happens the norm of reputability imposed by the upper class extends

its coercive influence with but slight hindrance down through the social structure to the lowest strata. The

result is that the members of each stratum accept as their ideal of decency the scheme of life in vogue in the

next higher stratum, and bend their energies to live up to that ideal. On pain of forfeiting their good name and

their selfrespect in case of failure, they must conform to the accepted code, at least in appearance. The basis

on which good repute in any highly organized industrial community ultimately rests is pecuniary strength;

and the means of showing pecuniary strength, and so of gaining or retaining a good name, are leisure and a

conspicuous consumption of goods. Accordingly, both of these methods are in vogue as far down the scale as

it remains possible; and in the lower strata in which the two methods are employed, both offices are in great

part delegated to the wife and children of the household. Lower still, where any degree of leisure, even

ostensible, has become impracticable for the wife, the conspicuous consumption of goods remains and is

carried on by the wife and children. The man of the household also can do something in this direction, and

indeed, he commonly does; but with a still lower descent into the levels of indigence along the margin of

the slums the man, and presently also the children, virtually cease to consume valuable goods for

appearances, and the woman remains virtually the sole exponent of the household's pecuniary decency. No

class of society, not even the most abjectly poor, forgoes all customary conspicuous consumption. The last

items of this category of consumption are not given up except under stresS of the direst necessity. Very much

of squalor and discomfort will be endured before the last trinket or the last pretense of pecuniary decency is

put away. There is no class and no country that has yielded so abjectly before the pressure of physical want as

From the foregoing survey of the growth of conspicuous leisure and consumption, it appears that the utility of

both alike for the purposes of reputability lies in the element of waste that is common to both. In the one case

it is a waste of time and effort, in the other it is a waste of goods. Both are methods of demonstrating the

possession of wealth, and the two are conventionally accepted as equivalents. The choice between them is a

question of advertising expediency simply, except so far as it may be affected by other standards of propriety,

springing from a different source. On grounds of expediency the preference may be given to the one or the

other at different stages of the economic development. The question is, which of the two methods will most

effectively reach the persons whose convictions it is desired to affect. Usage has answered this question in

So long as the community or social group is small enough and compact enough to be effectually reached by

common notoriety alone that is to say, so long as the human environment to which the individual is required

to adapt himself in respect of reputability is comprised within his sphere of personal acquaintance and

neighborhood gossip so long the one method is about as effective as the other. Each will therefore serve

about equally well during the earlier stages of social growth. But when the differentiation has gone farther

and it becomes necessary to reach a wider human environment, consumption begins to hold over leisure as an

ordinary means of decency. This is especially true during the later, peaceable economic stage. The means of

communication and the mobility of the population now expose the individual to the observation of many

persons who have no other means of judging of his reputability than the display of goods (and perhaps of

The modern organization of industry works in the same direction also by another line. The exigencies of the

modern industrial system frequently place individuals and households in juxtaposition between whom there is

little contact in any other sense than that of juxtaposition. One's neighbors, mechanically speaking, often are

socially not one's neighbors, or even acquaintances; and still their transient good opinion has a high degree of

utility. The only practicable means of impressing one's pecuniary ability on these unsympathetic observers of

one's everyday life is an unremitting demonstration of ability to pay. In the modern community there is also a

more frequent attendance at large gatherings of people to whom one's everyday life is unknown; in such

places as churches, theaters, ballrooms, hotels, parks, shops, and the like. In order to impress these transient

observers, and to retain one's selfcomplacency under their observation, the signature of one's pecuniary

strength should be written in characters which he who runs may read. It is evident, therefore, that the present

trend of the development is in the direction of heightening the utility of conspicuous consumption as

It is also noticeable that the serviceability of consumption as a means of repute, as well as the insistence on it

as an element of decency, is at its best in those portions of the community where the human contact of the

individual is widest and the mobility of the population is greatest. Conspicuous consumption claims a

relatively larger portion of the income of the urban than of the rural population, and the claim is also more

imperative. The result is that, in order to keep up a decent appearance, the former habitually live

handtomouth to a greater extent than the latter. So it comes, for instance, that the American farmer and his

wife and daughters are notoriously less modish in their dress, as well as less urbane in their manners, than the

city artisan's family with an equal income. It is not that the city population is by nature much more eager for

the peculiar complacency that comes of a conspicuous consumption, nor has the rural population less regard

for pecuniary decency. But the provocation to this line of evidence, as well as its transient effectiveness, is

more decided in the city. This method is therefore more readily resorted to, and in the struggle to outdo one

another the city population push their normal standard of conspicuous consumption to a higher point, with the

result that a relatively greater expenditure in this direction is required to indicate a given degree of pecuniary

decency in the city. The requirement of conformity to this higher conventional standard becomes mandatory.

The standard of decency is higher, class for class, and this requirement of decent appearance must be lived up

Consumption becomes a larger element in the standard of living in the city than in the country. Among the

country population its place is to some extent taken by savings and home comforts known through the

medium of neighborhood gossip sufficiently to serve the like general purpose of Pecuniary repute. These

home comforts and the leisure indulged in where the indulgence is found are of course also in great

part to be classed as items of conspicuous consumption; and much the same is to be said of the savings. The

smaller amount of the savings laid by by the artisan class is no doubt due, in some measure, to the fact that in

the case of the artisan the savings are a less effective means of advertisement, relative to the environment in

which he is placed, than are the savings of the people living on farms and in the small villages. Among the

latter, everybody's affairs, especially everybody's pecuniary status, are known to everybody else. Considered

by itself simply taken in the first degree this added provocation to which the artisan and the urban

laboring classes are exposed may not very seriously decrease the amount of savings; but in its cumulative

action, through raising the standard of decent expenditure, its deterrent effect on the tendency to save cannot

A felicitous illustration of the manner in which this canon of reputability works out its results is seen in the

practice of dramdrinking, "treating," and smoking in public places, which is customary among the laborers

and handicraftsmen of the towns, and among the lower middle class of the urban population generally

Journeymen printers may be named as a class among whom this form of conspicuous consumption has a

great vogue, and among whom it carries with it certain wellmarked consequences that are often deprecated.

The peculiar habits of the class in this respect are commonly set down to some kind of an illdefined moral

deficiency with which this class is credited, or to a morally deleterious influence which their occupation is

supposed to exert, in some unascertainable way, upon the men employed in it. The state of the case for the

men who work in the composition and press rooms of the common run of printinghouses may be summed

up as follows. Skill acquired in any printinghouse or any city is easily turned to account in almost any other

house or city; that is to say, the inertia due to special training is slight. Also, this occupation requires more

than the average of intelligence and general information, and the men employed in it are therefore ordinarily

more ready than many others to take advantage of any slight variation in the demand for their labor from one

place to another. The inertia due to the home feeling is consequently also slight. At the same time the wages

in the trade are high enough to make movement from place to place relatively easy. The result is a great

mobility of the labor employed in printing; perhaps greater than in any other equally welldefined and

considerable body of workmen. These men are constantly thrown in contact with new groups of

acquaintances, with whom the relations established are transient or ephemeral, but whose good opinion is

valued none the less for the time being. The human proclivity to ostentation, reenforced by sentiments of

goodfellowship, leads them to spend freely in those directions which will best serve these needs. Here as

elsewhere prescription seizes upon the custom as soon as it gains a vogue, and incorporates it in the

accredited standard of decency. The next step is to make this standard of decency the point of departure for a

new move in advance in the same direction for there is no merit in simple spiritless conformity to a

standard of dissipation that is lived up to as a matter of course by everyone in the trade.

The greater prevalence of dissipation among printers than among the average of workmen is accordingly

attributable, at least in some measure, to the greater ease of movement and the more transient character of

acquaintance and human contact in this trade. But the substantial ground of this high requirement in

dissipation is in the last analysis no other than that same propensity for a manifestation of dominance and

pecuniary decency which makes the French peasantproprietor parsimonious and frugal, and induces the

American millionaire to found colleges, hospitals and museums. If the canon of conspicuous consumption

were not offset to a considerable extent by other features of human nature, alien to it, any saving should

logically be impossible for a population situated as the artisan and laboring classes of the cities are at present,

But there are other standards of repute and other, more or less imperative, canons of conduct, besides wealth

and its manifestation, and some of these come in to accentuate or to qualify the broad, fundamental canon of

conspicuous waste. Under the simple test of effectiveness for advertising, we should expect to find leisure

and the conspicuous consumption of goods dividing the field of pecuniary emulation pretty evenly between

them at the outset. Leisure might then be expected gradually to yield ground and tend to obsolescence as the

economic development goes forward, and the community increases in size; while the conspicuous

consumption of goods should gradually gain in importance, both absolutely and relatively, until it had

absorbed all the available product, leaving nothing over beyond a bare livelihood. But the actual course of

development has been somewhat different from this ideal scheme. Leisure held the first place at the start, and

came to hold a rank very much above wasteful consumption of goods, both as a direct exponent of wealth and

as an element in the standard of decency , during the quasipeaceable culture. From that point onward,

consumption has gained ground, until, at present, it unquestionably holds the primacy, though it is still far

The early ascendency of leisure as a means of reputability is traceable to the archaic distinction between

noble and ignoble employments. Leisure is honorable and becomes imperative partly because it shows

exemption from ignoble labor. The archaic differentiation into noble and ignoble classes is based on an

invidious distinction between employments as honorific or debasing; and this traditional distinction grows

into an imperative canon of decency during the early quasipeaceable stage. Its ascendency is furthered by

the fact that leisure is still fully as effective an evidence of wealth as consumption. Indeed, so effective is it in

the relatively small and stable human environment to which the individual is exposed at that cultural stage,

that, with the aid of the archaic tradition which deprecates all productive labor, it gives rise to a large

impecunious leisure class, and it even tends to limit the production of the community's industry to the

subsistence minimum. This extreme inhibition of industry is avoided because slave labor, working under a

compulsion more vigorous than that of reputability, is forced to turn out a product in excess of the

subsistence minimum of the working class. The subsequent relative decline in the use of conspicuous leisure

as a basis of repute is due partly to an increasing relative effectiveness of consumption as an evidence of

wealth; but in part it is traceable to another force, alien, and in some degree antagonistic, to the usage of

This alien factor is the instinct of workmanship. Other circumstances permitting, that instinct disposes men to

look with favor upon productive efficiency and on whatever is of human use. It disposes them to depreCate

waste of substance or effort. The instinct of workmanship is present in all men, and asserts itself even under

very adverse circumstances. So that however wasteful a given expenditure may be in reality, it must at least

have some colorable excuse in the way of an ostensible purpose. The manner in which, under special

circumstances, the instinct eventuates in a taste for exploit and an invidious discrimination between noble and

ignoble classes has been indicated in an earlier chapter. In so far as it comes into conflict with the law of

conspicuous waste, the instinct of workmanship expresses itself not so much in insistence on substantial

usefulness as in an abiding sense of the odiousness and aesthetic impossibility of what is obviously futile.

Being of the nature of an instinctive affection, its guidance touches chiefly and immediately the obvious and

apparent violations of its requirements. It is only less promptly and with less constraining force that it reaches

such substantial violations of its requirements as are appreciated only upon reflection.

So long as all labor continues to be performed exclusively or usually by slaves, the baseness of all productive

effort is too constantly and deterrently present in the mind of men to allow the instinct of workmanship

seriously to take effect in the direction of industrial usefulness; but when the quasipeaceable stage (with

slavery and status) passes into the peaceable stage of industry (with wage labor and cash payment) the

instinct comes more effectively into play. It then begins aggressively to shape men's views of what is

meritorious, and asserts itself at least as an auxiliary canon of selfcomplacency. All extraneous

considerations apart, those persons (adult) are but a vanishing minority today who harbor no inclination to the

accomplishment of some end, or who are not impelled of their own motion to shape some object or fact or

relation for human use. The propensity may in large measure be overborne by the more immediately

constraining incentive to a reputable leisure and an avoidance of indecorous usefulness, and it may therefore

work itself out in makebelieve only; as for instance in "social duties," and in quasiartistic or

quasischolarly accomplishments, in the care and decoration of the house, in sewingcircle activity or dress

reform, in proficiency at dress, cards, yachting, golf, and various sports. But the fact that it may under stress

of circumstances eventuate in inanities no more disproves the presence of the instinct than the reality of the

brooding instinct is disproved by inducing a hen to sit on a nestful of china eggs.

This latterday uneasy reachingout for some form of purposeful activity that shall at the same time not be

indecorously productive of either individual or collective gain marks a difference of attitude between the

modern leisure class and that of the quasipeaceable stage. At the earlier stage, as was said above, the

alldominating institution of slavery and status acted resistlessly to discountenance exertion directed to other

than naively predatory ends. It was still possible to find some habitual employment for the inclination to

action in the way of forcible aggression or repression directed against hostile groups or against the subject

classes within the group; and this sewed to relieve the pressure and draw off the energy of the leisure class

without a resort to actually useful, or even ostensibly useful employments. The practice of hunting also sewed

the same purpose in some degree. When the community developed into a peaceful industrial organization,

and when fuller occupation of the land had reduced the opportunities for the hunt to an inconsiderable

residue, the pressure of energy seeking purposeful employment was left to find an outlet in some other

direction. The ignominy which attaches to useful effort also entered upon a less acute phase with the

disappearance of compulsory labor; and the instinct of workmanship then came to assert itself with more

The line of least resistance has changed in some measure, and the energy which formerly found a vent in

predatory activity, now in part takes the direction of some ostensibly useful end. Ostensibly purposeless

leisure has come to be deprecated, especially among that large portion of the leisure class whose plebeian

origin acts to set them at variance with the tradition of the otium cum dignitate. But that canon of reputability

which discountenances all employment that is of the nature of productive effort is still at hand, and will

permit nothing beyond the most transient vogue to any employment that is substantially useful or productive.

The consequence is that a change has been wrought in the conspicuous leisure practiced by the leisure class;

not so much in substance as in form. A reconciliation between the two conflicting requirements is effected by

a resort to makebelieve. Many and intricate polite observances and social duties of a ceremonial nature are

developed; many organizations are founded, with some specious object of amelioration embodied in their

official style and title; there is much coming and going, and a deal of talk, to the end that the talkers may not

have occasion to reflect on what is the effectual economic value of their traffic. And along with the

makebelieve of purposeful employment, and woven inextricably into its texture, there is commonly, if not

invariably, a more or less appreciable element of purposeful effort directed to some serious end.

In the narrower sphere of vicarious leisure a similar change has gone forward. Instead of simply passing her

time in visible idleness, as in the best days of the patriarchal regime, the housewife of the advanced peaceable

stage applies herself assiduously to household cares. The salient features of this development of domestic

service have already been indicated. Throughout the entire evolution of conspicuous expenditure, whether of

goods or of services or human life, runs the obvious implication that in order to effectually mend the

consumer's good fame it must be an expenditure of superfluities. In order to be reputable it must be wasteful.

No merit would accrue from the consumption of the bare necessaries of life, except by comparison with the

abjectly poor who fall short even of the subsistence minimum; and no standard of expenditure could result

from such a comparison, except the most prosaic and unattractive level of decency. A standard of life would

still be possible which should admit of invidious comparison in other respects than that of opulence; as, for

instance, a comparison in various directions in the manifestation of moral, physical, intellectual, or aesthetic

force. Comparison in all these directions is in vogue today; and the comparison made in these respects is

commonly so inextricably bound up with the pecuniary comparison as to be scarcely distinguishable from the

latter. This is especially true as regards the current rating of expressions of intellectual and aesthetic force or

proficiency' so that we frequently interpret as aesthetic or intellectual a difference which in substance is

The use of the term "waste" is in one respect an unfortunate one. As used in the speech of everyday life the

word carries an undertone of deprecation. It is here used for want of a better term that will adequately

describe the same range of motives and of phenomena, and it is not to be taken in an odious sense, as

implying an illegitimate expenditure of human products or of human life. In the view of economic theory the

expenditure in question is no more and no less legitimate than any other expenditure. It is here called "waste"

because this expenditure does not serve human life or human wellbeing on the whole, not because it is

waste or misdirection of effort or expenditure as viewed from the standpoint of the individual consumer who

chooses it. If he chooses it, that disposes of the question of its relative utility to him, as compared with other

forms of consumption that would not be deprecated on account of their wastefulness. Whatever form of

expenditure the consumer chooses, or whatever end he seeks in making his choice, has utility to him by virtue

of his preference. As seen from the point of view of the individual consumer, the question of wastefulness

does not arise within the scope of economic theory proper. The use of the word "waste" as a technical term,

therefore, implies no deprecation of the motives or of the ends sought by the consumer under this canon of

But it is, on other grounds, worth noting that the term "waste" in the language of everyday life implies

deprecation of what is characterized as wasteful. This commonsense implication is itself an outcropping of

the instinct of workmanship. The popular reprobation of waste goes to say that in order to be at peace with

himself the common man must be able to see in any and all human effort and human enjoyment an

enhancement of life and wellbeing on the whole. In order to meet with unqualified approval, any economic

fact must approve itself under the test of impersonal usefulnessusefulness as seen from the point of view of

the generically human. Relative or competitive advantage of one individual in comparison with another does

not satisfy the economic conscience, and therefore competitive expenditure has not the approval of this

In strict accuracy nothing should be included under the head of conspicuous waste but such expenditure as is

incurred on the ground of an invidious pecuniary comparison. But in order to bring any given item or element

in under this head it is not necessary that it should be recognized as waste in this sense by the person

incurring the expenditure. It frequently happens that an element of the standard of living which set out with

being primarily wasteful, ends with becoming, in the apprehension of the consumer, a necessary of life; and it

may in this way become as indispensable as any other item of the consumer's habitual expenditure. As items

which sometimes fall under this head, and are therefore available as illustrations of the manner in which this

principle applies, may be cited carpets and tapestries, silver table service, waiter's services, silk hats, starched

linen, many articles of jewelry and of dress. The indispensability of these things after the habit and the

convention have been formed, however, has little to say in the classification of expenditures as waste or not

waste in the technical meaning of the word. The test to which all expenditure must be brought in an attempt

to decide that point is the questiOn whether it serves directly to enhance human life on the wholewhether it

furthers the life process taken impersonally. For this is the basis of award of the instinct of workmanship, and

that instinct is the court of final appeal in any question of economic truth or adequacy. It is a question as to

the award rendered by a dispassionate common sense. The question is, therefore, not whether, under the

existing circumstances of individual habit and social custom, a given expenditure conduces to the particular

consumer's gratification or peace of mind; but whether, aside from acquired tastes and from the canons of

usage and conventional decency, its result is a net gain in comfort or in the fullness of life. Customary

expenditure must be classed under the head of waste in so far as the custom on which it rests is traceable to

the habit of making an invidious pecuniary comparisonin so far as it is conceived that it could not have

become customary and prescriptive without the backing of this principle of pecuniary reputability or relative

economic success. It is obviously not necessary that a given object of expenditure should be exclusively

wasteful in order to come in under the category of conspicuous waste. An article may be useful and wasteful

both, aud its utility to the consumer may be made up of use and waste in the most varying proportions.

Consumable goods, and even productive goods, generally show the two elements in combination, as

constituents of their utility; although, in a general way, the element of waste tends to predominate in articles

of consumption, while the contrary is true of articles designed for productive use. Even in articles which

appear at first glance to serve for pure ostentation only, it is always possible to detect the presence of some, at

least ostensible, useful purpose; and on the other hand, even in special machinery and tools contrived for

some particular industrial process, as well as in the rudest appliances of human industry, the traces of

conspicuous waste, or at least of the habit of ostentation, usually become evident on a close scrutiny. It would

be hazardous to assert that a useful purpose is ever absent from the utility of any article or of any service,

however obviously its prime purpose and chief element is conspicuous waste; and it would be only less

hazardous to assert of any primarily useful product that the element of waste is in no way concerned in its

For the great body of the people in any modern community, the proximate ground of expenditure in excess of

what is required for physical comfort is not a conscious effort to excel in the expensiveness of their visible

consumption, so much as it is a desire to live up to the conventional standard of decency in the amount and

grade of goods consumed. This desire is not guided by a rigidly invariable standard, which must be lived up

to, and beyond which there is no incentive to go. The standard is flexible; and especially it is indefinitely

extensible, if only time is allowed for habituation to any increase in pecuniary ability and for acquiring

facility in the new and larger scale of expenditure that follows such an increase. It is much more difficult to

recede from a scale of expenditure once adopted than it is to extend the accustomed scale in response to an

accession of wealth. Many items of customary expenditure prove on analysis to be almost purely wasteful,

and they are therefore honorific only, but after they have once been incorporated into the scale of decent

consumption, and so have become an integral part of one's scheme of life, it is quite as hard to give up these

as it is to give up many items that conduce directly to one's physicaL comfort, or even that may be necessary

to life and health. That is to say, the conspicuously wasteful honorific expenditure that confers spiritual

wellbeing may become more indispensable than much of that expenditure which ministers to the "lower"

wants of physical wellbeing or sustenance only. It is notoriously just as difficult to recede from a "high"

standard of living as it is to lower a standard which is already relatively low; although in the former case the

difficulty is a moral one, while in the latter it may involve a material deduction from the physical comforts of

But while retrogression is difficult, a fresh advance in conspicuous expenditure is relatively easy; indeed, it

takes place almost as a matter of course. In the rare cases where it occurs, a failure to increase one's visible

consumption when the means for an increase are at hand is felt in popular apprehension to call for

explanation, and unworthy motives of miserliness are imputed to those who fall short in this respect. A

prompt response to the stimulus, on the other hand, is accepted as the normal effect. This suggests that the

standard of expenditure which commonly guides our efforts is not the average, ordinary expenditure already

achieved; it is an ideal of consumption that lies just beyond our reach, or to reach which requires some strain.

The motive is emulation the stimulus of an invidious comparison which prompts us to outdo those with

whom we are in the habit of classing ourselves. Substantially the same proposition is expressed in the

commonplace remark that each class envies and emulates the class next above it in the social scale, while it

rarely compares itself with those below or with those who are considerably in advance. That is to say, in other

words, our standard of decency in expenditure, as in other ends of emulation, is set by the usage of those next

above us in reputability; until, in this way, especially in any community where class distinctions are

somewhat vague, all canons of reputability and decency, and all standards of consumption, are traced back by

insensible gradations to the usages and habits of thought of the highest social and pecuniary class the

It is for this class to determine, in general outline, what scheme of Life the community shall accept as decent

or honorific; and it is their office by precept and example to set forth this scheme of social salvation in its

highest, ideal form. But the higher leisure class can exercise this quasisacerdotal office only under certain

material limitations. The class cannot at discretion effect a sudden revolution or reversal of the popular habits

of thought with respect to any of these ceremonial requirements. It takes time for any change to permeate the

mass and change the habitual attitude of the people; and especially it takes time to change the habits of those

classes that are socially more remote from the radiant body. The process is slower where the mobility of the

population is less or where the intervals between the several classes are wider and more abrupt. But if time be

allowed, the scope of the discretion of the leisure class as regards questions of form and detail in the

community's scheme of life is large; while as regards the substantial principles of reputability, the changes

which it can effect lie within a narrow margin of tolerance. Its example and precept carries the force of

prescription for all classes below it; but in working out the precepts which are handed down as governing the

form and method of reputability in shaping the usages and the spiritual attitude of the lower classes

this authoritative prescription constantly works under the selective guidance of the canon of conspicuous

waste, tempered in varying degree by the instinct of workmanship. To those norms is to be added another

broad principle of human nature the predatory animus which in point of generality and of

psychological content lies between the two just named. The effect of the latter in shaping the accepted

scheme of life is yet to be discussed. The canon of reputability, then, must adapt itself to the economic

circumstances, the traditions, and the degree of spiritual maturity of the particular class whose scheme of life

it is to regulate. It is especially to be noted that however high its authority and however true to the

fundamental requirements of reputability it may have been at its inception, a specific formal observance can

under no circumstances maintain itself in force if with the lapse of time or on its transmission to a lower

pecuniary class it is found to run counter to the ultimate ground of decency among civilized peoples, namely,

serviceability for the purpose of an invidious comparison in pecuniary success. It is evident that these canons

of expenditure have much to say in determining the standard of living for any community and for any class. It

is no less evident that the standard of living which prevails at any time or at any given social altitude will in

its turn have much to say as to the forms which honorific expenditure will take, and as to the degree to which

this "higher" need will dominate a people's consumption. In this respect the control exerted by the accepted

standard of living is chiefly of a negative character; it acts almost solely to prevent recession from a scale of

A standard of living is of the nature of habit. It is an habitual scale and method of responding to given

stimuli. The difficulty in the way of receding from an accustomed standard is the difficulty of breaking a

habit that has once been formed. The relative facility with which an advance in the standard is made means

that the life process is a process of unfolding activity and that it will readily unfold in a new direction

whenever and wherever the resistance to selfexpression decreases. But when the habit of expression along

such a given line of low resistance has once been formed, the discharge will seek the accustomed outlet even

after a change has taken place in the environment whereby the external resistance has appreciably risen. That

heightened facility of expression in a given direction which is called habit may offset a considerable increase

in the resistance offered by external circumstances to the unfolding of life in the given direction. As between

the various habits, or habitual modes and directions of expression, which go to make up an individual's

standard of living, there is an appreciable difference in point of persistence under counteracting

circumstances and in point of the degree of imperativeness with which the discharge seeks a given direction.

That is to say, in the language of current economic theory, while men are reluctant to retrench their

expenditures in any direction, they are more reluctant to retrench in some directions than in others; so that

while any accustomed consumption is reluctantly given up, there are certain lines of consumption which are

given up with relatively extreme reluctance. The articles or forms of consumption to which the consumer

clings with the greatest tenacity are commonly the socalled necessaries of life, or the subsistence minimum.

The subsistence minimum is of course not a rigidly determined allowance of goods, definite and invariable in

kind and quantity; but for the purpose in hand it may be taken to comprise a certain, more or less definite,

aggregate of consumption required for the maintenance of life. This minimum, it may be assumed, is

ordinarily given up last in case of a progressive retrenchment of expenditure. That is to say, in a general way,

the most ancient and ingrained of the habits which govern the individual's life those habits that touch his

existence as an organism are the most persistent and imperative. Beyond these come the higher wants

laterformed habits of the individual or the race in a somewhat irregular and by no means invariable

gradation. Some of these higher wants, as for instance the habitual use of certain stimulants, or the need of

salvation (in the eschatological sense), or of good repute, may in some cases take precedence of the lower or

more elementary wants. In general, the longer the habituation, the more unbroken the habit, and the more

nearly it coincides with previous habitual forms of the life process, the more persistently will the given habit

assert itself. The habit will be stronger if the particular traits of human nature which its action involves, or the

particular aptitudes that find exercise in it, are traits or aptitudes that are already largely and profoundly

concerned in the life process or that are intimately bound up with the life history of the particular racial stock.

The varying degrees of ease with which different habits are formed by different persons, as well as the

varying degrees of reluctance with which different habits are given up, goes to say that the formation of

specific habits is not a matter of length of habituation simply. Inherited aptitudes and traits of temperament

count for quite as much as length of habituation in deciding what range of habits will come to dominate any

individual's scheme of life. And the prevalent type of transmitted aptitudes, or in other words the type of

temperament belonging to the dominant ethnic element in any community, will go far to decide what will be

the scope and form of expression of the community's habitual life process. How greatly the transmitted

idiosyncrasies of aptitude may count in the way of a rapid and definitive formation of habit in individuals is

illustrated by the extreme facility with which an alldominating habit of alcoholism is sometimes formed; or

in the similar facility and the similarly inevitable formation of a habit of devout observances in the case of

persons gifted with a special aptituDe in that direction. Much the same meaning attaches to that peculiar

facility of habituation to a specific human environment that is called romantic love.

Men differ in respect of transmitted aptitudes, or in respect of the relative facility with which they unfold

their life activity in particular directions; and the habits which coincide with or proceed upon a relatively

strong specific aptitude or a relatively great specific facility of expression become of great consequence to the

man's wellbeing. The part played by this element of aptitude in determining the relative tenacity of the

several habits which constitute the standard of living goes to explain the extreme reluctance with which men

give up any habitual expenditure in the way of conspicuous consumption. The aptitudes or propensities to

which a habit of this kind is to be referred as its ground are those aptitudes whose exercise is comprised in

emulation; and the propensity for emulation for invidious comparison is of ancient growth and is a

pervading trait of human nature. It is easily called into vigorous activity in any new form, and it asserts itself

with great insistence under any form under which it has once found habitual expression. When the individual

has once formed the habit of seeking expression in a given line of honorific expenditure when a given set

of stimuli have come to be habitually responded to in activity of a given kind and direction under the

guidance of these alert and deepreaching propensities of emulation it is with extreme reluctance that

such an habitual expenditure is given up. And on the other hand, whenever an accession of pecuniary strength

puts the individual in a position to unfold his life process in larger scope and with additional reach, the

ancient propensities of the race will assert themselves in determining the direction which the new unfolding

of life is to take. And those propensities which are already actively in the field under some related form of

expression, which are aided by the pointed suggestions afforded by a current accredited scheme of life, and

for the exercise of which the material means and opportunities are readily available these will especially

have much to say in shaping the form and direction in which the new accession to the individual's aggregate

force will assert itself. That is to say, in concrete terms, in any community where conspicuous consumption is

an element of the scheme of life, an increase in an individual's ability to pay is likely to take the form of an

With the exception of the instinct of selfpreservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest

and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper. In an industrial community this propensity for

emulation expresses itself in pecuniary emulation; and this, so far as regards the Western civilized

communities of the present, is virtually equivalent to saying that it expresses itself in some form of

conspicuous waste. The need of conspicuous waste, therefore, stands ready to absorb any increase in the

community's industrial efficiency or output of goods, after the most elementary physical wants have been

provided for. Where this result does not follow, under modern conditions, the reason for the discrepancy is

commonly to be sought in a rate of increase in the individual's wealth too rapid for the habit of expenditure to

keep abreast of it; or it may be that the individual in question defers the conspicuous consumption of the

increment to a later date ordinarily with a view to heightening the spectacular effect of the aggregate

expenditure contemplated. As increased industrial efficiency makes it possible to procure the means of

livelihood with less labor, the energies of the industrious members of the community are bent to the

compassing of a higher result in conspicuous expenditure, rather than slackened to a more comfortable pace.

The strain is not lightened as industrial efficiency increases and makes a lighter strain possible, but the

increment of output is turned to use to meet this want, which is indefinitely expansible, after the manner

commonly imputed in economic theory to higher or spiritual wants. It is owing chiefly to the presence of this

element in the standard of living that J. S. Mill was able to say that "hitherto it is questionable if all the

mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being." The accepted standard of

expenditure in the community or in the class to which a person belongs largely determines what his standard

of living will be. It does this directly by commending itself to his common sense as right and good, through

his habitually contemplating it and assimilating the scheme of life in which it belongs; but it does so also

indirectly through popular insistence on conformity to the accepted scale of expenditure as a matter of

propriety, under pain of disesteem and ostracism. To accept and practice the standard of living which is in

vogue is both agreeable and expedient, commonly to the point of being indispensable to personal comfort and

to success in life. The standard of living of any class, so far as concerns the element of conspicuous waste, is

commonly as high as the earning capacity of the class will permit with a constant tendency to go higher.

The effect upon the serious activities of men is therefore to direct them with great singleness of purpose to the

largest possible acquisition of wealth, and to discountenance work that brings no pecuniary gain. At the same

time the effect on consumption is to concentrate it upon the lines which are most patent to the observers

whose good opinion is sought; while the inclinations and aptitudes whose exercise does not involve a

honorific expenditure of time or substance tend to fall into abeyance through disuse.

Through this discrimination in favor of visible consumption it has come about that the domestic life of most

classes is relatively shabby, as compared with the �clat of that overt portion of their life that is carried on

before the eyes of observers. As a secondary consequence of the same discrimination, people habitually

screen their private life from observation. So far as concerns that portion of their consumption that may

without blame be carried on in secret, they withdraw from all contact with their neighbors, Hence the

exclusiveness of people, as regards their domestic life, in most of the industrially developed communities;

and hence, by remoter derivation, the habit of privacy and reserve that is so large a feature in the code of

proprieties of the better class in all communities. The low birthrate of the classes upon whom the

requirements of reputable expenditure fall with great urgency is likewise traceable to the exigencies of a

standard of living based on conspicuous waste. The conspicuous consumption, and the consequent increased

expense, required in the reputable maintenance of a child is very considerable and acts as a powerful

deterrent. It is probably the most effectual of the Malthusian prudential checks.

The effect of this factor of the standard of living, both in the way of retrenchment in the obscurer elements of

consumption that go to physical comfort and maintenance, and also in the paucity or absence of children, is

perhaps seen at its best among the classes given to scholarly pursuits. Because of a presumed superiority and

scarcity of the gifts and attainments that characterize their life, these classes are by convention subsumed

under a higher social grade than their pecuniary grade should warrant. The scale of decent expenditure in

their case is pitched correspondingly high, and it consequently leaves an exceptionally narrow margin

disposable for the other ends of life. By force of circumstances, their habitual sense of what is good and right

in these matters, as well as the expectations of the community in the way of pecuniary decency among the

learned, are excessively high as measured by the prevalent degree of opulence and earning capacity of the

class, relatively to the nonscholarly classes whose social equals they nominally are. In any modern

community where there is no priestly monopoly of these occupations, the people of scholarly pursuits are

unavoidably thrown into contact with classes that are pecuniarily their superiors. The high standard of

pecuniary decency in force among these superior classes is transfused among the scholarly classes with but

little mitigation of its rigor; and as a consequence there is no class of the community that spends a larger

The caution has already been repeated more than once, that while the regulating norm of consumption is in

large part the requirement of conspicuous waste, it must not be understood that the motive on which the

consumer acts in any given case is this principle in its bald, unsophisticated form. Ordinarily his motive is a

wish to conform to established usage, to avoid unfavorable notice and comment, to live up to the accepted

canons of decency in the kind, amount, and grade of goods consumed, as well as in the decorous employment

of his time and effort. In the common run of cases this sense of prescriptive usage is present in the motives of

the consumer and exerts a direct constraining force, especially as regards consumption carried on under the

eyes of observers. But a considerable element of prescriptive expensiveness is observable also in

consumption that does not in any appreciable degree become known to outsiders as, for instance, articles

of underclothing, some articles of food, kitchen utensils, and other household apparatus designed for service

rather than for evidence. In all such useful articles a close scrutiny will discover certain features which add to

the cost and enhance the commercial value of the goods in question, but do not proportionately increase the

serviceability of these articles for the material purposes which alone they ostensibly are designed to serve.

Under the selective surveillance of the law of conspicuous waste there grows up a code of accredited canons

of consumption, the effect of which is to hold the consumer up to a standard of expensiveness and

wastefulness in his consumption of goods and in his employment of time and effort. This growth of

prescriptive usage has an immediate effect upon economic life, but it has also an indirect and remoter effect

upon conduct in other respects as well. Habits of thought with respect to the expression of life in any given

direction unavoidably affect the habitual view of what is good and right in life in other directions also. In the

organic complex of habits of thought which make up the substance of an individual's conscious life the

economic interest does not lie isolated and distinct from all other interests. Something, for instance, has

The principle of conspicuous waste guides the formation of habits of thought as to what is honest and

reputable in life and in commodities. In so doing, this principle will traverse other norms of conduct which do

not primarily have to do with the code of pecuniary honor, but which have, directly or incidentally, an

economic significance of some magnitude. So the canon of honorific waste may, immediately or remotely,

influence the sense of duty, the sense of beauty, the sense of utility, the sense of devotional or ritualistic

It is scarcely necessary to go into a discussion here of the particular points at which, or the particular manner

in which, the canon of honorific expenditure habitually traverses the canons of moral conduct. The matter is

one which has received large attention and illustration at the hands of those whose office it is to watch and

admonish with respect to any departures from the accepted code of morals. In modern communities, where

the dominant economic and legal feature of the community's life is the institution of private property, one of

the salient features of the code of morals is the sacredness of property. There needs no insistence or

illustration to gain assent to the proposition that the habit of holding private property inviolate is traversed by

the other habit of seeking wealth for the sake of the good repute to be gained through its conspicuous

consumption. Most offenses against property, especially offenses of an appreciable magnitude, come under

this head. It is also a matter of common notoriety and byword that in offenses which result in a large

accession of property to the offender he does not ordinarily incur the extreme penalty or the extreme obloquy

with which his offenses would he visited on the ground of the naive moral code alone. The thief or swindler

who has gained great wealth by his delinquency has a better chance than the small thief of escaping the

rigorous penalty of the law and some good repute accrues to him from his increased wealth and from his

spending the irregularly acquired possessions in a seemly manner. A wellbred expenditure of his booty

especially appeals with great effect to persons of a cultivated sense of the proprieties, and goes far to mitigate

the sense of moral turpitude with which his dereliction is viewed by them. It may be noted also and it is

more immediately to the point that we are all inclined to condone an offense against property in the case

of a man whose motive is the worthy one of providing the means of a "decent" manner of life for his wife and

children. If it is added that the wife has been "nurtured in the lap of luxury," that is accepted as an additional

extenuating circumstance. That is to say, we are prone to condone such an offense where its aim is the

honorific one of enabling the offender's wife to perform for him such an amount of vicarious consumption of

time and substance as is demanded by the standard of pecuniary decency. In such a case the habit of

approving the accustomed degree of conspicuous waste traverses the habit of deprecating violations of

ownership, to the extent even of sometimes leaving the award of praise or blame uncertain. This is peculiarly

true where the dereliction involves an appreciable predatory or piratical element.

This topic need scarcely be pursued further here; but the remark may not be out of place that all that

considerable body of morals that clusters about the concept of an inviolable ownership is itself a

psychological precipitate of the traditional meritoriousness of wealth. And it should be added that this wealth

which is held sacred is valued primarily for the sake of the good repute to be got through its conspicuous

consumption. The bearing of pecuniary decency upon the scientific spirit or the quest of knowledge will he

taken up in some detail in a separate chapter. Also as regards the sense of devout or ritual merit and adequacy

in this connection, little need be said in this place. That topic will also come up incidentally in a later chapter.

Still, this usage of honorific expenditure has much to say in shaping popular tastes as to what is right and

meritorious in sacred matters, and the bearing of the principle of conspicuous waste upon some of the

Obviously, the canon of conspicuous waste is accountable for a great portion of what may be called devout

consumption; as, e.g., the consumption of sacred edifices, vestments, and other goods of the same class. Even

in those modern cults to whose divinities is imputed a predilection for temples not built with hands, the

sacred buildings and the other properties of the cult are constructed and decorated with some view to a

reputable degree of wasteful expenditure. And it needs but little either of observation or introspection and

either will serve the turn to assure us that the expensive splendor of the house of worship has an

appreciable uplifting and mellowing effect upon the worshipper's frame of mind. It will serve to enforce the

same fact if we reflect upon the sense of abject shamefulness with which any evidence of indigence or

squalor about the sacred place affects all beholders. The accessories of any devout observance should be

pecuniarily above reproach. This requirement is imperative, whatever latitude may be allowed with regard to

these accessories in point of aesthetic or other serviceability. It may also be in place to notice that in all

communities, especially in neighborhoods where the standard of pecuniary decency for dwellings is not high,

the local sanctuary is more ornate, more conspicuously wasteful in its architecture and decoration, than the

dwelling houses of the congregation. This is true of nearly all denominations and cults, whether Christian or

Pagan, but it is true in a peculiar degree of the older and maturer cults. At the same time the sanctuary

commonly contributes little if anything to the physical comfort of the members. Indeed, the sacred structure

not only serves the physical wellbeing of the members to but a slight extent, as compared with their humbler

dwellinghouses; but it is felt by all men that a right and enlightened sense of the true, the beautiful, and the

good demands that in all expenditure on the sanctuary anything that might serve the comfort of the

worshipper should be conspicuously absent. If any element of comfort is admitted in the fittings of the

sanctuary, it should be at least scrupulously screened and masked under an ostensible austerity. In the most

reputable latterday houses of worship, where no expense is spared, the principle of austerity is carried to the

length of making the fittings of the place a means of mortifying the flesh, especially in appearance. There are

few persons of delicate tastes, in the matter of devout consumption to whom this austerely wasteful

discomfort does not appeal as intrinsically right and good. Devout consumption is of the nature of vicarious

consumption. This canon of devout austerity is based on the pecuniary reputability of conspicuously wasteful

consumption, backed by the principle that vicarious consumption should conspicuously not conduce to the

The sanctuary and its fittings have something of this austerity in all the cults in which the saint or divinity to

whom the sanctuary pertains is not conceived to be present and make personal use of the property for the

gratification of luxurious tastes imputed to him. The character of the sacred paraphernalia is somewhat

different in this respect in those cults where the habits of life imputed to the divinity more nearly approach

those of an earthly patriarchal potentate where he is conceived to make use of these consumable goods in

person. In the latter case the sanctuary and its fittings take on more of the fashion given to goods destined for

the conspicuous consumption of a temporal master or owner. On the other hand, where the sacred apparatus

is simply employed in the divinity's service, that is to say, where it is consumed vicariously on his account by

his servants, there the sacred properties take the character suited to goods that are destined for vicarious

In the latter case the sanctuary and the sacred apparatus are so contrived as not to enhance the comfort or

fullness of life of the vicarious consumer, or at any rate not to convey the impression that the end of their

consumption is the consumer's comfort. For the end of vicarious consumption is to enhance, not the fullness

of life of the consumer, but the pecuniary repute of the master for whose behoof the consumption takes place.

Therefore priestly vestments are notoriously expensive, ornate, and inconvenient; and in the cults where the

priestly servitor of the divinity is not conceived to serve him in the capacity of consort, they are of an austere,

It is not only in establishing a devout standard of decent expensiveness that the principle of waste invades the

domain of the canons of ritual serviceability. It touches the ways as well as the means, and draws on vicarious

leisure as well as on vicarious consumption. Priestly demeanor at its best is aloof, leisurely, perfunctory, and

uncontaminated with suggestions of sensuOus pleasure. This holds true, in different degrees of course, for the

different cults and denominations; but in the priestly life of all anthropomorphic cults the marks of a

The same pervading canon of vicarious leisure is also visibly present in the exterior details of devout

observances and need only be pointed out in order to become obvious to all beholders. All ritual has a notable

tendency to reduce itself to a rehearsal of formulas. This development of formula is most noticeable in the

maturer cults, which have at the same time a more austere, ornate, and severe priestly life and garb; but it is

perceptible also in the forms and methods of worship of the newer and fresher sects, whose tastes in respect

of priests, vestments, and sanctuaries are less exacting. The rehearsal of the service (the term "service" carries

a suggestion significant for the point in question) grows more perfunctory as the cult gains in age and

consistency, and this perfunctoriness of the rehearsal is very pleasing to the correct devout taste. And with a

good reason, for the fact of its being perfunctory goes to say pointedly that the master for whom it is

performed is exalted above the vulgar need of actually proficuous service on the part of his servants. They are

unprofitable servants, and there is an honorific implication for their master in their remaining unprofitable. It

is needless to point out the close analogy at this point between the priestly office and the office of the

footman. It is pleasing to our sense of what is fitting in these matters, in either case, to recognize in the

obvious perfunctoriness of the service that it is a pro forma execution only. There should be no show of

agility or of dexterous manipulation in the execution of the priestly office, such as might suggest a capacity

In all this there is of course an obvious implication as to the temperament, tastes, propensities, and habits of

life imputed to the divinity by worshippers who live under the tradition of these pecuniary canons of

reputability. Through its pervading men's habits of thought, the principle of conspicuous waste has colored

the worshippers' notions of the divinity and of the relation in which the human subject stands to him. It is of

course in the more naive cults that this suffusion of pecuniary beauty is most patent, but it is visible

throughout. All peoples, at whatever stage of culture or degree of enlightenment, are fain to eke out a sensibly

scant degree of authentic formation regarding the personality and habitual surroundings of their divinities. In

so calling in the aid of fancy to enrich and fill in their picture of the divinity's presence and manner of life

they habitually impute to him such traits as go to make up their ideal of a worthy man. And in seeking

communion with the divinity the ways and means of approach are assimilated as nearly as may be to the

divine ideal that is in men's minds at the time. It is felt that the divine presence is entered with the best grace,

and with the best effect, according to certain accepted methods and with the accompaniment of certain

material circumstances which in popular apprehension are peculiarly consonant with the divine nature. This

popularly accepted ideal of the bearing and paraphernalia adequate to such occasions of communion is, of

course, to a good extent shaped by the popular apprehension of what is intrinsically worthy and beautiful in

human carriage and surroundings on all occasions of dignified intercourse. It would on this account be

misleading to attempt an analysis of devout demeanor by referring all evidences of the presence of a

pecuniary standard of reputability back directly and baldly to the underlying norm of pecuniary emulation. So

it would also be misleading to ascribe to the divinity, as popularly conceived, a jealous regard for his

pecuniary standing and a habit of avoiding and condemning squalid situations and surroundings simply

And still, after all allowance has been made, it appears that the canons of pecuniary reputability do, directly

or indirectly, materially affect our notions of the attributes of divinity, as well as our notions of what are the

fit and adequate manner and circumstances of divine communion. It is felt that the divinity must be of a

peculiarly serene and leisurely habit of life. And whenever his local habitation is pictured in poetic imagery,

for edification or in appeal to the devout fancy, the devout wordpainter, as a matter of course, brings out

before his auditors' imagination a throne with a profusion of the insignia of opulence and power, and

surrounded by a great number of servitors. In the common run of such presentations of the celestial abodes,

the office of this corps of servants is a vicarious leisure, their time and efforts being in great measure taken up

with an industrially unproductive rehearsal of the meritorious characteristics and exploits of the divinity;

while the background of the presentation is filled with the shimmer of the precious metals and of the more

expensive varieties of precious stones. It is only in the crasser expressions of devout fancy that this intrusion

of pecuniary canons into the devout ideals reaches such an extreme. An extreme case occurs in the devout

imagery of the Negro population of the South. Their wordpainters are unable to descend to anything cheaper

than gold; so that in this case the insistence on pecuniary beauty gives a startling effect in yellow such as

would be unbearable to a soberer taste. Still, there is probably no cult in which ideals of pecuniary merit have

not been called in to supplement the ideals of ceremonial adequacy that guide men's conception of what is

Similarly it is felt and the sentiment is acted upon that the priestly servitors of the divinity should not

engage in industrially productive work; that work of any kind any employment which is of tangible

human use must not be carried on in the divine presence, or within the precincts of the sanctuary; that

whoever comes into the presence should come cleansed of all profane industrial features in his apparel or

person, and should come clad in garments of more than everyday expensiveness; that on holidays set apart in

honor of or for communion with the divinity no work that is of human use should be performed by any one.

Even the remoter, lay dependents should render a vicarious leisure to the extent of one day in seven. In all

these deliverances of men's uninstructed sense of what is fit and proper in devout observance and in the

relations of the divinity, the effectual presence of the canons of pecuniary reputability is obvious enough,

whether these canons have had their effect on the devout judgment in this respect immediately or at the

These canons of reputability have had a similar, but more farreaching and more specifically determinable,

effect upon the popular sense of beauty or serviceability in consumable goods. The requirements of pecuniary

decency have, to a very appreciable extent, influenced the sense of beauty and of utility in articles of use or

beauty. Articles are to an extent preferred for use on account of their being conspicuously wasteful; they are

felt to be serviceable somewhat in proportion as they are wasteful and ill adapted to their ostensible use.

The utility of articles valued for their beauty depends closely upon the expensiveness of the articles. A

homely illustration will bring out this dependence. A handwrought silver spoon, of a commercial value of

some ten to twenty dollars, is not ordinarily more serviceable in the first sense of the word than a

machinemade spoon of the same material. It may not even be more serviceable than a machinemade spoon

of some "base" metal, such as aluminum, the value of which may be no more than some ten to twenty cents.

The former of the two utensils is, in fact, commonly a less effective contrivance for its ostensible purpose

than the latter. The objection is of course ready to hand that, in taking this view of the matter, one of the chief

uses, if not the chief use, of the costlier spoon is ignored; the handwrought spoon gratifies our taste, our

sense of the beautiful, while that made by machinery out of the base metal has no useful office beyond a brute

efficiency. The facts are no doubt as the objection states them, but it will be evident on reJection that the

objection is after all more plausible than conclusive. It appears (1) that while the different materials of which

the two spoons are made each possesses beauty and serviceability for the purpose for which it is used, the

material of the handwrought spoon is some one hundred times more valuable than the baser metal, without

very greatly excelling the latter in intrinsic beauty of grain or color, and without being in any appreciable

degree superior in point of mechanical serviceability; (2) if a close inspection should show that the supposed

handwrought spoon were in reality only a very clever citation of handwrought goods, but an imitation so

cleverly wrought as to give the same impression of line and surface to any but a minute examination by a

trained eye, the utility of the article, including the gratification which the user derives from its contemplation

as an object of beauty, would immediately decline by some eighty or ninety per cent, or even more; (3) if the

two spoons are, to a fairly close observer, so nearly identical in appearance that the lighter weight of the

spurious article alone betrays it, this identity of form and color will scarcely add to the value of the

machinemade spoon, nor appreciably enhance the gratification of the user's "sense of beauty" in

contemplating it, so long as the cheaper spoon is not a novelty, ad so long as it can be procured at a nominal

cost. The case of the spoons is typical. The superior gratification derived from the use and contemplation of

costly and supposedly beautiful products is, commonly, in great measure a gratification of our sense of

costliness masquerading under the name of beauty. Our higher appreciation of the superior article is an

appreciation of its superior honorific character, much more frequently than it is an unsophisticated

appreciation of its beauty. The requirement of conspicuous wastefulness is not commonly present,

consciously, in our canons of taste, but it is none the less present as a constraining norm selectively shaping

and sustaining our sense of what is beautiful, and guiding our discrimination with respect to what may

It is at this point, where the beautiful and the honorific meet and blend, that a discrimination between

serviceability and wastefulness is most difficult in any concrete case. It frequently happens that an article

which serves the honorific purpose of conspicuous waste is at the same time a beautiful object; and the same

application of labor to which it owes its utility for the former purpose may, and often does, give beauty of

form and color to the article. The question is further complicated by the fact that many objects, as, for

instance, the precious stones and the metals and some other materials used for adornment and decoration,

owe their utility as items of conspicuous waste to an antecedent utility as objects of beauty. Gold, for

instance, has a high degree of sensuous beauty very many if not most of the highly prized works of art are

intrinsically beautiful, though often with material qualification; the like is true of some stuffs used for

clothing, of some landscapes, and of many other things in less degree. Except for this intrinsic beauty which

they possess, these objects would scarcely have been coveted as they are, or have become monopolized

objects of pride to their possessors and users. But the utility of these things to the possessor is commonly due

less to their intrinsic beauty than to the honor which their possession and consumption confers, or to the

Apart from their serviceability in other respects, these objects are beautiful and have a utility as such; they are

valuable on this account if they can be appropriated or monopolized; they are, therefore, coveted as valuable

possessions, and their exclusive enjoyment gratifies the possessor's sense of pecuniary superiority at the same

time that their contemplation gratifies his sense of beauty. But their beauty, in the naive sense of the word, is

the occasion rather than the ground of their monopolization or of their commercial value. "Great as is the

sensuous beauty of gems, their rarity and price adds an expression of distinction to them, which they would

never have if they were cheap." There is, indeed, in the common run of cases under this head, relatively little

incentive to the exclusive possession and use of these beautiful things, except on the ground of their honorific

character as items of conspicuous waste. Most objects of this general class, with the partial exception of

articles of personal adornment, would serve all other purposes than the honorific one equally well, whether

owned by the person viewing them or not; and even as regards personal ornaments it is to be added that their

chief purpose is to lend ��clat to the person of their wearer (or owner) by comparison with other persons

who are compelled to do without. The aesthetic serviceability of objects of beauty is not greatly nor

The generalization for which the discussion so far affords ground is that any valuable object in order to

appeal to our sense of beauty must conform to the requirements of beauty and of expensiveness both. But this

is not all. Beyond this the canon of expensiveness also affects our tastes in such a way as to inextricably

blend the marks of expensiveness, in our appreciation, with the beautiful features of the object, and to

subsume the resultant effect under the head of an appreciation of beauty simply. The marks of expensiveness

come to be accepted as beautiful features of the expensive articles. They are pleasing as being marks of

honorific costliness, and the pleasure which they afford on this score blends with that afforded by the

beautiful form and color of the object; so that we often declare that an article of apparel, for instance, is

"perfectly lovely," when pretty much all that an analysis of the aesthetic value of the article would leave

This blending and confusion of the elements of expensiveness and of beauty is, perhaps, best exemplified in

articles of dress and of household furniture. The code of reputability in matters of dress decides what shapes,

colors, materials, and general effects in human apparel are for the time to be accepted as suitable; and

departures from the code are offensive to our taste, supposedly as being departures from aesthetic truth. The

approval with which we look upon fashionable attire is by no means to be accounted pure makebelieve. We

readily, and for the most part with utter sincerity, find those things pleasing that are in vogue. Shaggy

dressstuffs and pronounced color effects, for instance, offend us at times when the vogue is goods of a high,

glossy finish and neutral colors. A fancy bonnet of this year's model unquestionably appeals to our

sensibilities today much more forcibly than an equally fancy bonnet of the model of last year; although when

viewed in the perspective of a quarter of a century, it would, I apprehend, be a matter of the utmost difficulty

to award the palm for intrinsic beauty to the one rather than to the other of these structures. So, again, it may

be remarked that, considered simply in their physical juxtaposition with the human form, the high gloss of a

gentleman's hat or of a patentleather shoe has no more of intrinsic beauty than a similiarly high gloss on a

threadbare sleeve; and yet there is no question but that all wellbred people (in the Occidental civilized

communities) instinctively and unaffectedly cleave to the one as a phenomenon of great beauty, and eschew

the other as offensive to every sense to which it can appeal. It is extremely doubtful if any one could be

induced to wear such a contrivance as the high hat of civilized society, except for some urgent reason based

By further habituation to an appreciative perception of the marks of expensiveness in goods, and by

habitually identifying beauty with reputability, it comes about that a beautiful article which is not expensive

is accounted not beautiful. In this way it has happened, for instance, that some beautiful flowers pass

conventionally for offensive weeds; others that can be cultivated with relative ease are accepted and admired

by the lower middle class, who can afford no more expensive luxuries of this kind; but these varieties are

rejected as vulgar by those people who are better able to pay for expensive flowers and who are educated to a

higher schedule of pecuniary beauty in the florist's products; while still other flowers, of no greater intrinsic

beauty than these, are cultivated at great cost and call out much admiration from flowerlovers whose tastes

The same variation in matters of taste, from one class of society to another, is visible also as regards many

other kinds of consumable goods, as, for example, is the case with furniture, houses, parks, and gardens. This

diversity of views as to what is beautiful in these various classes of goods is not a diversity of the norm

according to which the unsophisticated sense of the beautiful works. It is not a constitutional difference of

endowments in the aesthetic respect, but rather a difference in the code of reputability which specifies what

objects properly lie within the scope of honorific consumption for the class to which the critic belongs. It is a

difference in the traditions of propriety with respect to the kinds of things which may, without derogation to

the consumer, be consumed under the head of objects of taste and art. With a certain allowance for variations

to be accounted for on other grounds, these traditions are determined, more or less rigidly, by the pecuniary

Everyday life affords many curious illustrations of the way in which the code of pecuniary beauty in articles

of use varies from class to class, as well as of the way in which the conventional sense of beauty departs in its

deliverances from the sense untutored by the requirements of pecuniary repute. Such a fact is the lawn, or the

closecropped yard or park, which appeals so unaffectedly to the taste of the Western peoples. It appears

especially to appeal to the tastes of the welltodo classes in those communities in which the dolichoblond

element predominates in an appreciable degree. The lawn unquestionably has an element of sensuous beauty,

simply as an object of apperception, and as such no doubt it appeals pretty directly to the eye of nearly all

races and all classes; but it is, perhaps, more unquestionably beautiful to the eye of the dolichoblond than to

most other varieties of men. This higher appreciation of a stretch of greensward in this ethnic element than in

the other elements of the population, goes along with certain other features of the dolichoblond

temperament that indicate that this racial element had once been for a long time a pastoral people inhabiting a

region with a humid climate. The closecropped lawn is beautiful in the eyes of a people whose inherited

bent it is to readily find pleasure in contemplating a wellpreserved pasture or grazing land.

For the aesthetic purpose the lawn is a cow pasture; and in some cases today where the expensiveness of

the attendant circumstances bars out any imputation of thrift the idyl of the dolichoblond is rehabilitated

in the introduction of a cow into a lawn or private ground. In such cases the cow made use of is commonly of

an expensive breed. The vulgar suggestion of thrift, which is nearly inseparable from the cow, is a standing

objection to the decorative use of this animal. So that in all cases, except where luxurious surroundings

negate this suggestion, the use of the cow as an object of taste must be avoided. Where the predilection for

some grazing animal to fill out the suggestion of the pasture is too strong to be suppressed, the cow's place is

often given to some more or less inadequate substitute, such as deer, antelopes, or some such exotic beast.

These substitutes, although less beautiful to the pastoral eye of Western man than the cow, are in such cases

preferred because of their superior expensiveness or futility, and their consequent repute. They are not

Public parks of course fall in the same category with the lawn; they too, at their best, are imitations of the

pasture. Such a park is of course best kept by grazing, and the cattle on the grass are themselves no mean

addition to the beauty of the thing, as need scarcely be insisted on with anyone who has once seen a

wellkept pasture. But it is worth noting, as an expression of the pecuniary element in popular taste, that such

a method of keeping public grounds is seldom resorted to. The best that is done by skilled workmen under the

supervision of a trained keeper is a more or less close imitation of a pasture, but the result invariably falls

somewhat short of the artistic effect of grazing. But to the average popular apprehension a herd of cattle so

pointedly suggests thrift and usefulness that their presence in the public pleasure ground would be intolerably

cheap. This method of keeping grounds is comparatively inexpensive, therefore it is indecorous.

Of the same general bearing is another feature of public grounds. There is a studious exhibition of

expensiveness coupled with a makebelieve of simplicity and crude serviceability. Private grounds also show

the same physiognomy wherever they are in the management or ownership of persons whose tastes have been

formed under middleclass habits of life or under the upperclass traditions of no later a date than the

childhood of the generation that is now passing. Grounds which conform to the instructed tastes of the

latterday upper class do not show these features in so marked a degree. The reason for this difference in

tastes between the past and the incoming generation of the wellbred lies in the changing economic situation.

A similar difference is perceptible in other respects, as well as in the accepted ideals of pleasure grounds. In

this country as in most others, until the last half century but a very small proportion of the population were

possessed of such wealth as would exempt them from thrift. Owing to imperfect means of communication,

this small fraction were scattered and out of effective touch with one another. There was therefore no basis

for a growth of taste in disregard of expensiveness. The revolt of the wellbred taste against vulgar thrift was

unchecked. Wherever the unsophisticated sense of beauty might show itself sporadically in an approval of

inexpensive or thrifty surroundings, it would lack the "social confirmation" which nothing but a considerable

body of likeminded people can give. There was, therefore, no effective upperclass opinion that would

overlook evidences of possible inexpensiveness in the management of grounds; and there was consequently

no appreciable divergence between the leisureclass and the lower middleclass ideal in the physiognomy of

pleasure grounds. Both classes equally constructed their ideals with the fear of pecuniary disrepute before

Today a divergence in ideals is beginning to be apparent. The portion of the leisure class that has been

consistently exempt from work and from pecuniary cares for a generation or more is now large enough to

form and sustain opinion in matters of taste. increased mobility of the members has also added to the facility

with which a "social confirmation" can be attained within the class. Within this select class the exemption

from thrift is a matter so commonplace as to have lost much of its utility as a basis of pecuniary decency.

Therefore the latterday upperclass canons of taste do not so consistently insist on an unremitting

demonstration of expensiveness and a strict exclusion of the appearance of thrift. So, a predilection for the

rustic and the "natural" in parks and grounds makes its appearance on these higher social and intellectual

levels. This predilection is in large part an outcropping of the instinct of workmanship; and it works out its

results with varying degrees of consistency. It is seldom altogether unaffected, and at times it shades off into

something not widely different from that makebelieve of rusticity which has been referred to above.

A weakness for crudely serviceable contrivances that pointedly suggest immediate and wasteless use is

present even in the middleclass tastes; but it is there kept well in hand under the unbroken dominance of the

canon of reputable futility. Consequently it works out in a variety of ways and means for shamming

serviceability in such contrivances as rustic fences, bridges, bowers, pavilions, and the like decorative

features. An expression of this affectation of serviceability, at what is perhaps its widest divergence from the

first promptings of the sense of economic beauty, is afforded by the castiron rustic fence and trellis or by a

The select leisure class has outgrown the use of these pseudoserviceable variants of pecuniary beauty, at

least at some points. But the taste of the more recent accessions to the leisure class proper and of the middle

and lower classes still requires a pecuniary beauty to supplement the aesthetic beauty, even in those objects

which are primarily admired for the beauty that belongs to them as natural growths.

The popular taste in these matters is to be seen in the prevalent high appreciation of topiary work and of the

conventional flowerbeds of public grounds. Perhaps as happy an illustration as may be had of this

dominance of pecuniary beauty over aesthetic beauty in middleclass tastes is seen in the reconstruction of

the grounds lately occupied by the Columbian Exposition. The evidence goes to show that the requirement of

reputable expensiveness is still present in good vigor even where all ostensibly lavish display is avoided. The

artistic effects actually wrought in this work of reconstruction diverge somewhat widely from the effect to

which the same ground would have lent itself in hands not guided by pecuniary canons of taste. And even the

better class of the city's population view the progress of the work with an unreserved approval which suggests

that there is in this case little if any discrepancy between the tastes of the upper and the lower or middle

classes of the city. The sense of beauty in the population of this representative city of the advanced pecuniary

culture is very chary of any departure from its great cultural principle of conspicuous waste.

The love of nature, perhaps itself borrowed from a higherclass code of taste, sometimes expresses itself in

unexpected ways under the guidance of this canon of pecuniary beauty, and leads to results that may seem

incongruous to an unreflecting beholder. The wellaccepted practice of planting trees in the treeless areas of

this country, for instance, has been carried over as an item of honorific expenditure into the heavily wooded

areas; so that it is by no means unusual for a village or a farmer in the wooded country to clear the land of its

native trees and immediately replant saplings of certain introduced varieties about the farmyard or along the

streets. In this way a forest growth of oak, elm, beech, butternut, hemlock, basswood, and birch is cleared off

to give room for saplings of soft maple, cottonwood, and brittle willow. It is felt that the inexpensiveness of

leaving the forest trees standing would derogate from the dignity that should invest an article which is

The like pervading guidance of taste by pecuniary repute is traceable in the prevalent standards of beauty in

animals. The part played by this canon of taste in assigning her place in the popular aesthetic scale to the cow

has already been spokes of. Something to the same effect is true of the other domestic animals, so far as they

are in an appreciable degree industrially useful to the community as, for instance, barnyard fowl, hogs,

cattle, sheep, goats, draughthorses. They are of the nature of productive goods, and serve a useful, often a

lucrative end; therefore beauty is not readily imputed to them. The case is different with those domestic

animals which ordinarily serve no industrial end; such as pigeons, parrots and other cagebirds, cats, dogs,

and fast horses. These commonly are items of conspicuous consumption, and are therefore honorific in their

nature and may legitimately be accounted beautiful. This class of animals are conventionally admired by the

body of the upper classes, while the pecuniarily lower classes and that select minority of the leisure class

among whom the rigorous canon that abjures thrift is in a measure obsolescent find beauty in one class of

animals as in another, without drawing a hard and fast line of pecuniary demarcation between the beautiful

and the ugly. In the case of those domestic animals which are honorific and are reputed beautiful, there is a

subsidiary basis of merit that should be spokes of. Apart from the birds which belong in the honorific class of

domestic animals, and which owe their place in this class to their nonlucrative character alone, the animals

which merit particular attention are cats, dogs, and fast horses. The cat is less reputable than the other two

just named, because she is less wasteful; she may eves serve a useful end. At the same time the cat's

temperament does not fit her for the honorific purpose. She lives with man on terms of equality, knows

nothing of that relation of status which is the ancient basis of all distinctions of worth, honor, and repute, and

she does not lend herself with facility to an invidious comparison between her owner and his neighbors. The

exception to this last rule occurs in the case of such scarce and fanciful products as the Angora cat, which

have some slight honorific value on the ground of expensiveness, and have, therefore, some special claim to

The dog has advantages in the way of uselessness as well as in special gifts of temperament. He is often

spoken of, in an eminent sense, as the friend of man, and his intelligence and fidelity are praised. The

meaning of this is that the dog is man's servant and that he has the gift of an unquestioning subservience and

a slave's quickness in guessing his master's mood. Coupled with these traits, which fit him well for the

relation of status and which must for the present purpose be set down as serviceable traits the dog has

some characteristics which are of a more equivocal aesthetic value. He is the filthiest of the domestic animals

in his person and the nastiest in his habits. For this he makes up is a servile, fawning attitude towards his

master, and a readiness to inflict damage and discomfort on all else. The dog, then, commends himself to our

favor by affording play to our propensity for mastery, and as he is also an item of expense, and commonly

serves no industrial purpose, he holds a wellassured place in men's regard as a thing of good repute. The dog

is at the same time associated in our imagination with the chase a meritorious employment and an

expression of the honorable predatory impulse. Standing on this vantage ground, whatever beauty of form

and motion and whatever commendable mental traits he may possess are conventionally acknowledged and

magnified. And even those varieties of the dog which have been bred into grotesque deformity by the

dogfancier are in good faith accounted beautiful by many. These varieties of dogs and the like is true of

other fancybred animals are rated and graded in aesthetic value somewhat in proportion to the degree of

grotesqueness and instability of the particular fashion which the deformity takes in the given case. For the

purpose in hand, this differential utility on the ground of grotesqueness and instability of structure is

reducible to terms of a greater scarcity and consequent expense. The commercial value of canine

monstrosities, such as the prevailing styles of pet dogs both for men's and women's use, rests on their high

cost of production, and their value to their owners lies chiefly in their utility as items of conspicuous

consumption. In directly, through reflection Upon their honorific expensiveness, a social worth is imputed to

them; and so, by an easy substitution of words and ideas, they come to be admired and reputed beautiful.

Since any attention bestowed upon these animals is in no sense gainful or useful, it is also reputable; and

since the habit of giving them attention is consequently not deprecated, it may grow into an habitual

attachment of great tenacity and of a most benevolent character. So that in the affection bestowed on pet

animals the canon of expensiveness is present more or less remotely as a norm which guides and shapes the

sentiment and the selection of its object. The like is true, as will be noticed presently, with respect to affection

for persons also; although the manner in which the norm acts in that case is somewhat different.

The case of the fast horse is much like that of the dog. He is on the whole expensive, or wasteful and useless

for the industrial purpose. What productive use he may possess, in the way of enhancing the wellbeing

of the community or making the way of life easier for men, takes the form of exhibitions of force and facility

of motion that gratify the popular aesthetic sense. This is of course a substantial serviceability. The horse is

not endowed with the spiritual aptitude for servile dependence in the same measure as the dog; but he

ministers effectually to his master's impulse to convert the "animate" forces of the environment to his own

use and discretion and so express his own dominating individuality through them. The fast horse is at least

potentially a racehorse, of high or low degree; and it is as such that he is peculiarly serviceable to his owner.

The utility of the fast horse lies largely in his efficiency as a means of emulation; it gratifies the owner's sense

of aggression and dominance to have his own horse outstrip his neighbor's. This use being not lucrative, but

on the whole pretty consistently wasteful, and quite conspicuously so, it is honorific, and therefore gives the

fast horse a strong presumptive position of reputability. Beyond this, the racehorse proper has also a

The fast horse, then, is aesthetically fortunate, in that the canon of pecuniary good repute legitimates a free

appreciation of whatever beauty or serviceability he may possess. His pretensions have the countenance of

the principle of conspicuous waste and the backing of the predatory aptitude for dominance and emulation.

The horse is, moreover, a beautiful animal, although the racehorse is so in no peculiar degree to the

uninstructed taste of those persons who belong neither in the class of racehorse fanciers nor in the class

whose sense of beauty is held in abeyance by the moral constraint of the horse fancier's award. To this

untutored taste the most beautiful horse seems to be a form which has suffered less radical alteration than the

racehorse under the breeder's selective development of the animal. Still, when a writer or speaker

especially of those whose eloquence is most consistently commonplace wants an illustration of animal grace

and serviceability, for rhetorical use, he habitually turns to the horse; and he commonly makes it plain before

It should be noted that in the graduated appreciation of varieties of horses and of dogs, such as one meets

with among people of even moderately cultivated tastes in these matters, there is also discernible another and

more direct line of influence of the leisureclass canons of reputability. In this country, for instance,

leisureclass tastes are to some extent shaped on usages and habits which prevail, or which are apprehended

to prevail, among the leisure class of Great Britain. In dogs this is true to a less extent than in horses. In

horses, more particularly in saddle horses which at their best serve the purpose of wasteful display simply

it will hold true in a general way that a horse is more beautiful in proportion as he is more English; the

English leisure class being, for purposes of reputable usage, the upper leisure class of this country, and so the

exemplar for the lower grades. This mimicry in the methods of the apperception of beauty and in the forming

of judgments of taste need not result in a spurious, or at any rate not a hypocritical or affected, predilection.

The predilection is as serious and as substantial an award of taste when it rests on this basis as when it rests

on any other, the difference is that this taste is and as substantial an award of taste when it rests on this basis

as when it rests on any other; the difference is that this taste is a taste for the reputably correct, not for the

The mimicry, it should be said, extends further than to the sense of beauty in horseflesh simply. It includes

trappings and horsemanship as well, so that the correct or reputably beautiful seat or posture is also decided

by English usage, as well as the equestrian gait. To show how fortuitous may sometimes be the circumstances

which decide what shall be becoming and what not under the pecuniary canon of beauty, it may be noted that

this English seat, and the peculiarly distressing gait which has made an awkward seat necessary, are a

survival from the time when the English roads were so bad with mire and mud as to be virtually impassable

for a horse travelling at a more comfortable gait; so that a person of decorous tastes in horsemanship today

rides a punch with docked tail, in an uncomfortable posture and at a distressing gait, because the English

roads during a great part of the last century were impassable for a horse travelling at a more horselike gait,

or for an animal built for moving with ease over the firm and open country to which the horse is indigenous.

It is not only with respect to consumable goods including domestic animals that the canons of taste

have been colored by the canons of pecuniary reputability. Something to the like effect is to be said for

beauty in persons. In order to avoid whatever may be matter of controversy, no weight will be given in this

connection to such popular predilection as there may be for the dignified (leisurely) bearing and poly

presence that are by vulgar tradition associated with opulence in mature men. These traits are in some

measure accepted as elements of personal beauty. But there are certain elements of feminine beauty, on the

other hand, which come in under this head, and which are of so concrete and specific a character as to admit

of itemized appreciation. It is more or less a rule that in communities which are at the stage of economic

development at which women are valued by the upper class for their service, the ideal of female beauty is a

robust, largelimbed woman. The ground of appreciation is the physique, while the conformation of the face

is of secondary weight only. A wellknown instance of this ideal of the early predatory culture is that of the

This ideal suffers a change in the succeeding development, when, in the conventional scheme, the office of

the highclass wife comes to be a vicarious leisure simply. The ideal then includes the characteristics which

are supposed to result from or to go with a life of leisure consistently enforced. The ideal accepted under

these circumstances may be gathered from descriptions of beautiful women by poets and writers of the

chivalric times. In the conventional scheme of those days ladies of high degree were conceived to be in

perpetual tutelage, and to be scrupulously exempt from all useful work. The resulting chivalric or romantic

ideal of beauty takes cognizance chiefly of the face, and dwells on its delicacy, and on the delicacy of the

hands and feet, the slender figure, and especially the slender waist. In the pictured representations of the

women of that time, and in modern romantic imitators of the chivalric thought and feeling, the waist is

attenuated to a degree that implies extreme debility. The same ideal is still extant among a considerable

portion of the population of modern industrial communities; but it is to be said that it has retained its hold

most tenaciously in those modern communities which are least advanced in point of economic and civil

development, and which show the most considerable survivals of status and of predatory institutions. That is

to say, the chivalric ideal is best preserved in those existing communities which are substantially least

modern. Survivals of this lackadaisical or romantic ideal occur freely in the tastes of the welltodo classes

of Continental countries. In modern communities which have reached the higher levels of industrial

development, the upper leisure class has accumulated so great a mass of wealth as to place its women above

all imputation of vulgarly productive labor. Here the status of women as vicarious consumers is beginning to

lose its place in the sections of the body of the people; and as a consequence the ideal of feminine beauty is

beginning to change back again from the infirmly delicate, translucent, and hazardously slender, to a woman

of the archaic type that does not disown her hands and feet, nor, indeed, the other gross material facts of her

person. In the course of economic development the ideal of beauty among the peoples of the Western culture

has shifted from the woman of physical presence to the lady, and it is beginning to shift back again to the

woman; and all in obedience to the changing conditions of pecuniary emulation. The exigencies of emulation

at one time required lusty slaves; at another time they required a conspicuous performance of vicarious

leisure and consequently an obvious disability; but the situation is now beginning to outgrow this last

requirement, since, under the higher efficiency of modern industry, leisure in women is possible so far down

the scale of reputability that it will no longer serve as a definitive mark of the highest pecuniary grade.

Apart from this general control exercised by the norm of conspicuous waste over the ideal of feminine

beauty, there are one or two details which merit specific mention as showing how it may exercise an extreme

constraint in detail over men's sense of beauty in women. It has already been noticed that at the stages of

economic evolution at which conspicuous leisure is much regarded as a means of good repute, the ideal

requires delicate and diminutive bands and feet and a slender waist. These features, together with the other,

related faults of structure that commonly go with them, go to show that the person so affected is incapable of

useful effort and must therefore be supported in idleness by her owner. She is useless and expensive, and she

is consequently valuable as evidence of pecuniary strength. It results that at this cultural stage women take

thought to alter their persons, so as to conform more nearly to the requirements of the instructed taste of the

time; and under the guidance of the canon of pecuniary decency, the men find the resulting artificially

induced pathological features attractive. So, for instance, the constricted waist which has had so wide and

persistent a vogue in the communities of the Western culture, and so also the deformed foot of the Chinese.

Both of these are mutilations of unquestioned repulsiveness to the untrained sense. It requires habituation to

become reconciled to them. Yet there is no room to question their attractiveness to men into whose scheme of

life they fit as honorific items sanctioned by the requirements of pecuniary reputability. They are items of

pecuniary and cultural beauty which have come to do duty as elements of the ideal of womanliness.

The connection here indicated between the aesthetic value and the invidious pecuniary value of things is of

course not present in the consciousness of the valuer. So far as a person, in forming a judgment of taste, takes

thought and reflects that the object of beauty under consideration is wasteful and reputable, and therefore may

legitimately be accounted beautiful; so far the judgment is not a bona fide judgment of taste and does not

come up for consideration in this connection. The connection which is here insisted on between the

reputability and the apprehended beauty of objects lies through the effect which the fact of reputability has

upon the valuer's habits of thought. He is in the habit of forming judgments of value of various

kindseconomic, moral, aesthetic, or reputable concerning the objects with which he has to do, and his

attitude of commendation towards a given object on any other ground will affect the degree of his

appreciation of the object when he comes to value it for the aesthetic purpose. This is more particularly true

as regards valuation on grounds so closely related to the aesthetic ground as that of reputability. The

valuation for the aesthetic purpose and for the purpose of repute are not held apart as distinctly as might be.

Confusion is especially apt to arise between these two kinds of valuation, because the value of objects for

repute is not habitually distinguished in speech by the use of a special descriptive term. The result is that the

terms in familiar use to designate categories or elements of beauty are applied to cover this unnamed element

of pecuniary merit, and the corresponding confusion of ideas follows by easy consequence. The demands of

reputability in this way coalesce in the popular apprehension with the demands of the sense of beauty, and

beauty which is not accompanied by the accredited marks of good repute is not accepted. But the

requirements of pecuniary reputability and those of beauty in the naive sense do not in any appreciable degree

coincide. The elimination from our surroundings of the pecuniarily unfit, therefore, results in a more or less

thorough elimination of that considerable range of elements of beauty which do not happen to conform to the

pecuniary requirement. The underlying norms of taste are of very ancient growth, probably far antedating the

advent of the pecuniary institutions that are here under discussion. Consequently, by force of the past

selective adaptation of men's habits of thought, it happens that the requirements of beauty, simply, are for the

most part best satisfied by inexpensive contrivances and structures which in a straightforward manner suggest

both the office which they are to perform and the method of serving their end, It may be in place to recall the

modern psychological position. Beauty of form seems to be a question of facility of apperception. The

proposition could perhaps safely be made broader than this. If abstraction is made from association,

suggestion, and "expression," classed as elements of beauty, then beauty in any perceived object means that

the mid readily unfolds its apperceptive activity in the directions which the object in question affords. But the

directions in which activity readily unfolds or expresses itself are the directions to which long and close

habituation bas made the mind prone. So far as concerns the essential elements of beauty, this habituation is

an habituation so close and long as to have induced not only a proclivity to the apperceptive form in question,

but an adaptation of physiological structure and function as well. So far as the economic interest enters into

the constitution of beauty, it enters as a suggestion or expression of adequacy to a purpose, a manifest and

readily inferable subservience to the life process. This expression of economic facility or economic

serviceability in any object what may be called the economic beauty of the objectis best sewed by neat

and unambiguous suggestion of its office and its efficiency for the material ends of life.

On this ground, among objects of use the simple and unadorned article is aesthetically the best. But since the

pecuniary canon of reputability rejects the inexpensive in articles appropriated to individual consumption, the

satisfaction of our craving for beautiful things must be sought by way of compromise. The canons of beauty

must be circumvented by some contrivance which will give evidence of a reputably wasteful expenditure, at

the same time that it meets the demands of our critical sense of the useful and the beautiful, or at least meets

the demand of some habit which has come to do duty in place of that sense. Such an auxiliary sense of taste is

the sense of novelty; and this latter is helped out in its surrogateship by the curiosity with which men view

ingenious and puzzling contrivances. Hence it comes that most objects alleged to be beautiful, and doing duty

as such, show considerable ingenuity of design and are calculated to puzzle the beholder to bewilder him

with irrelevant suggestions and hints of the improbable at the same time that they give evidence of an

expenditure of labor in excess of what would give them their fullest efficency for their ostensible economic

This may be shown by an illustration taken from outside the range of our everyday habits and everyday

contact, and so outside the range of our bias. Such are the remarkable feather mantles of Hawaii, or the

wellknown cawed handles of the ceremonial adzes of several Polynesian islands, These are undeniably

beautiful, both in the sense that they offer a pleasing composition of form, lines, and color, and in the sense

that they evince great skill and ingenuity in design and construction. At the same time the articles are

manifestly ill fitted to serve any other economic purpose. But it is not always that the evolution of ingenious

and puzzling contrivances under the guidance of the canon of wasted effort works out so happy a result. The

result is quite as often a virtually complete suppression of all elements that would bear scrutiny as

expressions of beauty, or of serviceability, and the substitution of evidences of misspent ingenuity and labor,

backed by a conspicuous ineptitude; until many of the objects with which we surround ourselves in everyday

life, and even many articles of everyday dress and ornament, are such as would not be tolerated except under

the stress of prescriptive tradition. Illustrations of this substitution of ingenuity and expense in place of

beauty and serviceability are to be seen, for instance, in domestic architecture, in domestic art or fancy work,

The canon of beauty requires expression of the generic. The "novelty" due to the demands of conspicuous

waste traverses this canon of beauty, in that it results in making the physiognomy of our objects of taste a

congeries of idiosyncrasies; and the idiosyncrasies are, moreover, under the selective surveillance of the

This process of selective adaptation of designs to the end of conspicuous waste, and the substitution of

pecuniary beauty for aesthetic beauty, has been especially effective in the development of architecture. It

would be extremely difficult to find a modern civilized residence or public building which can claim anything

better than relative inoffensiveness in the eyes of anyone who will dissociate the elements of beauty from

those of honorific waste. The endless variety of fronts presented by the better class of tenements and

apartment houses in our cities is an endless variety of architectural distress and of suggestions of expensive

discomfort. Considered as objects of beauty, the dead walls of the sides and back of these structures, left

untouched by the hands of the artist, are commonly the best feature of the building.

What has been said of the influence of the law of conspicuous waste upon the canons of taste will hold true,

with but a slight change of terms, of its influence upon our notions of the serviceability of goods for other

ends than the aesthetic one. Goods are produced and consumed as a means to the fuller unfolding of human

life; and their utility consists, in the first instance, in their efficiency as means to this end. The end is, in the

first instance, the fullness of life of the individual, taken in absolute terms. But the human proclivity to

emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby

invested constable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay. This indirect or

secondary use of consumable goods lends an honorific character to consumption and presently also to the

goods which best serve the emulative end of consumption. The consumption of expensive goods is

meritorious, and the goods which contain an appreciable element of cost in excess of what goes to give them

serviceability for their ostensible mechanical purpose are honorific. The marks of superfluous costliness in

the goods are therefore marks of worth of high efficency for the indirect, invidious end to be served by

their consumption; and conversely. goods are humilific, and therefore unattractive, if they show too thrifty an

adaptation to the mechanical end sought and do not include a margin of expensiveness on which to rest a

complacent invidious comparison. This indirect utility gives much of their value to the "better" grades of

goods. In order to appeal to the cultivated sense of utility, an article must contain a modicum of this indirect

While men may have set out with disapproving an inexpensive manner of living because it indicated inability

to spend much, and so indicated a lack of pecuniary success, they end by falling into the habit of

disapproving cheap things as being intrinsically dishonorable or unworthy because they are cheap. As time

has gone on, each succeeding generation has received this tradition of meritorious expenditure from the

generation before it, and has in its turn further elaborated and fortified the traditional canon of pecuniary

reputability in goods consumed; until we have finally reached such a degree of conviction as to the

unworthiness of all inexpensive things, that we have no longer any misgivings in formulating the maxim,

"Cheap and nasty." So thoroughly has the habit of approving the expensive and disapproving the inexpensive

been ingrained into our thinking that we instinctively insist upon at least some measure of wasteful

expensiveness in all our consumption, even in the case of goods which are consumed in strict privacy and

without the slightest thought of display. We all feel, sincerely and without misgiving, that we are the more

lifted up in spirit for having, even in the privacy of our own household, eaten our daily meal by the help of

handwrought silver utensils, from handpainted china (often of dubious artistic value) laid on highpriced

table linen. Any retrogression from the standard of living which we are accustomed to regard as worthy in

this respect is felt to be a grievous violation of our human dignity. So, also, for the last dozen years candles

have been a more pleasing source of light at dinner than any other. Candlelight is now softer, less distressing

to wellbred eyes, than oil, gas, or electric light. The same could not have been said thirty years ago, when

candles were, or recently had been, the cheapest available light for domestic use. Nor are candles even now

found to give an acceptable or effective light for any other than a ceremonial illumination.

A political sage still living has summed up the conclusion of this whole matter in the dictum : "A cheap coat

makes a cheap man," and there is probably no one who does not feel the convincing force of the maxim.

The habit of looking for the marks of superfluous expensiveness in goods, and of requiring that all goods

should afford some utility of the indirect or invidious sort, leads to a change in the standards by which the

utility of goods is gauged. The honorific element and the element of brute efficiency are not held apart in the

consumer's appreciation of commodities, and the two together go to make up the unanalyzed aggregate

serviceability of the goods. Under the resulting standard of serviceability, no article will pass muster on the

strength of material sufficiency alone. In order to completeness and full acceptability to the consumer it must

also show the honorific element. It results that the producers of articles of consumption direct their efforts to

the production of goods that shall meet this demand for the honorific element. They will do this with all the

more alacrity and effect, since they are themselves under the dominance of the same standard of worth in

goods, and would be sincerely grieved at the sight of goods which lack the proper honorific finish. Hence it

has come about that there are today no goods supplied in any trade which do not contain the honorific

element in greater or less degree. Any consumer who might, Diogeneslike, insist on the elimination of all

honorific or wasteful elements from his consumption, would be unable to supply his most trivial wants in the

modern market. Indeed, even if he resorted to supplying his wants directly by his own efforts, he would find

it difficult if not impossible to divest himself of the current habits of thought on this head; so that he could

scarcely compass a supply of the necessaries of life for a day's consumption without instinctively and by

oversight incorporating in his homemade product something of this honorific, quasidecorative element of

It is notorious that in their selection of serviceable goods in the retail market purchasers are guided more by

the finish and workmanship of the goods than by any marks of substantial serviceability. Goods, in order to

sell, must have some appreciable amount of labor spent in giving them the marks of decent expensiveness, in

addition to what goes to give them efficiency for the material use which they are to serve. This habit of

making obvious costliness a canon of serviceability of course acts to enhance the aggregate cost of articles of

consumption. It puts us on our guard against cheapness by identifying merit in some degree with cost. There

is ordinarily a consistent effort on the part of the consumer to obtain goods of the required serviceability at as

advantageous a bargain as may be; but the conventional requirement of obvious costliness, as a voucher and a

constituent of the serviceability of the goods, leads him to reject as under grade such goods as do not contain

It is to be added that a large share of those features of consumable goods which figure in popular

apprehension as marks of serviceability, and to which reference is here had as elements of conspicuous waste,

commend themselves to the consumer also on other grounds than that of expensiveness alone. They usually

give evidence of skill and effective workmanship, even if they do not contribute to the substantial

serviceability of the goods; and it is no doubt largely on some such ground that any particular mark of

honorific serviceability first comes into vogue and afterward maintains its footing as a normal constituent

element of the worth of an article. A display of efficient workmanship is pleasing simply as such, even where

its remoter, for the time unconsidered, outcome is futile. There is a gratification of the artistic sense in the

contemplation of skillful work. But it is also to be added that no such evidence of skillful workmanship, or of

ingenious and effective adaptation of means to an end, will, in the long run, enjoy the approbation of the

modern civilized consumer unless it has the sanction of the Canon of conspicuous waste.

The position here taken is enforced in a felicitous manner by the place assigned in the economy of

consumption to machine products. The point of material difference between machinemade goods and the

handwrought goods which serve the same purposes is, ordinarily, that the former serve their primary

purpose more adequately. They are a more perfect product show a more perfect adaptation of means to

end. This does not save them from disesteem and deprecation, for they fall short under the test of honorific

waste. Hand labor is a more wasteful method of production; hence the goods turned out by this method are

more serviceable for the purpose of pecuniary reputability; hence the marks of hand labor come to be

honorific, and the goods which exhibit these marks take rank as of higher grade than the corresponding

machine product. Commonly, if not invariably, the honorific marks of hand labor are certain imperfections

and irregularities in the lines of the handwrought article, showing where the workman has fallen short in the

execution of the design. The ground of the superiority of handwrought goods, therefore, is a certain margin

of crudeness. This margin must never be so wide as to show bungling workmanship, since that would be

evidence of low cost, nor so narrow as to suggest the ideal precision attained only by the machine, for that

The appreciation of those evidences of honorific crUdeness to which handwrought goods owe their superior

worth and charm in the eyes of wellbred people is a matter of nice discrimination. It requires training and

the formation of right habits of thought with respect to what may be called the physiognomy of goods.

Machinemade goods of daily use are often admired and preferred precisely on account of their excessive

perfection by the vulgar and the underbred who have not given due thought to the punctilios of elegant

consumption. The ceremonial inferiority of machine products goes to show that the perfection of skill and

workmanship embodied in any costly innovations in the finish of goods is not sufficient of itself to secure

them acceptance and permanent favor. The innovation must have the support of the canon of conspicuous

waste. Any feature in the physiognomy of goods, however pleasing in itself, and however well it may

approve itself to the taste for effective work, will not be tolerated if it proves obnoxious to this norm of

The ceremonial inferiority or uncleanness in consumable goods due to "commonness," or in other words to

their slight cost of production, has been taken very seriously by many persons. The objection to machine

products is often formulated as an objection to the commonness of such goods. What is common is within the

(pecuniary) reach of many people. Its consumption is therefore not honorific, since it does not serve the

purpose of a favorable invidious comparison with other consumers. Hence the consumption, or even the sight

of such goods, is inseparable from an odious suggestion of the lower levels of human life, and one comes

away from their contemplation with a pervading sense of meanness that is extremely distasteful and

depressing to a person of sensibility. In persons whose tastes assert themselves imperiously, and who have

not the gift, habit, or incentive to discriminate between the grounds of their various judgments of taste, the

deliverances of the sense of the honorific coalesce with those of the sense of beauty and of the sense of

serviceability in the manner already spoken of; the resulting composite valuation serves as a judgment of

the object's beauty or its serviceability, according as the valuer's bias or interest inclines him to apprehend the

object in the one or the other of these aspects. It follows not infrequently that the marks of cheapness or

commonness are accepted as definitive marks of artistic unfitness, and a code or schedule of aesthetic

proprieties on the one hand, and of aesthetic abominations On the other, is constructed on this basis for

As has already been pointed out, the cheap, and therefore indecorous, articles of daily consumption in modern

industrial communities are commonly machine products; and the generic feature of the physiognomy of

machinemade goods as compared with the handwrought article is their greater perfection in workmanship

and greater accuracy in the detail execution of the design. Hence it comes about that the visible imperfections

of the handwrought goods, being honorific, are accounted marks of superiority in point of beauty, Or

serviceability, or both. Hence has arisen that exaltation of the defective, of which John Ruskin and William

Morris were such eager spokesmen in their time; and on this ground their propaganda of crudity and wasted

effort has been taken up and carried forward since their time. And hence also the propaganda for a return to

handicraft and household industry. So much of the work and speculations of this group of men as fairly

comes under the characterization here given would have been impossible at a time when the visibly more

It is of course only as to the economic value of this school of aesthetic teaching that anything is intended to

be said or can be said here. What is said is not to be taken in the sense of depreciation, but chiefly as a

characterization of the tendency of this teaching in its effect on consumption and on the production of

The manner in which the bias of this growth of taste has worked itself out in production is perhaps most

cogently exemplified in the book manufacture with which Morris busied himself during the later years of his

life; but what holds true of the work of the Kelmscott Press in an eminent degree, holds true with but slightly

abated force when applied to latterday artistic bookmaking generally as to type, paper, illustration,

binding materials, and binder's work. The claims to excellence put forward by the later products of the

bookmaker's industry rest in some measure on the degree of its approximation to the crudities of the time

when the work of bookmaking was a doubtful struggle with refractory materials carried on by means of

insufficient appliances. These products, since they require hand labor, are more expensive; they are also less

convenient for use than the books turned out with a view to serviceability alone; they therefore argue ability

on the part of the purchaser to consume freely, as well as ability to waste time and effort. It is on this basis

that the printers of today are returning to "oldstyle," and other more or less obsolete styles of type which are

less legible and give a cruder appearance to the page than the "modern." Even a scientific periodical, with

ostensibly no purpose but the most effective presentation of matter with which its science is concerned, will

concede so much to the demands of this pecuniary beauty as to publish its scientific discussions in oldstyle

type, on laid paper, and with uncut edges. But books which are not ostensibly concerned with the effective

presentation of their contents alone, of course go farther in this direction. Here we have a somewhat cruder

type, printed on handlaid, deckeledged paper, with excessive margins and uncut leaves, with bindings of a

painstaking crudeness and elaborate ineptitude. The Kelmscott Press reduced the matter to an absurdity as

seen from the point of view of brute serviceability alone by issuing books for modern use, edited with the

obsolete spelling, printed in blackletter, and bound in limp vellum fitted with thongs. As a further

characteristic feature which fixes the economic place of artistic bookmaking, there is the fact that these

more elegant books are, at their best, printed in limited editions. A limited edition is in effect a guarantee

somewhat crude, it is true that this book is scarce and that it therefore is costly and lends pecuniary

The special attractiveness of these bookproducts to the bookbuyer of cultivated taste lies, of course, not in

a conscious, naive recognition of their costliness and superior clumsiness. Here, as in the parallel case of the

superiority of handwrought articles over machine products, the conscious ground of preference is an

intrinsic excellence imputed to the costlier and more awkward article. The superior excellence imputed to the

book which imitates the products of antique and obsolete processes is conceived to be chiefly a superior

utility in the aesthetic respect; but it is not unusual to find a wellbred booklover insisting that the clumsier

product is also more serviceable as a vehicle of printed speech. So far as regards the superior aesthetic value

of the decadent book, the chances are that the booklover's contention has some ground. The book is

designed with an eye single to its beauty, and the result is commonly some measure of success on the part of

the designer. What is insisted on here, however, is that the canon of taste under which the designer works is a

canon formed under the surveillance of the law of conspicuous waste, and that this law acts selectively to

eliminate any canon of taste that does not conform to its demands. That is to say, while the decadent book

may be beautiful, the limits within which the designer may work are fixed by requirements of a nonaesthetic

kind. The product, if it is beautiful, must also at the same time be costly and ill adapted to its ostensible use.

This mandatory canon of taste in the case of the bookdesigner, however, is not shaped entirely by the law of

waste in its first form; the canon is to some extent shaped in conformity to that secondary expression of the

predatory temperament, veneration for the archaic or obsolete, which in one of its special developments is

called classicism. In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line

between the canon of classicism, or regard for the archaic, and the canon of beauty, For the aesthetic purpose

such a distinction need scarcely be drawn, and indeed it need not exist. For a theory of taste the expression of

an accepted ideal of archaism, on whatever basis it may have been accepted, is perhaps best rated as an

element of beauty; there need be no question of its legitimation. But for the present purpose for the

purpose of determining what economic grounds are present in the accepted canons of taste and what is their

significance for the distribution and consumption of goods the distinction is not similarly beside the point.

The position of machine products in the civilized scheme of consumption serves to point out the nature of the

relation which subsists between the canon of conspicuous waste and the code of proprieties in consumption.

Neither in matters of art and taste proper, nor as regards the current sense of the serviceability of goods, does

this canon act as a principle of innovation or initiative. It does not go into the future as a creative principle

which makes innovations and adds new items of consumption and new elements of cost. The principle in

question is, in a certain sense, a negative rather than a positive law. It is a regulative rather than a creative

principle. It very rarely initiates or originates any usage or custom directly. Its action is selective only.

Conspicuous wastefulness does not directly afford ground for variation and growth, but conformity to its

requirements is a condition to the survival of such innovations as may be made on other grounds. In whatever

way usages and customs and methods of expenditure arise, they are all subject to the selective action of this

norm of reputability; and the degree in which they conform to its requirements is a test of their fitness to

survive in the competition with other similar usages and customs. Other thing being equal, the more

obviously wasteful usage or method stands the better chance of survival under this law. The law of

conspicuous waste does not account for the origin of variations, but only for the persistence of such forms as

are fit to survive under its dominance. It acts to conserve the fit, not to originate the acceptable. Its office is to

It will in place, by way of illustration, to show in some detail how the economic principles so far set forth

apply to everyday facts in some one direction of the life process. For this purpose no line of consumption

affords a more apt illustration than expenditure on dress. It is especially the rule of the conspicuous waste of

goods that finds expression in dress, although the other, related principles of pecuniary repute are also

exemplified in the same contrivances. Other methods of putting one's pecuniary standing in evidence serve

their end effectually, and other methods are in vogue always and everywhere; but expenditure on dress has

this advantage over most other methods, that our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of

our pecuniary standing to all observers at the first glance. It is also true that admitted expenditure for display

is more obviously present, and is, perhaps, more universally practiced in the matter of dress than in any other

line of consumption. No one finds difficulty in assenting to the commonplace that the greater part of the

expenditure incurred by all classes for apparel is incurred for the sake of a respectable appearance rather than

for the protection of the person. And probably at no other point is the sense of shabbiness so keenly felt as it

is if we fall short of the standard set by social usage in this matter of dress. It is true of dress in even a higher

degree than of most other items of consumption, that people will undergo a very considerable degree of

privation in the comforts or the neCessaries of life in order to afford what is considered a decent amount of

wasteful consumption; so that it is by no means an uncommon occurrence, in an inclement climate, for people

to go ill clad in order to appear well dressed. And the commercial value of the goods used for clotting in any

modern community is made up to a much larger extent of the fashionableness, the reputability of the goods

than of the mechanical service which they render in clothing the person of the wearer. The need of dress is

This spiritual need of dress is not wholly, nor even chiefly, a naive propensity for display of expenditure. The

law of conspicuous waste guides consumption in apparel, as in other things, chiefly at the second remove, by

shaping the canons of taste and decency. In the common run of cases the conscious motive of the wearer or

purchaser of conspicuously wasteful apparel is the need of conforming to established usage, and of living up

to the accredited standard of taste and reputability. It is not only that one must be guided by the code of

proprieties in dress in order to avoid the mortification that comes of unfavorable notice and comment, though

that motive in itself counts for a great deal; but besides that, the requirement of expensiveness is so ingrained

into our habits of thought in matters of dress that any other than expensive apparel is instinctively odious to

us. Without reflection or analysis, we feel that what is inexpensive is unworthy. "A cheap coat makes a cheap

man." "Cheap and nasty" is recognized to hold true in dress with even less mitigation than in other lines of

consumption. On the ground both of taste and of serviceability, an inexpensive article of apparel is held to be

inferior, under the maxim "cheap and nasty." We find things beautiful, as well as serviceable, somewhat in

proportion as they are costly. With few and inconsequential exceptions, we all find a costly handwrought

article of apparel much preferable, in point of beauty and of serviceability, to a less expensive imitation of it,

however cleverly the spurious article may imitate the costly original; and what offends our sensibilities in the

spurious article is not that it falls short in form or color, or, indeed, in visual effect in any way. The offensive

object may be so close an imitation aS to defy any but the closest scrutiny; and yet so soon as the counterfeit

is detected, its aesthetic value, and its commercial value as well, declines precipitately. Not only that, but it

may be asserted with but small risk of contradiction that the aesthetic value of a detected counterfeit in dress

declines somewhat in the same proportion as the counterfeit is cheaper than its original. It loses caste

But the function of dress as an evidence of ability to pay does not end with simply showing that the wearer

consumes valuable goods in excess of what is required for physical comfort. Simple conspicuous waste of

goods is effective and gratifying as far as it goes; it is good prima facie evidence of pecuniary success, and

consequently prima facie evidence of social worth. But dress has subtler and more farreaching possibilities

than this crude, firsthand evidence of wasteful consumption only. If, in addition to showing that the wearer

can afford to consume freely and uneconomically, it can also be shown in the same stroke that he or she is not

under the necessity of earning a livelihood, the evidence of social worth is enhanced in a very considerable

degree. Our dress, therefore, in order to serve its purpose effectually, should not only he expensive, but it

should also make plain to all observers that the wearer is not engaged in any kind of productive labor. In the

evolutionary process by which our system of dress has been elaborated into its present admirably perfect

adaptation to its purpose, this subsidiary line of evidence has received due attention. A detailed examination

of what passes in popular apprehension for elegant apparel will show that it is contrived at every point to

convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort. It goes without saying

that no apparel can be considered elegant, or even decent, if it shows the effect of manual labor on the part of

the wearer, in the way of soil or wear. The pleasing effect of neat and spotless garments is chiefly, if not

altogether, due to their carrying the suggestion of leisureexemption from personal contact with industrial

processes of any kind. Much of the charm that invests the patentleather shoe, the stainless linen, the lustrous

cylindrical hat, and the walkingstick, which so greatly enhance the native dignity of a gentleman, comes of

their pointedly suggesting that the wearer cannot when so attired bear a hand in any employment that is

directly and immediately of any human use. Elegant dress serves its purpose of elegance not only in that it is

expensive, but also because it is the insignia of leisure. It not only shows that the wearer is able to consume a

relativeLy large value, but it argues at the same time that he consumes without producing.

The dress of women goes even farther than that of men in the way of demonstrating the wearer's abstinence

from productive employment. It needs no argument to enforce the generalization that the more elegant styLes

of feminine bonnets go even farther towards making work impossible than does the man's high hat. The

woman's shoe adds the socalled French heel to the evidence of enforced leisure afforded by its polish;

because this high heel obviously makes any, even the simplest and most necessary manual work extremely

difficult. The like is true even in a higher degree of the skirt and the rest of the drapery which characterizes

woman's dress. The substantial reason for our tenacious attachment to the skirt is just this; it is expensive and

it hampers the wearer at every turn and incapacitates her for alL useful exertion. The like is true of the

But the woman's apparel not only goes beyond that of the modern man in the degree in which it argues

exemption from labor; it also adds a peculiar and highly characteristic feature which differs in kind from

anything habitually practiced by the men. This feature is the class of contrivances of which the corset is the

typical example. The corset is, in economic theory, substantially a mutilation, undergone for the purpose of

lowering the subject's vitality and rendering her permanently and obviously unfit for work. It is true, the

corset impairs the personal attractions of the wearer, but the loss suffered on that score is offset by the gain in

reputability which comes of her visibly increased expensiveness and infirmity. It may broadly be set down

that the womanliness of woman's apparel resolves itself, in point of substantial fact, into the more effective

hindrance to useful exertion offered by the garments peculiar to women. This difference between masculine

and feminine apparel is here simply pointed out as a characteristic feature. The ground of its occurrence will

So far, then, we have, as the great and dominant norm of dress, the broad principle of conspicuous waste.

Subsidiary to this principle, and as a corollary under it, we get as a second norm the principle of conspicuous

leisure. In dress construction this norm works out in the shape of divers contrivances going to show that the

wearer does not and, as far as it may conveniently be shown, can not engage in productive labor. Beyond

these two principles there is a third of scarcely less constraining force, which will occur to any one who

reflects at all on the subject. Dress must not only be conspicuously expensive and inconvenient, it must at the

same time be up to date. No explanation at all satisfactory has hitherto been offered of the phenomenon of

changing fashions. The imperative requirement of dressing in the latest accredited manner, as well as the fact

that this accredited fashion constantly changes from season to season, is sufficiently familiar to every one, but

the theory of this flux and change has not been worked out. We may of course say, with perfect consistency

and truthfulness, that this principle of novelty is another corollary under the law of conspicuous waste.

Obviously, if each garment is permitted to serve for but a brief term, and if none of last season's apparel is

carried over and made further use of during the present season, the wasteful expenditure on dress is greatly

increased. This is good as far as it goes, but it is negative only. Pretty much all that this consideration

warrants us in saying is that the norm of conspicuous waste exercises a controlling surveillance in all matters

of dress, so that any change in the fashions must conspicuous waste exercises a controlling surveillance in all

matters of dress, so that any change in the fashions must conform to the requirement of wastefulness; it leaves

unanswered the question as to the motive for making and accepting a change in the prevailing styles, and it

also fails to explain why conformity to a given style at a given time is so imperatively necessary as we know

For a creative principle, capable of serving as motive to invention and innovation in fashions, we shall have

to go back to the primitive, noneconomic motive with which apparel originated the motive of adornment.

Without going into an extended discussion of how and why this motive asserts itself under the guidance of

the law of expensiveness, it may be stated broadly that each successive innovation in the fashions is an effort

to reach some form of display which shall be more acceptable to our sense of form and color or of

effectiveness, than that which it displaces. The changing styles are the expression of a restless search for

something which shall commend itself to our aesthetic sense; but as each innovation is subject to the selective

action of the norm of conspicuous waste, the range within which innovation can take place is somewhat

restricted. The innovation must not only be more beautiful, or perhaps oftener less offensive, than that which

it displaces, but it must also come up to the accepted standard of expensiveness.

It would seem at first sight that the result of such an unremitting struggle to attain the beautiful in dress

should be a gradual approach to artistic perfection. We might naturally expect that the fashions should show a

wellmarked trend in the direction of some one or more types of apparel eminently becoming to the human

form; and we might even feel that ge have substantial ground for the hope that today, after all the ingenuity

and effort which have been spent on dress these many years, the fashions should have achieved a relative

perfection and a relative stability, closely approximating to a permanently tenable artistic ideal. But such is

not the case. It would be very hazardous indeed to assert that the styles of today are intrinsically more

becoming than those of ten years ago, or than those of twenty, or fifty, or one hundred years ago. On the other

hand, the assertion freely goes uncontradicted that styles in vogue two thousand years ago are more becoming

The explanation of the fashions just offered, then, does not fully explain, and we shall have to look farther. It

is well known that certain relatively stable styles and types of costume have been worked out in various parts

of the world; as, for instance, among the Japanese, Chinese, and other Oriental nations; likewise among the

Greeks, Romans, and other Eastern peoples of antiquity so also, in later times, among the, peasants of nearly

every country of Europe. These national or popular costumes are in most cases adjudged by competent critics

to be more becoming, more artistic, than the fluctuating styles of modern civilized apparel. At the same time

they are also, at least usually, less obviously wasteful; that is to say, other elements than that of a display of

These relatively stable costumes are, commonly, pretty strictly and narrowly localized, and they vary by

slight and systematic gradations from place to place. They have in every case been worked out by peoples or

classes which are poorer than we, and especially they belong in countries and localities and times where the

population, or at least the class to which the costume in question belongs, is relatively homogeneous, stable,

and immobile. That is to say, stable costumes which will bear the test of time and perspective are worked out

under circumstances where the norm of conspicuous waste asserts itself less imperatively than it does in the

large modern civilized cities, whose relatively mobile wealthy population today sets the pace in matters of

fashion. The countries and classes which have in this way worked out stable and artistic costumes have been

so placed that the pecuniary emulation among them has taken the direction of a competition in conspicuous

leisure rather than in conspicuous consumption of goods. So that it will hold true in a general way that

fashions are least stable and least becoming in those communities where the principle of a conspicuous waste

of goods asserts itself most imperatively, as among ourselves. All this points to an antagonism between

expensiveness and artistic apparel. In point of practical fact, the norm of conspicuous waste is incompatible

with the requirement that dress should be beautiful or becoming. And this antagonism offers an explanation

of that restless change in fashion which neither the canon of expensiveness nor that of beauty alone can

The standard of reputability requires that dress should show wasteful expenditure; but all wastefulness is

offensive to native taste. The psychological law has already been pointed out that all men and women

perhaps even in a higher degree abhor futility, whether of effort or of expenditure much as Nature was

once said to abhor a vacuum. But the principle of conspicuous waste requires an obviously futile expenditure;

and the resulting conspicuous expensiveness of dress is therefore intrinsically ugly. Hence we find that in all

innovations in dress, each added or altered detail strives to avoid condemnation by showing some ostensible

purpose, at the same time that the requirement of conspicuous waste prevents the purposefulness of these

innovations from becoming anything more than a somewhat transparent pretense. Even in its freest flights,

fashion rarely if ever gets away from a simulation of some ostensible use. The ostensible usefulness of the

fashionable details of dress, however, is always so transparent a makebelieve, and their substantial futility

presently forces itself so baldly upon our attention as to become unbearable, and then we take refuge in a new

style. But the new style must conform to the requirement of reputable wastefulness and futility. Its futility

presently becomes as odious as that of its predecessor; and the only remedy which the law of waste allows us

is to seek relief in some new construction, equally futile and equally untenable. Hence the essential ugliness

Having so explained the phenomenon of shifting fashions, the next thing is to make the explanation tally with

everyday facts. Among these everyday facts is the wellknown liking which all men have for the styles that

are in vogue at any given time. A new style comes into vogue and remains in favor for a season, and, at least

so long as it is a novelty, people very generally find the new style attractive. The prevailing fashion is felt to

be beautiful. This is due partly to the relief it affords in being different from what went before it, partly to its

being reputable. As indicated in the last chapter, the canon of reputability to some extent shapes our tastes, so

that under its guidance anything will be accepted as becoming until its novelty wears off, or until the warrant

of reputability is transferred to a new and novel structure serving the same general purpose. That the alleged

beauty, or "loveliness," of the styles in vogue at any given time is transient and spurious only is attested by

the fact that none of the many shifting fashions will bear the test of time. When seen in the perspective of

halfadozen years or more, the best of our fashions strike us as grotesque, if not unsightly. Our transient

attachment to whatever happens to be the latest rests on other than aesthetic grounds, and lasts only until our

abiding aesthetic sense has had time to assert itself and reject this latest indigestible contrivance.

The process of developing an aesthetic nausea takes more or less time; the length of time required in any

given case being inversely as the degree of intrinsic odiousness of the style in question. This time relation

between odiousness and instability in fashions affords ground for the inference that the more rapidly the

styles succeed and displace one another, the more offensive they are to sound taste. The presumption,

therefore, is that the farther the community, especially the wealthy classes of the community, develop in

wealth and mobility and in the range of their human contact, the more imperatively will the law of

conspicuous waste assert itself in matters of dress, the more will the sense of beauty tend to fall into abeyance

or be overborne by the canon of pecuniary reputability, the more rapidly will fashions shift and change, and

the more grotesque and intolerable will be the varying styles that successively come into vogue.

There remains at least one point in this theory of dress yet to be discussed. Most of what has been said applies

to men's attire as well as to that of women; although in modern times it applies at nearly all points with

greater force to that of women. But at one point the dress of women differs substantially from that of men. In

woman's dress there is obviously greater insistence on such features as testify to the wearer's exemption from

or incapacity for all vulgarly productive employment. This characteristic of woman's apparel is of interest,

not only as completing the theory of dress, but also as confirming what has already been said of the economic

As has been seen in the discussion of woman's status under the heads of Vicarious Leisure and Vicarious

Consumption, it has in the course of economic development become the office of the woman to consume

vicariously for the head of the household; and her apparel is contrived with this object in view. It has come

about that obviously productive labor is in a peculiar degree derogatory to respectable women, and therefore

special pains should be taken in the construction of women's dress, to impress upon the beholder the fact

(often indeed a fiction) that the wearer does not and can not habitually engage in useful work. Propriety

requires respectable women to abstain more consistently from useful effort and to make more of a show of

leisure than the men of the same social classes. It grates painfully on our nerves to contemplate the necessity

of any wellbred woman's earning a livelihood by useful work. It is not "woman's sphere." Her sphere is

within the household, which she should "beautify," and of which she should be the "chief ornament." The

male head of the household is not currently spoken of as its ornament. This feature taken in conjunction with

the other fact that propriety requires more unremitting attention to expensive display in the dress and other

paraphernalia of women, goes to enforce the view already implied in what has gone before. By virtue of its

descent from a patriarchal past, our social system makes it the woman's function in an especial degree to put

in evidence her household's ability to pay. According to the modern civilized scheme of life, the good name

of the household to which she belongs should be the special care of the woman; and the system of honorific

expenditure and conspicuous leisure by which this good name is chiefly sustained is therefore the woman's

sphere. In the ideal scheme, as it tends to realize itself in the life of the higher pecuniary classes, this attention

to conspicuous waste of substance and effort should normally be the sole economic function of the woman.

At the stage of economic development at which the women were still in the full sense the property of the

men, the performance of conspicuous leisure and consumption came to be part of the services required of

them. The women being not their own masters, obvious expenditure and leisure on their part would redound

to the credit of their master rather than to their own credit; and therefore the more expensive and the more

obviously unproductive the women of the household are, the more creditable and more effective for the

purpose of reputability of the household or its head will their life be. So much so that the women have been

required not only to afford evidence of a life of leisure, but even to disable themselves for useful activity.

It is at this point that the dress of men falls short of that of women, and for sufficient reason. Conspicuous

waste and conspicuous leisure are reputable because they are evidence of pecuniary strength; pecuniary

strength is reputable or honorific because, in the last analysis, it argues success and superior force; therefore

the evidence of waste and leisure put forth by any individual in his own behalf cannot consistently take such a

form or be carried to such a pitch as to argue incapacity or marked discomfort on his part; as the exhibition

would in that case show not superior force, but inferiority, and so defeat its own purpose. So, then, wherever

wasteful expenditure and the show of abstention from effort is normally. or on an average, carried to the

extent of showing obvious discomfort or voluntarily induced physical disability. there the immediate

inference is that the individual in question does not perform this wasteful expenditure and undergo this

disability for her own personal gain in pecuniary repute, but in behalf of some one else to whom she stands in

a relation of economic dependence; a relation which in the last analysis must, in economic theory, reduce

To apply this generalization to women's dress, and put the matter in concrete terms: the high heel, the skirt,

the impracticable bonnet, the corset, and the general disregard of the wearer's comfort which is an obvious

feature of all civilized women's apparel, are so many items of evidence to the effect that in the modern

civilized scheme of life the woman is still, in theory, the economic dependent of the man that, perhaps in a

highly idealized sense, she still is the man's chattel. The homely reason for all this conspicuous leisure and

attire on the part of women lies in the fact that they are servants to whom, in the differentiation of economic

functions, has been delegated the office of putting in evidence their master's ability to pay. There is a marked

similarity in these respects between the apparel of women and that of domestic servants, especially liveried

servants. In both there is a very elaborate show of unnecessary expensiveness, and in both cases there is also

a notable disregard of the physical comfort of the wearer. But the attire of the lady goes farther in its

elaborate insistence on the idleness, if not on the physical infirmity of the wearer, than does that of the

domestic. And this is as it should be; for in theory, according to the ideal scheme of the pecuniary culture, the

Besides servants, currently recognized as such, there is at least one other class of persons whose garb

assimilates them to the class of servants and shows many of the features that go to make up the womanliness

of woman's dress. This is the priestly class. Priestly vestments show, in accentuated form, all the features that

have been shown to be evidence of a servile status and a vicarious life. Even more strikingly than the

everyday habit of the priest, the vestments, properly so called, are ornate, grotesque, inconvenient, and, at

least ostensibly, comfortless to the point of distress. The priest is at the same time expected to refrain from

useful effort and, when before the public eye, to present an impassively disconsolate countenance, very much

after the manner of a welltrained domestic servant. The shaven face of the priest is a further item to the

same effect. This assimilation of the priestly class to the class of body servants, in demeanor and apparel, is

due to the similarity of the two classes as regards economic function. In economic theory, the priest is a body

servant, constructively in attendance upon the person of the divinity whose livery he wears. His livery is of a

very expensive character, as it should be in order to set forth in a beseeming manner the dignity of his exalted

master; but it is contrived to show that the wearing of it contributes little or nothing to the physical comfort of

the wearer, for it is an item of vicarious consumption, and the repute which accrues from its consumption is

The line of demarcation between the dress of women, priests, and servants, on the one hand, and of men, on

the other hand, is not always consistently observed in practice, but it will scarcely be disputed that it is

always present in a more or less definite way in the popular habits of thought. There are of course also free

men, and not a few of them, who, in their blind zeal for faultless reputable attire, transgress the theoretical

line between man's and woman's dress, to the extent of arraying themselves in apparel that is obviously

designed to vex the mortal frame; but everyone recognizes without hesitation that such apparel for men is a

departure from the normal. We are in the habit of saying that such dress is "effeminate"; and one sometimes

hears the remark that such or such an exquisitely attired gentleman is as well dressed as a footman.

Certain apparent discrepancies under this theory of dress merit a more detailed examination, especially as

they mark a more or less evident trend in the later and maturer development of dress. The vogue of the corset

offers an apparent exception from the rule of which it has here been cited as an illustration. A closer

examination, however, will show that this apparent exception is really a verification of the rule that the vogue

of any given element or feature in dress rests on its utility as an evidence of pecuniary standing. It is well

known that in the industrially more advanced communities the corset is employed only within certain fairly

well defined social strata. The women of the poorer classes, especially of the rural population, do not

habitually use it, except as a holiday luxury. Among these classes the women have to work hard, and it avails

them little in the way of a pretense of leisure to so crucify the flesh in everyday life. The holiday use of the

contrivance is due to imitation of a higherclass canon of decency. Upwards from this low level of indigence

and manual labor, the corset was until within a generation or two nearly indispensable to a socially blameless

standing for all women, including the wealthiest and most reputable. This rule held so long as there still was

no large class of people wealthy enough to be above the imputation of any necessity for manual labor and at

the same time large enough to form a selfsufficient, isolated social body whose mass would afford a

foundation for special rules of conduct within the class, enforced by the current opinion of the class alone.

But now there has grown up a large enough leisure class possessed of such wealth that any aspersion on the

score of enforced manual employment would be idle and harmless calumny; and the corset has therefore in

large measure fallen into disuse within this class. The exceptions under this rule of exemption from the corset

are more apparent than real. They are the wealthy classes of countries with a lower industrial structure

nearer the archaic, quasiindustrial type together with the later accessions of the wealthy classes in the

more advanced industrial communities. The latter have not yet had time to divest themselves of the plebeian

canons of taste and of reputability carried over from their former, lower pecuniary grade. Such survival of the

corset is not infrequent among the higher social classes of those American cities, for instance, which have

recently and rapidly risen into opulence. If the word be used as a technical term, without any odious

implication, it may be said that the corset persists in great measure through the period of snobbery the

interval of uncertainty and of transition from a lower to the upper levels of pecuniary culture. That is to say,

in all countries which have inherited the corset it continues in use wherever and so long as it serves its

purpose as an evidence of honorific leisure by arguing physical disability in the wearer. The same rule of

course applies to other mutilations and contrivances for decreasing the visible efficiency of the individual.

Something similar should hold true with respect to divers items of conspicuous consumption, and indeed

something of the kind does seem to hold to a slight degree of sundry features of dress, especially if such

features involve a marked discomfort or appearance of discomfort to the wearer. During the past one hundred

years there is a tendency perceptible, in the development of men's dress especially, to discontinue methods of

expenditure and the use of symbols of leisure which must have been irksome, which may have served a good

purpose in their time, but the continuation of which among the upper classes today would be a work of

supererogation; as, for instance, the use of powdered wigs and of gold lace, and the practice of constantly

shaving the face. There has of late years been some slight recrudescence of the shaven face in polite society,

but this is probably a transient and unadvised mimicry of the fashion imposed upon body servants, and it may

These indices and others which resemble them in point of the boldness with which they point out to all

observers the habitual uselessness of those persons who employ them, have been replaced by other, more

dedicate methods of expressing the same fact; methods which are no less evident to the trained eyes of that

smaller, select circle whose good opinion is chiefly sought. The earlier and cruder method of advertisement

held its ground so long as the public to which the exhibitor had to appeal comprised large portions of the

community who were not trained to detect delicate variations in the evidences of wealth and leisure. The

method of advertisement undergoes a refinement when a sufficiently large wealthy class has developed, who

have the leisure for acquiring skill in interpreting the subtler signs of expenditure. "Loud" dress becomes

offensive to people of taste, as evincing an undue desire to reach and impress the untrained sensibilities of the

vulgar. To the individual of high breeding, it is only the more honorific esteem accorded by the cultivated

sense of the members of his own high class that is of material consequence. Since the wealthy leisure class

has grown so large, or the contact of the leisureclass individual with members of his own class has grown so

wide, as to constitute a human environment sufficient for the honorific purpose, there arises a tendency to

exclude the baser elements of the population from the scheme even as spectators whose applause or

mortification should be sought. The result of all this is a refinement of methods, a resort to subtler

contrivances, and a spiritualization of the scheme of symbolism in dress. And as this upper leisure class sets

the pace in all matters of decency, the result for the rest of society also is a gradual amelioration of the

scheme of dress. As the community advances in wealth and culture, the ability to pay is put in evidence by

means which require a progressively nicer discrimination in the beholder. This nicer discrimination between

advertising media is in fact a very large element of the higher pecuniary culture.

The life of man in society, just like the life of other species, is a struggle for existence, and therefore it is a

process of selective adaptation. The evolution of social structure has been a process of natural selection of

institutions. The progress which has been and is being made in human institutions and in human character

may be set down, broadly, to a natural selection of the fittest habits of thought and to a process of enforced

adaptation of individuals to an environment which has progressively changed with the growth of the

community and with the changing institutions under which men have lived. Institutions are not only

themselves the result of a selective and adaptive process which shapes the prevailing or dominant types of

spiritual attitude and aptitudes; they are at the same time special methods of life and of human relations, and

are therefore in their turn efficient factors of selection. So that the changing institutions in their turn make for

a further selection of individuals endowed with the fittest temperament, and a further adaptation of individual

temperament and habits to the changing environment through the formation of new institutions.

The forces which have shaped the development of human life and of social structure are no doubt ultimately

reducible to terms of living tissue and material environment; but proximately for the purpose in hand, these

forces may best be stated in terms of an environment, partly human, partly nonhuman, and a human subject

with a more or less definite physical and intellectual constitution. Taken in the aggregate or average, this

human subject is more or less variable; chiefly, no doubt, under a rule of selective conservation of favorable

variations. The selection of favorable variations is perhaps in great measure a selective conservation of ethnic

types. In the life history of any community whose population is made up of a mixture of divers ethnic

elements, one or another of several persistent and relatively stable types of body and of temperament rises

into dominance at any given point. The situation, including the institutions in force at any given time, will

favor the survival and dominance of one type of character in preference to another; and the type of man so

selected to continue and to further elaborate the institutions handed down from the past will in some

considerable measure shape these institutions in his own likeness. But apart from selection as between

relatively stable types of character and habits of mind, there is no doubt simultaneously going on a process of

selective adaptation of habits of thought within the general range of aptitudes which is characteristic of the

dominant ethnic type or types. There may be a variation in the fundamental character of any population by

selection between relatively stable types; but there is also a variation due to adaptation in detail within the

range of the type, and to selection between specific habitual views regarding any given social relation or

For the present purpose, however, the question as to the nature of the adaptive process whether it is

chiefly a selection between stable types of temperament and character, or chiefly an adaptation of men's

habits of thought to changing circumstances is of less importance than the fact that, by one method or

another, institutions change and develop. Institutions must change with changing circumstances, since they

are of the nature of an habitual method of responding to the stimuli which these changing circumstances

afford. The development of these institutions is the development of society. The institutions are, in substance,

prevalent habits of thought with respect to particular relations and particular functions of the individual and

of the community; and the scheme of life, which is made up of the aggregate of institutions in force at a given

time or at a given point in the development of any society, may, on the psychological side, be broadly

characterized as a prevalent spiritual attitude or a prevalent theory of life. As regards its generic features, this

spiritual attitude or theory of life is in the last analysis reducible to terms of a prevalent type of character.

The situation of today shapes the institutions of tomorrow through a selective, coercive process, by acting

upon men's habitual view of things, and so altering or fortifying a point of view or a mental attitude banded

down from the past. The institutions that is to say the habits of thought under the guidance of which

men live are in this way received from an earlier time; more or less remotely earlier, but in any event they

have been elaborated in and received from the past. Institutions are products of the past process, are adapted

to past circumstances, and are therefore never in full accord with the requirements of the present. In the

nature of the case, this process of selective adaptation can never catch up with the progressively changing

situation in which the community finds itself at any given time; for the environment, the situation, the

exigencies of life which enforce the adaptation and exercise the selection, change from day to day; and each

successive situation of the community in its turn tends to obsolescence as soon as it has been established.

When a step in the development has been taken, this step itself constitutes a change of situation which

requires a new adaptation; it becomes the point of departure for a new step in the adjustment, and so on

It is to be noted then, although it may be a tedious truism, that the institutions of today the present

accepted scheme of life do not entirely fit the situation of today. At the same time, men's present habits of

thought tend to persist indefinitely, except as circumstances enforce a change. These institutions which have

thus been handed down, these habits of thought, points of view, mental attitudes and aptitudes, or what not,

are therefore themselves a conservative factor. This is the factor of social inertia, psychological inertia,

conservatism. Social structure changes, develops, adapts itself to an altered situation, only through a change

in the habits of thought of the several classes of the community, or in the last analysis, through a change in

the habits of thought of the individuals which make up the community. The evolution of society is

substantially a process of mental adaptation on the part of individuals under the stress of circumstances which

will no longer tolerate habits of thought formed under and conforming to a different set of circumstances in

the past. For the immediate purpose it need not be a question of serious importance whether this adaptive

process is a process of selection and survival of persistent ethnic types or a process of individual adaptation

Social advance, especially as seen from the point of view of economic theory, consists in a continued

progressive approach to an approximately exact "adjustment of inner relations to outer relations", but this

adjustment is never definitively established, since the "outer relations" are subject to constant change as a

consequence of the progressive change going on in the "inner relations. " But the degree of approximation

may be greater or less, depending on the facility with which an adjustment is made. A readjustment of men's

habits of thought to conform with the exigencies of an altered situation is in any case made only tardily and

reluctantly, and only under the coercion exercised by a stipulation which has made the accredited views

untenable. The readjustment of institutions and habitual views to an altered environment is made in response

to pressure from without; it is of the nature of a response to stimulus. Freedom and facility of readjustment,

that is to say capacity for growth in social structure, therefore depends in great measure on the degree of

freedom with which the situation at any given time acts on the individual members of the communitythe

degree of exposure of the individual members to the constraining forces of the environment. If any portion or

class of society is sheltered from the action of the environment in any essential respect, that portion of the

community, or that class, will adapt its views and its scheme of life more tardily to the altered general

situation; it will in so far tend to retard the process of social transformation. The wealthy leisure class is in

such a sheltered position with respect to the economic forces that make for change and readjustment. And it

may be said that the forces which make for a readjustment of institutions, especially in the case of a modern

industrial community, are, in the last analysis, almost entirely of an economic nature.

Any community may be viewed as an industrial or economic mechanism, the structure of which is made up

of what is called its economic institutions. These institutions are habitual methods of carrying on the life

process of the community in contact with the material environment in which it lives. When given methods of

unfolding human activity in this given environment have been elaborated in this way, the life of the

community will express itself with some facility in these habitual directions. The community will make use

of the forces of the environment for the purposes of its life according to methods learned in the past and

embodied in these institutions. But as population increases, and as men's knowledge and skill in directing the

forces of nature widen, the habitual methods of relation between the members of the group, and the habitual

method of carrying on the life process of the group as a whole, no longer give the same result as before; nor

are the resulting conditions of life distributed and apportioned in the same manner or with the same effect

among the various members as before. If the scheme according to which the life process of the group was

carried on under the earlier conditions gave approximately the highest attainable result under the

circumstances in the way of efficiency or facility of the life process of the group; then the same scheme of

life unaltered will not yield the highest result attainable in this respect under the altered conditions. Under the

altered conditions of population, skill, and knowledge, the facility of life as carried on according to the

traditional scheme may not be lower than under the earlier conditions; but the chances are always that it is

The group is made up of individuals, and the group's life is the life of individuals carried on in at least

ostensible severalty. The group's accepted scheme of life is the consensus of views held by the body of these

individuals as to what is right, good, expedient, and beautiful in the way of human life. In the redistribution

of the conditions of life that comes of the altered method of dealing with the environment, the outcome is not

an equable change in the facility of life throughout the group. The altered conditions may increase the facility

of life for the group as a whole, but the redistribution will usually result in a decrease of facility or fullness of

life for some members of the group. An advance in technical methods, in population, or in industrial

organization will require at least some of the members of the community to change their habits of life, if they

are to enter with facility and effect into the altered industrial methods; and in doing so they will be unable to

live up to the received notions as to what are the right and beautiful habits of life.

Any one who is required to change his habits of life and his habitual relations to his fellow men will feel the

discrepancy between the method of life required of him by the newly arisen exigencies, and the traditional

scheme of life to which he is accustomed. It is the individuals placed in this position who have the liveliest

incentive to reconstruct the received scheme of life and are most readily persuaded to accept new standards;

and it is through the need of the means of livelihood that men are placed in such a position. The pressure

exerted by the environment upon the group, and making for a readjustment of the group's scheme of life,

impinges upon the members of the group in the form of pecuniary exigencies; and it is owing to this fact

that external forces are in great part translated into the form of pecuniary or economic exigencies it is

owing to this fact that we can say that the forces which count toward a readjustment of institutions in any

modern industrial community are chiefly economic forces; or more specifically, these forces take the form of

pecuniary pressure. Such a readjustment as is here contemplated is substantially a change in men's views as to

what is good and right, and the means through which a change is wrought in men's apprehension of what is

Any change in men's views as to what is good and right in human life make its way but tardily at the best.

Especially is this true of any change in the direction of what is called progress; that is to say, in the direction

of divergence from the archaic position from the position which may be accounted the point of departure

at any step in the social evolution of the community. Retrogression, reapproach to a standpoint to which the

race has been long habituated in the past, is easier. This is especially true in case the development away from

this past standpoint has not been due chiefly to a substitution of an ethnic type whose temperament is alien to

the earlier standpoint. The cultural stage which lies immediately back of the present in the life history of

Western civilization is what has here been called the quasipeaceable stage. At this quasipeaceable stage the

law of status is the dominant feature in the scheme of life. There is no need of pointing out how prone the

men of today are to revert to the spiritual attitude of mastery and of personal subservience which

characterizes that stage. It may rather be said to be held in an uncertain abeyance by the economic exigencies

of today, than to have been definitely supplanted by a habit of mind that is in full accord with these

laterdeveloped exigencies. The predatory and quasipeaceable stages of economic evolution seem to have

been of long duration in life history of all the chief ethnic elements which go to make up the populations of

the Western culture. The temperament and the propensities proper to those cultural stages have, therefore,

attained such a persistence as to make a speedy reversion to the broad features of the corresponding

psychological constitution inevitable in the case of any class or community which is removed from the action

of those forces that make for a maintenance of the laterdeveloped habits of thought.

It is a matter of common notoriety that when individuals, or even considerable groups of men, are segregated

from a higher industrial culture and exposed to a lower cultural environment, or to an economic situation of a

more primitive character, they quickly show evidence of reversion toward the spiritual features which

characterize the predatory type; and it seems probable that the dolichoblond type of European man is

possessed of a greater facility for such reversion to barbarism than the other ethnic elements with which that

type is associated in the Western culture. Examples of such a reversion on a small scale abound in the later

history of migration and colonization. Except for the fear of offending that chauvinistic patriotism which is so

characteristic a feature of the predatory culture, and the presence of which is frequently the most striking

mark of reversion in modern communities, the case of the American colonies might be cited as an example of

such a reversion on an unusually large scale, though it was not a reversion of very large scope.

The leisure class is in great measure sheltered from the�j�stress of those economic exigencies which prevail

in any modem, highly organized industrial community. The exigencies of the struggle for the means of life

are less exacting for this class than for any other; and as a consequence of this privileged position we should

expect to find it one of the least responsive of the classes of society to the demands which the situation makes

for a further growth of institutions and a readjustment to an altered industrial situation. The leisure class is the

conservative class. The exigencies of the general economic situation of the community do not freely or

directly impinge upon the members of this class. They are not required under penalty of forfeiture to change

their habits of life and their theoretical views of the external world to suit the demands of an altered industrial

technique, since they are not in the full sense an organic part of the industrial community. Therefore these

exigencies do not readily produce, in the members of this class, that degree of uneasiness with the existing

order which alone can lead any body of men to give up views and methods of life that have become habitual

to them. The office of the leisure class in social evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is

obsolescent. This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the commonplaces of popular

The prevalent conviction that the wealthy class is by nature conservative has been popularly accepted without

much aid from any theoretical view as to the place and relation of that class in the cultural development.

When an explanation of this class conservatism is offered, it is commonly the invidious one that the wealthy

class opposes innovation because it has a vested interest, of an unworthy sort, in maintaining the present

conditions. The explanation here put forward imputes no unworthy motive. The opposition of the class to

changes in the cultural scheme is instinctive, and does not rest primarily on an interested calculation of

material advantages; it is an instinctive revulsion at any departure from the accepted way of doing and of

looking at things a revulsion common to all men and only to be overcome by stress of circumstances. All

change in habits of life and of thought is irksome. The difference in this respect between the wealthy and the

common run of mankind lies not so much in the motive which prompts to conservatism as in the degree of

exposure to the economic forces that urge a change. The members of the wealthy class do not yield to the

demand for innovation as readily as other men because they are not constrained to do so.

This conservatism of the wealthy class is so obvious a feature that it has even come to be recognized as a

mark of respectability. Since conservatism is a characteristic of the wealthier and therefore more reputable

portion of the community, it has acquired a certain honorific or decorative value. It has become prescriptive

to such an extent that an adherence to conservative views is comprised as a matter of course in our notions of

respectability; and it is imperatively incumbent on all who would lead a blameless life in point of social

repute. Conservatism, being an upperclass characteristic, is decorous; and conversely, innovation, being a

lowerclass phenomenon, is vulgar. The first and most unreflected element in that instinctive revulsion and

reprobation with which we turn from all social innovators is this sense of the essential vulgarity of the thing.

So that even in cases where one recognizes the substantial merits of the case for which the innovator is

spokesman as may easily happen if the evils which he seeks to remedy are sufficiently remote in point of

time or space or personal contact still one cannot but be sensible of the fact that the innovator is a person

with whom it is at least distasteful to be associated, and from whose social contact one must shrink.

The fact that the usages, actions, and views of the welltodo leisure class acquire the character of a

prescriptive canon of conduct for the rest of society, gives added weight and reach to the conservative

influence of that class. It makes it incumbent upon all reputable people to follow their lead. So that, by virtue

of its high position as the avatar of good form, the wealthier class comes to exert a retarding influence upon

social development far in excess of that which the simple numerical strength of the class would assign it. Its

prescriptive example acts to greatly stiffen the resistance of all other classes against any innovation, and to fix

men's affections upon the good institutions handed down from an earlier generation. There is a second way in

which the influence of the leisure class acts in the same direction, so far as concerns hindrance to the

adoption of a conventional scheme of life more in accord with the exigencies of the time. This second method

of upperclass guidance is not in strict consistency to be brought under the same category as the instinctive

conservatism and aversion to new modes of thought just spoken of; but it may as well be dealt with here,

since it has at least this much in common with the conservative habit of mind that it acts to retard innovation

and the growth of social structure. The code of proprieties, conventionalities, and usages in vogue at any

given time and among any given people has more or less of the character of an organic whole; so that any

appreciable change in one point of the scheme involves something of a change or readjustment at other points

also, if not a reorganization all along the line. When a change is made which immediately touches only a

minor point in the scheme, the consequent derangement of the structure of conventionalities may be

inconspicuous; but even in such a case it is safe to say that some derangement of the general scheme, more or

less farreaching, will follow. On the other hand, when an attempted reform involves the suppression or

thoroughgoing remodelling of an institution of firstrate importance in the conventional scheme, it is

immediately felt that a serious derangement of the entire scheme would result; it is felt that a readjustment of

the structure to the new form taken on by one of its chief elements would be a painful and tedious, if not a

In order to realize the difficulty which such a radical change in any one feature of the conventional scheme of

life would involve, it is only necessary to suggest the suppression of the monogamic family, or of the agnatic

system of consanguinity, or of private property, or of the theistic faith, in any country of the Western

civilization; or suppose the suppression of ancestor worship in China, or of the caste system in india, or of

slavery in Africa, or the establishment of equality of the sexes in Mohammedan countries. It needs no

argument to show that the derangement of the general structure of conventionalities in any of these cases

would be very considerable. In order to effect such an innovation a very farreaching alteration of men's

habits of thought would be involved also at other points of the scheme than the one immediately in question.

The aversion to any such innovation amounts to a shrinking from an essentially alien scheme of life.

The revulsion felt by good people at any proposed departure from the accepted methods of life is a familiar

fact of everyday experience. It is not unusual to hear those persons who dispense salutary advice and

admonition to the community express themselves forcibly upon the farreaching pernicious effects which the

community would suffer from such relatively slight changes as the disestablishment of the Anglican Church,

an increased facility of divorce, adoption of female suffrage, prohibition of the manufacture and sale of

intoxicating beverages, abolition or restriction of inheritances, etc. Any one of these innovations would, we

are told, "shake the social structure to its base," "reduce society to chaos," "subvert the foundations of

morality," "make life intolerable," "confound the order of nature," etc. These various locutions are, no doubt,

of the nature of hyperbole; but, at the same time, like all overstatement, they are evidence of a lively sense of

the gravity of the consequences which they are intended to describe. The effect of these and like innovations

in deranging the accepted scheme of life is felt to be of much graver consequence than the simple alteration

of an isolated item in a series of contrivances for the convenience of men in society. What is true in so

obvious a degree of innovations of firstrate importance is true in a less degree of changes of a smaller

immediate importance. The aversion to change is in large part an aversion to the bother of making the

readjustment which any given change will necessitate; and this solidarity of the system of institutions of any

given culture or of any given people strengthens the instinctive resistance offered to any change in men's

habits of thought, even in matters which, taken by themselves, are of minor importance. A consequence of

this increased reluctance, due to the solidarity of human institutions, is that any innovation calls for a greater

expenditure of nervous energy in making the necessary readjustment than would otherwise be the case. It is

not only that a change in established habits of thought is distasteful. The process of readjustment of the

accepted theory of life involves a degree of mental effort a more or less protracted and laborious effort to

find and to keep one's bearings under the altered circumstances. This process requires a certain expenditure of

energy, and so presumes, for its successful accomplishment, some surplus of energy beyond that absorbed in

the daily struggle for subsistence. Consequently it follows that progress is hindered by underfeeding and

excessive physical hardship, no less effectually than by such a luxurious life as will shut out discontent by

cutting off the occasion for it. The abjectly poor, and all those persons whose energies are entirely absorbed

by the struggle for daily sustenance, are conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought

for the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative because they have small occasion

From this proposition it follows that the institution of a leisure class acts to make the lower classes

conservative by withdrawing from them as much as it may of the means of sustenance, and so reducing their

consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point as to make them incapable of the effort

required for the learning and adoption of new habits of thought. The accumulation of wealth at the upper end

of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of the scale. It is a commonplace that, wherever it

occurs, a considerable degree of privation among the body of the people is a serious obstacle to any

This direct inhibitory effect of the unequal distribution of wealth is seconded by an indirect effect tending to

the same result. As has already been seen, the imperative example set by the upper class in fixing the canons

of reputability fosters the practice of conspicuous consumption. The prevalence of conspicuous consumption

as one of the main elements in the standard of decency among all classes is of course not traceable wholly to

the example of the wealthy leisure class, but the practice and the insistence on it are no doubt strengthened by

the example of the leisure class. The requirements of decency in this matter are very considerable and very

imperative; so that even among classes whose pecuniary position is sufficiently strong to admit a

consumption of goods considerably in excess of the subsistence minimum, the disposable surplus left over

after the more imperative physical needs are satisfied is not infrequently diverted to the purpose of a

conspicuous decency, rather than to added physical comfort and fullness of life. Moreover, such surplus

energy as is available is also likely to be expended in the acquisition of goods for conspicuous consumption

or conspicuous boarding. The result is that the requirements of pecuniary reputability tend (1) to leave but a

scanty subsistence minimum available for other than conspicuous consumption, and (2) to absorb any surplus

energy which may be available after the bare physical necessities of life have been provided for. The outcome

of the whole is a strengthening of the general conservative attitude of the community. The institution of a

leisure class hinders cultural development immediately (1) by the inertia proper to the class itself, (2) through

its prescriptive example of conspicuous waste and of conservatism, and (3) indirectly through that system of

unequal distribution of wealth and sustenance on which the institution itself rests. To this is to be added that

the leisure class has also a material interest in leaving things as they are. Under the circumstances prevailing

at any given time this class is in a privileged position, and any departure from the existing order may be

expected to work to the detriment of the class rather than the reverse. The attitude of the class, simply as

influenced by its class interest, should therefore be to let wellenough alone. This interested motive comes in

to supplement the strong instinctive bias of the class, and so to render it even more consistently conservative

All this, of course, bas nothing to say in the way of eulogy or deprecation of the office of the leisure class as

an exponent and vehicle of conservatism or reversion in social structure. The inhibition which it exercises

may be salutary or the reverse. Wether it is the one or the other in any given case is a question of casuistry

rather than of general theory. There may be truth in the view (as a question of policy) so often expressed by

the spokesmen of the conservative element, that without some such substantial and consistent resistance to

innovation as is offered by the conservative welltodo classes, social innovation and experiment would

hurry the community into untenable and intolerable situations; the only possible result of which would be

discontent and disastrous reaction. All this, however, is beside the present argument.

But apart from all deprecation, and aside from all question as to the indispensability of some such check on

headlong innovation, the leisure class, in the nature of things, consistently acts to retard that adjustment to the

environment which is called social advance or development. The characteristic attitude of the class may be

summed up in the maxim: "Whatever is, is right" whereas the law of natural selection, as applied to human

institutions, gives the axiom: "Whatever is, is wrong." Not that the institutions of today are wholly wrong for

the purposes of the life of today, but they are, always and in the nature of things, wrong to some extent. They

are the result of a more or less inadequate adjustment of the methods of living to a situation which prevailed

at some point in the past development; and they are therefore wrong by something more than the interval

which separates the present situation from that of the past. "Right" and "wrong" are of course here used

without conveying any rejection as to what ought or ought not to be. They are applied simply from the

(morally colorless) evolutionary standpoint, and are intended to designate compatibility or incompatibility

with the effective evolutionary process. The institution of a leisure class, by force or class interest and

instinct, and by precept and prescriptive example, makes for the perpetuation of the existing maladjustment of

institutions, and even favors a reversion to a somewhat more archaic scheme of life; a scheme which would

be still farther out of adjustment with the exigencies of life under the existing situation even than the

But after all has been said on the head of conservation of the good old ways, it remains true that institutions

change and develop. There is a cumulative growth of customs and habits of thought; a selective adaptation of

conventions and methods of life. Something is to be said of the office of the leisure class in guiding this

growth as well as in retarding it; but little can be said here of its relation to institutional growth except as it

touches the institutions that are primarily and immediately of an economic character. These institutions

the economic structure may be roughly distinguished into two classes or categories, according as they

To adapt the classical terminology, they are institutions of acquisition or of production; or to revert to terms

already employed in a different connection in earlier chapters, they are pecuniary or industrial institutions; or

in still other terms, they are institutions serving either the invidious or the noninvidious economic interest.

The former category have to do with "business," the latter with industry, taking the latter word in the

mechanical sense. The latter class are not often recognized as institutions, in great part because they do not

immediately concern the ruling class, and are, therefore, seLdom the subject of legislation or of deliberate

convention. When they do receive attention they are commonly approached from the pecuniary or business

side; that being the side or phase of economic life that chiefly occupies men's deliberations in our time,

especially the deliberations of the upper classes. These classes have little else than a business interest in

things economic, and on them at the same time it is chiefly incumbent to deliberate upon the community's

The relation of the leisure (that is, propertied nonindustrial) class to the economic process is a pecuniary

relation a relation of acquisition, not of production; of exploitation, not of serviceability. indirectly their

economic office may, of course, be of the utmost importance to the economic life process; and it is by no

means here intended to depreciate the economic function of the propertied class or of the captains of industry,

The purpose is simply to point out what is the nature of the relation of these classes to the industrial process

and to economic institutions. Their office is of a parasitic character, and their interest is to divert what

substance they may to their own use, and to retain whatever is under their hand. The conventions of the

business world have grown up under the selective surveillance of this principle of predation or parasitism.

They are conventions of ownership; derivatives, more or less remote, of the ancient predatory culture. But

these pecuniary institutions do not entirely fit the situation of today, for they have grown up under a past

situation differing somewhat from the present. Even for effectiveness in the pecuniary way, therefore, they

are not as apt as might be. The changed industrial life requires changed methods of acquisition; and the

pecuniary classes have some interest in so adapting the pecuniary institutions as to give them the best effect

for acquisition of private gain that is compatible with the continuance of the industrial process out of which

this gain arises. Hence there is a more or less consistent trend in the leisureclass guidance of institutional

The effect of the pecuniary interest and the pecuniary habit of mind upon the growth of institutions is seen in

those enactments and conventions that make for security of property, enforcement of contracts, facility of

pecuniary transactions, vested interests. Of such bearing are changes affecting bankruptcy and receiverships,

limited liability, banking and currency, coalitions of laborers or employers, trusts and pools. The community's

institutional furniture of this kind is of immediate consequence only to the propertied classes, and in

proportion as they are propertied; that is to say, in proportion as they are to be ranked with the leisure class.

But indirectly these conventions of business life are of the gravest consequence for the industrial process and

for the life of the community. And in guiding the institutional growth in this respect, the pecuniary classes,

therefore, serve a purpose of the most serious importance to the community, not only in the conservation of

the accepted social scheme, but also in shaping the industrial process proper. The immediate end of this

pecuniary institutional structure and of its amelioration is the greater facility of peaceable and orderly

exploitation; but its remoter effects far outrun this immediate object. Not only does the more facile conduct of

business permit industry and extraindustrial life to go on with less perturbation; but the resulting elimination

of disturbances and complications calling for an exercise of astute discrimination in everyday affairs acts to

make the pecuniary class itself superfluous. As fast as pecuniary transactions are reduced to routine, the

captain of industry can be dispensed with. This consummation, it is needless to say, lies yet in the indefinite

future. The ameliorations wrought in favor of the pecuniary interest in modern institutions tend, in another

field, to substitute the "soulless" jointstock corporation for the captain, and so they make also for the

dispensability, of the great leisureclass function of ownership. Indirectly, therefore, the bent given to the

growth of economic institutions by the leisureclass influence is of very considerable industrial consequence.

The institution of a leisure class has an effect not only upon social structure but also upon the individual

character of the members of society. So soon as a given proclivity or a given point of view has won

acceptance as an authoritative standard or norm of life it will react upon the character of the members of the

society which has accepted it as a norm. It will to some extent shape their habits of thought and will exercise

a selective surveillance over the development of men's aptitudes and inclinations. This effect is wrought

partly by a coercive, educational adaptation of the habits of all individuals, partly by a selective elimination

of the unfit individuals and lines of descent. Such human material as does not lend itself to the methods of

life imposed by the accepted scheme suffers more or less elimination as well as repression. The principles of

pecuniary emulation and of industrial exemption have in this way been erected into canons of life, and have

become coercive factors of some importance in the situation to which men have to adapt themselves.

These two broad principles of conspicuous waste and industrial exemption affect the cultural development

both by guiding men's habits of thought, and so controlling the growth of institutions, and by selectively

conserving certain traits of human nature that conduce to facility of life under the leisureclass scheme, and

so controlling the effective temper of the community. The proximate tendency of the institution of a leisure

class in shaping human character runs in the direction of spiritual survival and reversion. Its effect upon the

temper of a community is of the nature of an arrested spiritual development. In the later culture especially,

the institution has, on the whole, a conservative trend. This proposition is familiar enough in substance, but it

may to many have the appearance of novelty in its present application. Therefore a summary review of its

logical grounds may not be uncalled for, even at the risk of some tedious repetition and formulation of

Social evolution is a process of selective adaptation of temperament and habits of thought under the stress of

the circumstances of associated life. The adaptation of habits of thought is the growth of institutions. But

along with the growth of institutions has gone a change of a more substantial character. Not only have the

habits of men changed with the changing exigencies of the situation, but these changing exigencies have also

brought about a correlative change in human nature. The human material of society itself varies with the

changing conditions of life. This variation of human nature is held by the later ethnologists to be a process of

selection between several relatively stable and persistent ethnic types or ethnic elements. Men tend to revert

or to breed true, more or less closely, to one or another of certain types of human nature that have in their

main features been fixed in approximate conformity to a situation in the past which differed from the

situation of today. There are several of these relatively stable ethnic types of mankind comprised in the

populations of the Western culture. These ethnic types survive in the race inheritance today, not as rigid and

invariable moulds, each of a single precise and specific pattern, but in the form of a greater or smaller number

of variants. Some variation of the ethnic types has resulted under the protracted selective process to which the

several types and their hybrids have been subjected during the prehistoric and historic growth of culture.

This necessary variation of the types themselves, due to a selective process of considerable duration and of a

consistent trend, has not been sufficiently noticed by the writers who have discussed ethnic survival. The

argument is here concerned with two main divergent variants of human nature resulting from this, relatively

late, selective adaptation of the ethnic types comprised in the Western culture; the point of interest being the

probable effect of the situation of today in furthering variation along one or the other of these two divergent

The ethnological position may be briefly summed up; and in order to avoid any but the most indispensable

detail the schedule of types and variants and the scheme of reversion and survival in which they are

concerned are here presented with a diagrammatic meagerness and simplicity which would not be admissible

for any other purpose. The man of our industrial communities tends to breed true to one or the other of three

main ethic types; the dolichocephalicblond, the brachycephalicbrunette, and the Mediterranean

disregarding minor and outlying elements of our culture. But within each of these main ethnic types the

reversion tends to one or the other of at least two main directions of variation; the peaceable or antepredatory

variant and the predatory variant. The former of these two characteristic variants is nearer to the generic type

in each case, being the reversional representative of its type as it stood at the earliest stage of associated life

of which there is available evidence, either archaeological or psychological. This variant is taken to represent

the ancestors of existing civilized man at the peaceable, savage phase of life which preceded the predatory

culture, the regime of status, and the growth of pecuniary emulation. The second or predatory variant of the

types is taken to be a survival of a more recent modification of the main ethnic types and their hybrids of

these types as they were modified, mainly by a selective adaptation, under the discipline of the predatory

culture and the latter emulative culture of the quasipeaceable stage, or the pecuniary culture proper.

Under the recognized laws of heredity there may be a survival from a more or less remote past phase. In the

ordinary, average, or normal case, if the type has varied, the traits of the type are transmitted approximately

as they have stood in the recent past which may be called the hereditary present. For the purpose in hand

this hereditary present is represented by the later predatory and the quasipeaceable culture.

It is to the variant of human nature which is characteristic of this recent hereditarily still existing

predatory or quasipredatory culture that the modern civilized man tends to breed true in the common run of

cases. This proposition requires some qualification so far as concerns the descendants of the servile or

repressed classes of barbarian times, but the qualification necessary is probably not so great as might at first

thought appear. Taking the population as a whole, this predatory, emulative variant does not seem to have

attained a high degree of consistency or stability. That is to say, the human nature inherited by modern

Occidental man is not nearly uniform in respect of the range or the relative strength of the various aptitudes

and propensities which go to make it up. The man of the hereditary present is slightly archaic as judged for

the purposes of the latest exigencies of associated life. And the type to which the modern man chiefly tends to

revert under the law of variation is a somewhat more archaic human nature. On the other hand, to judge by

the reversional traits which show themselves in individuals that vary from the prevailing predatory style of

temperament, the antepredatory variant seems to have a greater stability and greater symmetry in the

This divergence of inherited human nature, as between an earlier and a later variant of the ethnic type to

which the individual tends to breed true, is traversed and obscured by a similar divergence between the two or

three main ethnic types that go to make up the Occidental populations. The individuals in these communities

are conceived to be, in virtually every instance, hybrids of the prevailing ethnic elements combined in the

most varied proportions; with the result that they tend to take back to one or the other of the component

ethnic types. These ethnic types differ in temperament in a way somewhat similar to the difference between

the predatory and the antepredatory variants of the types; the dolichoblond type showing more of the

characteristics of the predatory temperament or at least more of the violent disposition than the

brachycephalicbrunette type, and especially more than the Mediterranean. When the growth of institutions

or of the effective sentiment of a given community shows a divergence from the predatory human nature,

therefore, it is impossible to say with certainty that such a divergence indicates a reversion to the

antepredatory variant. It may be due to an increasing dominance of the one or the other of the "lower" ethnic

elements in the population. Still, although the evidence is not as conclusive as might be desired, there are

indications that the variations in the effective temperament of modern communities is not altogether due to a

selection between stable ethnic types. It seems to be to some appreciable extent a selection between the

predatory and the peaceable variants of the several types. This conception of contemporary human evolution

is not indispensable to the discussion. The general conclusions reached by the use of these concepts of

selective adaptation would remain substantially true if the earlier, Darwinian and Spencerian, terms and

concepts were substituted. Under the circumstances, some latitude may be admissible in the use of terms. The

word "type" is used loosely, to denote variations of temperament which the ethnologists would perhaps

recognize only as trivial variants of the type rather than as distinct ethnic types. Wherever a closer

discrimination seems essential to the argument, the effort to make such a closer discrimination will be evident

The ethnic types of today, then, are variants of the primitive racial types. They have suffered some alteration,

and have attained some degree of fixity in their altered form, under the discipline of the barbarian culture.

The man of the hereditary present is the barbarian variant, servile or aristocratic, of the ethnic elements that

constitute him. But this barbarian variant has not attained the highest degree of homogeneity or of stability.

The barbarian culture the predatory and quasipeaceable cultural stages though of great absolute

duration, has been neither protracted enough nor invariable enough in character to give an extreme fixity of

type. Variations from the barbarian human nature occur with some frequency, and these cases of variation are

becoming more noticeable today, because the conditions of modern life no longer act consistently to repress

departures from the barbarian normal. The predatory temperament does not lead itself to all the purposes of

Departures from the human nature of the hereditary present are most frequently of the nature of reversions to

an earlier variant of the type. This earlier variant is represented by the temperament which characterizes the

primitive phase of peaceable savagery. The circumstances of life and the ends of effort that prevailed before

the advent of the barbarian culture, shaped human nature and fixed it as regards certain fundamental traits.

And it is to these ancient, generic features that modern men are prone to take back in case of variation from

the human nature of the hereditary present. The conditions under which men lived in the most primitive

stages of associated life that can properly be called human, seem to have been of a peaceful kind; and the

character the temperament and spiritual attitude of men under these early conditions or environment and

institutions seems to have been of a peaceful and unaggressive, not to say an indolent, cast. For the immediate

purpose this peaceable cultural stage may be taken to mark the initial phase of social development. So far as

concerns the present argument, the dominant spiritual feature of this presumptive initial phase of culture

seems to have been an unreflecting, unformulated sense of group solidarity, largely expressing itself in a

complacent, but by no means strenuous, sympathy with all facility of human life, and an uneasy revulsion

against apprehended inhibition or futility of life. Through its ubiquitous presence in the habits of thought of

the antepredatory savage man, this pervading but uneager sense of the generically useful seems to have

exercised an appreciable constraining force upon his life and upon the manner of his habitual contact with

The traces of this initial, undifferentiated peaceable phase of culture seem faint and doubtful if we look

merely to such categorical evidence of its existence as is afforded by usages and views in vogue within the

historical present, whether in civilized or in rude communities; but less dubious evidence of its existence is to

be found in psychological survivals, in the way of persistent and pervading traits of human character. These

traits survive perhaps in an especial degree among those ethic elements which were crowded into the

background during the predatory culture. Traits that were suited to the earlier habits of life then became

relatively useless in the individual struggle for existence. And those elements of the population, or those

ethnic groups, which were by temperament less fitted to the predatory life were repressed and pushed into the

background. On the transition to the predatory culture the character of the struggle for existence changed in

some degree from a struggle of the group against a nonhuman environment to a struggle against a human

environment. This change was accompanied by an increasing antagonism and consciousness of antagonism

between the individual members of the group. The conditions of success within the group, as well as the

conditions of the survival of the group, changed in some measure; and the dominant spiritual attitude for the

group gradually changed, and brought a different range of aptitudes and propensities into the position of

legitimate dominance in the accepted scheme of life. Among these archaic traits that are to be regarded as

survivals from the peaceable cultural phase, are that instinct of race solidarity which we call conscience,

including the sense of truthfulness and equity, and the instinct of workmanship, in its naive, noninvidious

Under the guidance of the later biological and psychological science, human nature will have to be restated in

terms of habit; and in the restatement, this, in outline, appears to be the only assignable place and ground of

these traits. These habits of life are of too pervading a character to be ascribed to the influence of a late or

brief discipline. The ease with which they are temporarily overborne by the special exigencies of recent and

modern life argues that these habits are the surviving effects of a discipline of extremely ancient date, from

the teachings of which men have frequently been constrained to depart in detail under the altered

circumstances of a later time; and the almost ubiquitous fashion in which they assert themselves whenever

the pressure of special exigencies is relieved, argues that the process by which the traits were fixed and

incorporated into the spiritual makeup of the type must have lasted for a relatively very long time and without

serious intermission. The point is not seriously affected by any question as to whether it was a process of

habituation in the oldfashioned sense of the word or a process of selective adaptation of the race.

The character and exigencies of life, under that regime of status and of individual and class antithesis which

covers the entire interval from the beginning of predatory culture to the present, argue that the traits of

temperament here under discussion could scarcely have arisen and acquired fixity during that interval. It is

entirely probable that these traits have come down from an earlier method of life, and have survived through

the interval of predatory and quasipeaceable culture in a condition of incipient, or at least imminent,

desuetude, rather than that they have been brought out and fixed by this later culture. They appear to be

hereditary characteristics of the race, and to have persisted in spite of the altered requirements of success

under the predatory and the later pecuniary stages of culture. They seem to have persisted by force of the

tenacity of transmission that belongs to an hereditary trait that is present in some degree in every member of

Such a generic feature is not readily eliminated, even under a process of selection so severe and protracted as

that to which the traits here under discussion were subjected during the predatory and quasipeaceable stages.

These peaceable traits are in great part alien to the methods and the animus of barbarian life. The salient

characteristic of the barbarian culture is an unremitting emulation and antagonism between classes and

between individuals. This emulative discipline favors those individuals and lines of descent which possess

the peaceable savage traits in a relatively slight degree. It therefore tends to eliminate these traits, and it has

apparently weakened them, in an appreciable degree, in the populations that have been subject to it. Even

where the extreme penalty for nonconformity to the barbarian type of temperament is not paid, there results

at least a more or less consistent repression of the nonconforming individuals and lines of descent. Where

life is largely a struggle between individuals within the group, the possession of the ancient peaceable traits in

Under any known phase of culture, other or later than the presumptive initial phase here spoken of, the gifts

of goodnature, equity, and indiscriminate sympathy do not appreciably further the life of the individual.

Their possession may serve to protect the individual from hard usage at the hands of a majority that insists on

a modicum of these ingredients in their ideal of a normal man; but apart from their indirect and negative

effect in this way, the individual fares better under the regime of competition in proportion as he has less of

these gifts. Freedom from scruple, from sympathy, honesty and regard for life, may, within fairly wide limits,

he said to further the success of the individual in the pecuniary culture. The highly successful men of all

times have commonly been of this type; except those whose success has not been scored in terms of either

wealth or power. It is only within narrow limits, and then only in a Pickwickian sense, that honesty is the best

As seen from the point of view of life under modern civilized conditions in an enlightened community of the

Western culture, the primitive, antepredatory savage, whose character it has been attempted to trace in

outline above, was not a great success. Even for the purposes of that hypothetical culture to which his type of

human nature owes what stability it has even for the ends of the peaceable savage group this primitive

man has quite as many and as conspicuous economic failings as he has economic virtues as should be

plain to any one whose sense of the case is not biased by leniency born of a fellowfeeling. At his best he is

"a clever, goodfornothing fellow." The shortcomings of this presumptively primitive type of character are

weakness, inefficiency, lack of initiative and ingenuity, and a yielding and indolent amiability, together with

a lively but inconsequential animistic sense. Along with these traits go certain others which have some value

for the collective life process, in the sense that they further the facility of life in the group. These traits are

truthfulness, peaceableness, goodwill, and a nonemulative, noninvidious interest in men and things.

With the advent of the predatory stage of life there comes a change in the requirements of the successful

human character. Men's habits of life are required to adapt themselves to new exigencies under a new scheme

of human relations. The same unfolding of energy, which had previously found expression in the traits of

savage life recited above, is now required to find expression along a new line of action, in a new group of

habitual responses to altered stimuli. The methods which, as counted in terms of facility of life, answered

measurably under the earlier conditions, are no longer adequate under the new conditions. The earlier

situation was characterized by a relative absence of antagonism or differentiation of interests, the later

situation by an emulation constantly increasing in relative absence of antagonism or differentiation of

interests, the later situation by an emulation constantly increasing in intensity and narrowing in scope. The

traits which characterize the predatory and subsequent stages of culture, and which indicate the types of man

best fitted to survive under the regime of status, are (in their primary expression) ferocity, selfseeking,

Under the severe and protracted discipline of the regime of competition, the selection of ethnic types has

acted to give a somewhat pronounced dominance to these traits of character, by favoring the survival of those

ethnic elements which are most richly endowed in these respects. At the same time the earlier acquired,

more generic habits of the race have never ceased to have some usefulness for the purpose of the life of the

collectivity and have never fallen into definitive abeyance. It may be worth while to point out that the

dolichoblond type of European man seems to owe much of its dominating influence and its masterful

position in the recent culture to its possessing the characteristics of predatory man in an exceptional degree.

These spiritual traits, together with a large endowment of physical energy itself probably a result of

selection between groups and between lines of descent chiefly go to place any ethnic element in the

position of a leisure or master class, especially during the earlier phases of the development of the institution

of a leisure class. This need not mean that precisely the same complement of aptitudes in any individual

would insure him an eminent personal success. Under the competitive regime, the conditions of success for

the individual are not necessarily the same as those for a class. The success of a class or party presumes a

strong element of clannishness, or loyalty to a chief, or adherence to a tenet; whereas the competitive

individual can best achieve his ends if he combines the barbarian's energy, initiative, selfseeking and

disingenuousness with the savage's lack of loyalty or clannishness. It may be remarked by the way, that the

men who have scored a brilliant (Napoleonic) success on the basis of an impartial selfseeking and absence

of scruple, have not uncommonly shown more of the physical characteristics of the brachycephalicbrunette

than of the dolichoblond. The greater proportion of moderately successful individuals, in a selfseeking

The temperament induced by the predatory habit of life makes for the survival and fullness of life of the

individual under a regime of emulation; at the same time it makes for the survival and success of the group if

the group's life as a collectivity is also predominantly a life of hostile competition with other groups. But the

evolution of economic life in the industrially more mature communities has now begun to take such a turn

that the interest of the community no longer coincides with the emulative interests of the individual. In their

corporate capacity, these advanced industrial communities are ceasing to be competitors for the means of life

or for the right to live except in so far as the predatory propensities of their ruling classes keep up the

tradition of war and rapine. These communities are no longer hostile to one another by force of

circumstances, other than the circumstances of tradition and temperament. Their material interests apart,

possibly, from the interests of the collective good fame are not only no longer incompatible, but the

success of any one of the communities unquestionably furthers the fullness of life of any other community in

the group, for the present and for an incalculable time to come. No one of them any longer has any material

interest in getting the better of any other. The same is not true in the same degree as regards individuals and

The collective interests of any modern community center in industrial efficiency. The individual is

serviceable for the ends of the community somewhat in proportion to his efficiency in the productive

employments vulgarly so called. This collective interest is best served by honesty, diligence, peacefulness,

goodwill, an absence of selfseeking, and an habitual recognition and apprehension of causal sequence,

without admixture of animistic belief and without a sense of dependence on any preternatural intervention in

the course of events. Not much is to be said for the beauty, moral excellence, or general worthiness and

reputability of such a prosy human nature as these traits imply; and there is little ground of enthusiasm for the

manner of collective life that would result from the prevalence of these traits in unmitigated dominance. But

that is beside the point. The successful working of a modern industrial community is best secured where these

traits concur, and it is attained in the degree in which the human material is characterized by their possession.

Their presence in some measure is required in order to have a tolerable adjustment to the circumstances of the

modern industrial situation. The complex, comprehensive. essentially peaceable, and highly organized

mechanism of the modern industrial community works to the best advantage when these traits, or most of

them, are present in the highest practicable degree. These traits are present in a markedly less degree in the

man of the predatory type than is useful for the purposes of the modern collective life.

On the other hand, the immediate interest of the individual under the competitive regime is best served by

shrewd trading and unscrupulous management. The characteristics named above as serving the interests of

the community are disserviceable to the individual, rather than otherwise. The presence of these aptitudes in

his makeup diverts his energies to other ends than those of pecuniary gain; and also in his pursuit of gain

they lead him to seek gain by the indirect and ineffectual channels of industry, rather than by a free and

unfaltering career of sharp practice. The industrial aptitudes are pretty consistently a hindrance to the

individual. Under the regime of emulation the members of a modern industrial community are rivals, each of

whom will best attain his individual and immediate advantage if, through an exceptional exemption from

scruple, he is able serenely to overreach and injure his fellows when the chance offers.

It has already been noticed that modern economic institutions fall into two roughly distinct categories the

pecuniary and the industrial. The like is true of employments. Under the former head are employments that

have to do with ownership or acquisition; under the latter head, those that have to do with workmanship or

production. As was found in speaking of the growth of institutions, so with regard to employments. The

economic interests of the leisure class lie in the pecuniary employments; those of the working classes lie in

both classes of employments, but chiefly in the industrial. Entrance to the leisure class lies through the

These two classes of employment differ materially in respect of the aptitudes required for each; and the

training which they give similarly follows two divergent lines. The discipline of the pecuniary employments

acts to conserve and to cultivate certain of the predatory aptitudes and the predatory animus. It does this both

by educating those individuals and classes who are occupied with these employments and by selectively

repressing and eliminating those individuals and lines of descent that are unfit in this respect. So far as men's

habits of thought are shaped by the competitive process of acquisition and tenure; so far as their economic

functions are comprised within the range of ownership of wealth as conceived in terms of exchange value,

and its management and financiering through a permutation of values; so far their experience in economic life

favors the survival and accentuation of the predatory temperament and habits of thought. Under the modern,

peaceable system, it is of course the peaceable range of predatory habits and aptitudes that is chiefly fostered

by a life of acquisition. That is to say, the pecuniary employments give proficiency in the general line of

practices comprised under fraud, rather than in those that belong under the more archaic method of forcible

These pecuniary employments, tending to conserve the predatory temperament, are the employments which

have to do with ownership the immediate function of the leisure class proper and the subsidiary

functions concerned with acquisition and accumulation. These cover the class of persons and that range of

duties in the economic process which have to do with the ownership of enterprises engaged in competitive

industry; especially those fundamental lines of economic management which are classed as financiering

operations. To these may be added the greater part of mercantile occupations. In their best and clearest

development these duties make up the economic office of the "captain of industry." The captain of industry is

an astute man rather than an ingenious one, and his captaincy is a pecuniary rather than an industrial

captaincy. Such administration of industry as he exercises is commonly of a permissive kind. The

mechanically effective details of production and of industrial organization are delegated to subordinates of a

less "practical" turn of mind men who are possessed of a gift for workmanship rather than administrative

ability. So far as regards their tendency in shaping human nature by education and selection, the common run

of noneconomic employments are to be classed with the pecuniary employments. Such are politics and

The pecuniary employments have also the sanction of reputability in a much higher degree than the industrial

employments. In this way the leisureclass standards of good repute come in to sustain the prestige of those

aptitudes that serve the invidious purpose; and the leisureclass scheme of decorous living, therefore, also

furthers the survival and culture of the predatory traits. Employments fall into a hierarchical gradation of

reputability. Those which have to do immediately with ownership on a large scale are the most reputable of

economic employments proper. Next to these in good repute come those employments that are immediately

subservient to ownership and financiering such as banking and the law. Banking employments also carry

a suggestion of large ownership, and this fact is doubtless accountable for a share of the prestige that attaches

to the business. The profession of the law does not imply large ownership ; but since no taint of usefulness,

for other than the competitive purpose, attaches to the lawyer's trade, it grades high in the conventional

scheme. The lawyer is exclusively occupied with the details of predatory fraud, either in achieving or in

checkmating chicanery, and success in the profession is therefore accepted as marking a large endowment of

that barbarian astuteness which has always commanded men's respect and fear. Mercantile pursuits are only

halfway reputable, unless they involve a large element of ownership and a small element of usefulness.

They grade high or low somewhat in proportion as they serve the higher or the lower needs; so that the

business of retailing the vulgar necessaries of life descends to the level of the handicrafts and factory labor.

Manual labor, or even the work of directing mechanical processes, is of course on a precarious footing as

regards respectability. A qualification is necessary as regards the discipline given by the pecuniary

employments. As the scale of industrial enterprise grows larger, pecuniary management comes to bear less of

the character of chicanery and shrewd competition in detail. That is to say, for an everincreasing proportion

of the persons who come in contact with this phase of economic life, business reduces itself to a routine in

which there is less immediate suggestion of overreaching or exploiting a competitor. The consequent

exemption from predatory habits extends chiefly to subordinates employed in business. The duties of

ownership and administration are virtually untouched by this qualification. The case is different as regards

those individuals or classes who are immediately occupied with the technique and manual operations of

production. Their daily life is not in the same degree a course of habituation to the emulative and invidious

motives and maneuvers of the pecuniary side of industry. They are consistently held to the apprehension and

coOrdination of mechanical facts and sequences, and to their appreciation and utilization for the purposes of

human life. So far as concerns this portion of the population, the educative and selective action of the

industrial process with which they are immediately in contact acts to adapt their habits of thought to the

noninvidious purposes of the collective life. For them, therefore, it hastens the obsolescence of the

distinctively predatory aptitudes and propensities carried over by heredity and tradition from the barbarian

The educative action of the economic life of the community, therefore, is not of a uniform kind throughout all

its manifestations. That range of economic activities which is concerned immediately with pecuniary

competition has a tendency to conserve certain predatory traits; while those indusstrial occupations which

have to do immediately with the production of goods have in the main the contrary tendency. But with regard

to the latter class of employments it is to be noticed in qualification that the persons engaged in them are

nearly all to some extent also concerned with matters of pecuniary competition (as, for instance, in the

competitive fixing of wages and salaries, in the purchase of goods for consumption, etc.). Therefore the

distinction here made between classes of employments is by no means a hard and fast distinction between

The employments of the leisure classes in modernindustry are such as to keep alive certain of the predatory

habits and aptitudes. So far as the members of those classes take part in the industrial process, their training

tends to conserve in them the barbarian temperament. But there is something to be said on the other side.

Individuals so placed as to be exempt from strain may survive and transmit their characteristics even if they

differ widely from the average of the species both in physique and in spiritual makeup. the chances for a

survival and transmission of atavistic traits are greatest in those classes that are most sheltered from the stress

of circumstances. The leisure class is in some degree sheltered from the stress of the industrial situation, and

should, therefore, afford an exceptionally great proportion of reversions to the peaceable or savage

temperament. It should be possible for such aberrant or atavistic individuals to unfold their life activity on

antepredatory lines without suffering as prompt a repression Or elimination as in the lower walks of life.

Something of the sort seems to be true in fact. there is, for instance, an appreciable proportion of the upper

classes whose inclinations lead them into philanthropic work, and there is a considerable body of sentiment in

the class going to support efforts of reform and amelioration, And much of this philanthropic and reformatory

effort, moreover, bears the marks of that amiable "cleverness" and incoherence that is characteristic of the

primitive savage. But it may still be doubtful whether these facts are evidence of a larger proportion of

reversions in the higher than in the lower strata, Even if the same inclinations were present in the

impecunious classes, it would not as easily find expression there; since those classes lack the means and the

time and energy to give effect to their inclinations in this respect. The prima facie evidence of the facts can

In further qualification it is to be noted that the leisure class of today is recruited from those who have been

successful in a pecuniary way, and who, therefore, are presumably endowed with more than an even

complement of the predatory traits. Entrance into the leisure class lies through the pecuniary employments,

and these employments, by selection and adaptation, act to admit to the upper levels only those lines of

descent that are pecuniarily fit to survive under the predatory test. And so soon as a case of reversion to

nonpredatory human nature shows itself on these upper levels, it is commonly weeded out and thrown back

to the lower pecuniary levels. In order to hold its place in the class, a stock must have the pecuniary

temperament; otherwise its fortune would he dissipated and it would presently lose caste. Instances of this

kind are sufficiently frequent. The constituency of the leisure class is kept up by a continual selective process,

whereby the individuals and lines of descent that are eminently fitted for an aggressive pecuniary competition

are withdraw from the lower classes. In order to reach the upper levels the aspirant must have, not only a fair

average complement of the pecuniary aptitudes, but he must have these gifts in such an eminent degree as to

overcome very material difficulties that stand in the way of his ascent. Barring accidents, the nouveaux

This process of selective admission has, of course, always been going on; ever since the fashion of pecuniary

emulation set in which is much the same as saying, ever since the institution of a leisure class was first

installed. But the precise ground of selection has not always been the same, and the selective process has

therefore not always given the same results. In the early barbarian, or predatory stage proper, the test of

fitness was prowess, in the naive sense of the word. to gain entrance to the class, the candidate had to he

gifted with clannishness, massiveness, ferocity , unscrupulousness, and tenacity of purpose. these were the

qualities that counted toward the accumulation and continued tenure of wealth. the economic basis of the

leisure class, then as later, was the possession of wealth; hut the methods of accumulating wealth, and the

gifts required for holding it, have changed in some degree since the early days of the predatory culture. In

consequence of the selective process the dominant traits of the early barbarian leisure class were bold

aggression, an alert sense of status, and a free resort to fraud. the members of the class held their place by

tenure of prowess. In the later barbarian culture society attained settled methods of acquisition and possession

under the quasipeaceable regime of status. Simple aggression and unrestrained violence in great measure

gave place to shrewd practice and chicanery, as the best approved method of accumulating wealth. A

different range of aptitudes and propensities would then be conserved in the leisure class. Masterful

aggression, and the correlative massiveness, together with a ruthlessly consistent sense of status, would still

count among the most splendid traits of the class. These have remained in our traditions as the typical

"aristocratic virtues." But with these were associated an increasing complement of the less obtrusive

pecuniary virtues; such as providence, prudence, and chicanery. As time has gone on, and the modern

peaceable stage of pecuniary culture has been approached, the lastnamed range of aptitudes and habits has

gained in relative effectiveness for pecuniary ends, and they have counted for relatively more in the selective

The ground of selection has changed, until the aptitudes which now qualify for admission to the class are the

pecuniary aptitudes only. What remains of the predatory barbarian traits is the tenacity of purpose or

consistency of aim which distinguished the successful predatory barbarian from the peaceable savage whom

he supplanted. But this trait can not be said characteristically to distinguish the pecuniarily successful

upperclass man from the rank and file of the industrial classes. The training and the selection to which the

latter are exposed in modernindustrial life give a similarly decisive weight to this trait. Tenacity of purpose

may rather be said to distinguish both these classes from two others; the shiftless ne'er dowell and the

lowerclass delinquent. In point of natural endowment the pecuniary man compares with the delinquent in

much the same way as the industrial man compares with the goodnatured shiftless dependent. The ideal

pecuniary man is like the ideal delinquent in his unscrupulous conversion of goods and persons to his own

ends, and in a callous disregard of the feelings and wishes of others and of the remoter effects of his actions;

but he is unlike him in possessing a keener sense of status, and in working more consistently and farsightedly

to a remoter end. The kinship of the two types of temperament is further shown in a proclivity to "sport" and

gambling, and a relish of aimless emulation. The ideal pecuniary man also shows a curious kinship with the

delinquent in one of the concomitant variations of the predatory human nature. The delinquent is very

commonly of a superstitious habit of mind; he is a great believer in luck, spells, divination and destiny, and in

omens and shamanistic ceremony. Where circumstances are favorable, this proclivity is apt to express itself

in a certain servile devotional fervor and a punctilious attention to devout observances; it may perhaps be

better characterized as devoutness than as religion. At this point the temperament of the delinquent has more

in common with the pecuniary and leisure classes than with the industrial man or with the class of shiftless

Life in a modern industrial community, or in other words life under the pecuniary culture, acts by a process of

selection to develop and conserve a certain range of aptitudes and propensities. The present tendency of this

selective process is not simply a reversion to a given, immutable ethnic type. It tends rather to a modification

of human nature differing in some respects from any of the types or variants transmitted out of the past. The

objective point of the evolution is not a single one. The temperament which the evolution acts to establish as

normal differs from any one of the archaic variants of human nature in its greater stability of aim greater

singleness of purpose and greater persistence in effort. So far as concerns economic theory, the objective

point of the selective process is on the whole single to this extent; although there are minor tendencies of

considerable importance diverging from this line of development. But apart from this general trend the line of

development is not single. As concerns economic theory, the development in other respects runs on two

divergent lines. So far as regards the selective conservation of capacities or aptitudes in individuals, these two

lines may be called the pecuniary and the industrial. As regards the conservation of propensities, spiritual

attitude, or animus, the two may be called the invidious or selfregarding and the noninvidious or

economical. As regards the intellectual or cognitive bent of the two directions of growth, the former may he

characterized as the personal standpoint, of conation, qualitative relation, status, or worth; the latter as the

impersonal standpoint, of sequence, quantitative relation, mechanical efficiency, or use.

The pecuniary employments call into action chiefly the former of these two ranges of aptitudes and

propensities, and act selectively to conserve them in the population. The industrial employments, on the other

hand, chiefly exercise the latter range, and act to conserve them. An exhaustive psychological analysis will

show that each of these two ranges of aptitudes and propensities is but the multiform expression of a given

temperamental bent. By force of the unity or singleness of the individual, the aptitudes, animus, and interests

comprised in the firstnamed range belong together as expressions of a given variant of human nature. The

like is true of the latter range. The two may be conceived as alternative directions of human life, in such a

way that a given individual inclines more or less consistently to the one or the other. The tendency of the

pecuniary life is, in a general way, to conserve the barbarian temperament, but with the substitution of fraud

and prudence, or administrative ability, in place of that predilection for physical damage that characterizes the

early barbarian. This substitution of chicanery in place of devastation takes place only in an uncertain degree.

Within the pecuniary employments the selective action runs pretty consistently in this direction, but the

discipline of pecuniary life, outside the competition for gain, does not work consistently to the same effect.

The discipline of modernlife in the consumption of time and goods does not act unequivocally to eliminate

the aristocratic virtues or to foster the bourgeois virtues. The conventional scheme of decent living calls for a

considerable exercise of the earlier barbarian traits. Some details of this traditional scheme of life, bearing on

this point, have been noticed in earlier chapters under the head of leisure, and further details will be shown in

From what has been said, it appears that the leisureclass life and the leisureclass scheme of life should

further the conservation of the barbarian temperament; chiefly of the quasipeaceable, or bourgeois, variant,

but also in some measure of the predatory variant. In the absence of disturbing factors, therefore, it should be

possible to trace a difference of temperament between the classes of society. The aristocratic and the

bourgeois virtues that is to say the destructive and pecuniary traits should be found chiefly among the

upper classes, and the industrial virtues that is to say the peaceable traits chiefly among the classes

In a general and uncertain way this holds true, hut the test is not so readily applied nor so conclusive as might

be wished. There are several assignable reasons for its partial failure. All classes are in a measure engaged in

the pecuniary struggle, and in all classes the possession of the pecuniary traits counts towards the success and

survival of the individual. Wherever the pecuniary culture prevails, the selective process by which men's

habits of thought are shaped, and by which the survival of rival lines of descent is decided, proceeds

proximately on the basis of fitness for acquisition. Consequently, if it were not for the fact that pecuniary

efficiency is on the whole incompatible with industrial efficiency, the selective action of all occupations

would tend to the unmitigated dominance of the pecuniary temperament. The result would be the installation

of what has been known as the "economic man," as the normal and definitive type of human nature. But the

"economic man," whose only interest is the selfregarding one and whose only human trait is prudence is

The modern industry requires an impersonal, noninvidious interest in the work in hand. Without this the

elaborate processes of industry would be impossible, and would, indeed, never have been conceived. This

interest in work differentiates the workman from the criminal on the one hand, and from the captain of

industry on the other. Since work must be done in order to the continued life of the community, there results a

qualified selection favoring the spiritual aptitude for work, within a certain range of occupations. This much,

however, is to be conceded, that even within the industrial occupations the selective elimination of the

pecuniary traits is an uncertain process, and that there is consequently an appreciable survival of the barbarian

temperament even within these occupations. On this account there is at present no broad distinction in this

respect between the leisureclass character and the character of the common run of the population.

The whole question as to a class distinction in respect to spiritual makeup is also obscured by the presence,

in all classes of society, of acquired habits of life that closely simulate inherited traits and at the same time act

to develop in the entire body of the population the traits which they simulate. These acquired habits, or

assumed traits of character, are most commonly of an aristocratic cast. The prescriptive position of the leisure

class as the exemplar of reputability has imposed many features of the leisureclass theory of life upon the

lower classes; with the result that there goes on, always and throughout society, a more or less persistent

cultivation of these aristocratic traits. On this ground also these traits have a better chance of survival among

the body of the people than would be the case if it were not for the precept and example of the leisure class.

As one channel, and an important one, through which this transfusion of aristocratic views of life, and

consequently more or less archaic traits of character goes on, may be mentioned the class of domestic

servants. these have their notions of what is good and beautiful shaped by contact with the master class and

carry the preconceptions so acquired back among their lowborn equals, and so disseminate the higher ideals

abroad through the community without the loss of time which this dissemination might otherwise suffer. The

saying "Like master, like man, " has a greater significance than is commonly appreciated for the rapid

There is also a further range of facts that go to lessen class differences as regards the survival of the

pecuniary virtues. The pecuniary struggle produces an underfed class, of large proportions. This underfeeding

consists in a deficiency of the necessaries of life or of the necessaries of a decent expenditure. In either case

the result is a closely enforced struggle for the means with which to meet the daily needs; whether it be the

physical or the higher needs. The strain of selfassertion against odds takes up the whole energy of the

individual; he bends his efforts to compass his own invidious ends alone, and becomes continually more

narrowly selfseeking. The industrial traits in this way tend to obsolescence through disuse. Indirectly,

therefore, by imposing a scheme of pecuniary decency and by withdrawing as much as may be of the means

of life from the lower classes, the institution of a leisure class acts to conserve the pecuniary traits in the body

of the population. The result is an assimilation of the lower classes to the type of human nature that belongs

primarily to the upper classes only. It appears, therefore, that there is no wide difference in temperament

between the upper and the lower classes; but it appears also that the absence of such a difference is in good

part due to the prescriptive example of the leisure class and to the popular acceptance of those broad

principles of conspicuous waste and pecuniary emulation on which the institution of a leisure class rests. The

institution acts to lower the industrial efficiency of the community and retard the adaptation of human nature

to the exigencies of modern industrial life. It affects the prevalent or effective human nature in a conservative

direction, (1) by direct transmission of archaic traits, through inheritance within the class and wherever the

leisureclass blood is transfused outside the class, and (2) by conserving and fortifying the traditions of the

archaic regime, and so making the chances of survival of barbarian traits greater also outside the range of

But little if anything has been done towards collecting or digesting data that are of special significance for the

question of survival or elimination of traits in the modern populations. Little of a tangible character can

therefore be offered in support of the view here taken, beyond a discursive review of such everyday facts as

lie ready to hand. Such a recital can scarcely avoid being commonplace and tedious, but for all that it seems

necessary to the completeness of the argument, even in the meager outline in which it is here attempted. A

degree of indulgence may therefore fairly be bespoken for the succeeding chapters, which offer a fragmentary

The leisure class lives by the industrial community rather than in it. Its relations to industry are of a pecuniary

rather than an industrial kind. Admission to the class is gained by exercise of the pecuniary aptitudes

aptitudes for acquisition rather than for serviceability. There is, therefore, a continued selective sifting of the

human material that makes up the leisure class, and this selection proceeds on the ground of fitness for

pecuniary pursuits. But the scheme of life of the class is in large part a heritage from the past, and embodies

much of the habits and ideals of the earlier barbarian period. This archaic, barbarian scheme of life imposes

itself also on the lower orders, with more or less mitigation. In its turn the scheme of life, of conventions, acts

selectively and by education to shape the human material, and its action runs chiefly in the direction of

conserving traits, habits, and ideals that belong to the early barbarian age the age of prowess and

The most immediate and unequivocal expression of that archaic human nature which characterizes man in the

predatory stage is the fighting propensity proper. In cases where the predatory activity is a collective one, this

propensity is frequently called the martial spirit, or, latterly, patriotism. It needs no insistence to find assent to

the proposition that in the countries of civilized Europe the hereditary leisure class is endowed with this

martial spirit in a higher degree than the middle classes. Indeed, the leisure class claims the distinction as a

matter of pride, and no doubt with some grounds. War is honorable, and warlike prowess is eminently

honorific in the eyes of the generality of men; and this admiration of warlike prowess is itself the best

voucher of a predatory temperament in the admirer of war. The enthusiasm for war, and the predatory temper

of which it is the index, prevail in the largest measure among the upper classes, especially among the

hereditary leisure class. Moreover, the ostensible serious occupation of the upper class is that of government,

which, in point of origin and developmental content, is also a predatory occupation.

The only class which could at all dispute with the hereditary leisure class the honor of an habitual bellicose

frame of mind is that of the lowerclass delinquents. In ordinary times, the large body of the industrial

classes is relatively apathetic touching warlike interests. When unexcited, this body of the common people,

which makes up the effective force of the industrial community, is rather averse to any other than a defensive

fight; indeed, it responds a little tardily even to a provocation which makes for an attitude of defense. In the

more civilized communities, or rather in the communities which have reached an advanced industrial

development, the spirit of warlike aggression may be said to be obsolescent among the common people. This

does not say that there is not an appreciable number of individuals among the industrial classes in whom the

martial spirit asserts itself obtrusively. Nor does it say that the body of the people may not be fired with

martial ardor for a time under the stimulus of some special provocation, such as is seen in operation today in

more than one of the countries of Europe, and for the time in America. But except for such seasons of

temporary exaltation, and except for those individuals who are endowed with an archaic temperament of the

predatory type, together with the similarly endowed body of individuals among the higher and the lowest

classes, the inertness of the mass of any modern civilized community in this respect is probably so great as

would make war impracticable, except against actual invasion. The habits and aptitudes of the common run

of men make for an unfolding of activity in other, less picturesque directions than that of war.

This class difference in temperament may be due in part to a difference in the inheritance of acquired traits in

the several classes, but it seems also, in some measure, to correspond with a difference in ethnic derivation.

The class difference is in this respect visibly less in those countries whose population is relatively

homogeneous, ethnically, than in the countries where there is a broader divergence between the ethnic

elements that make up the several classes of the community. In the same connection it may be noted that the

later accessions to the leisure class in the latter countries, in a general way, show less of the martial spirit than

contemporary representatives of the aristocracy of the ancient line. These nouveaux arriv�s have recently

emerged from the commonplace body of the population and owe their emergence into the leisure class to the

exercise of traits and propensities which are not to be classed as prowess in the ancient sense.

Apart from warlike activity proper, the institution of the duel is also an expression of the same superior

readiness for combat; and the duel is a leisureclass institution. The duel is in substance a more or less

deliberate resort to a fight as a final settlement of a difference of opinion. In civilized communities it prevails

as a normal phenomenon only where there is an hereditary leisure class, and almost exclusively among that

class. The exceptions are (1) military and naval officers who are ordinarily members of the leisure class, and

who are at the same time specially trained to predatory habits of mind and (2) the lowerclass delinquents

who are by inheritance, or training, or both, of a similarly predatory disposition and habit. It is only the

highbred gentleman and the rowdy that normally resort to blows as the universal solvent of differences of

opinion. The plain man will ordinarily fight only when excessive momentary irritation or alcoholic exaltation

act to inhibit the more complex habits of response to the stimuli that make for provocation. He is then thrown

back upon the simpler, less differentiated forms of the instinct of selfassertion; that is to say, he reverts

This institution of the duel as a mode of finally settling disputes and serious questions of precedence shades

off into the obligatory, unprovoked private fight, as a social obligation due to one's good repute. As a

leisureclass usage of this kind we have, particularly, that bizarre survival of bellicose chivalry, the German

student duel. In the lower or spurious leisure class of the delinquents there is in all countries a similar, though

less formal, social obligation incumbent on the rowdy to assert his manhood in unprovoked combat with his

fellows. And spreading through all grades of society, a similar usage prevails among the boys of the

community. The boy usually knows to nicety, from day to day, how he and his associates grade in respect of

relative fighting capacity; and in the community of boys there is ordinarily no secure basis of reputability for

All this applies especially to boys above a certain somewhat vague limit of maturity. The child's temperament

does not commonly answer to this description during infancy and the years of close tutelage, when the child

still habitually seeks contact with its mother at every turn of its daily life. During this earlier period there is

little aggression and little propensity for antagonism. The transition from this peaceable temper to the

predaceous, and in extreme cases malignant, mischievousness of the boy is a gradual one, and it is

accomplished with more completeness, covering a larger range of the individual's aptitudes, in some cases

than in others. In the earlier stage of his growth, the child, whether boy or girl, shows less of initiative and

aggressive selfassertion and less of an inclination to isolate himself and his interests from the domestic

group in which he lives, and he shows more of sensitiveness to rebuke, bashfulness, timidity, and the need of

friendly human contact. In the common run of cases this early temperament passes, by a gradual but

somewhat rapid obsolescence of the infantile features, into the temperament of the boy proper; though there

are also cases where the predaceous futures of boy life do not emerge at all, or at the most emerge in but a

In girls the transition to the predaceous stage is seldom accomplished with the same degree of completeness

as in boys; and in a relatively large proportion of cases it is scarcely undergone at all. In such cases the

transition from infancy to adolescence and maturity is a gradual and unbroken process of the shifting of

interest from infantile purposes and aptitudes to the purposes, functions, and relations of adult life. In the girls

there is a less general prevalence of a predaceous interval in the development; and in the cases where it

occurs, the predaceous and isolating attitude during the interval is commonly less accentuated.

In the male child the predaceous interval is ordinarily fairly well marked and lasts for some time, but it is

commonly terminated (if at all) with the attainment of maturity. This last statement may need very material

qualification. The cases are by no means rare in which the transition from the boyish to the adult

temperament is not made, or is made only partially understanding by the "adult" temperament the average

temperament of those adult individuals in modern industrial life who have some serviceability for the

purposes of the collective life process, and who may therefore be said to make up the effective average of the

The ethnic composition of the European populations varies. In some cases even the lower classes are in large

measure made up of the peacedisturbing dolichoblond; while in others this ethnic element is found chiefly

among the hereditary leisure class. The fighting habit seems to prevail to a less extent among the

workingclass boys in the latter class of populations than among the boys of the upper classes or among

If this generalization as to the temperament of the boy among the working classes should be found true on a

fuller and closer scrutiny of the field, it would add force to the view that the bellicose temperament is in some

appreciable degree a race characteristic; it appears to enter more largely into the makeup of the dominant,

upperclass ethnic type the dolichoblond of the European countries than into the subservient,

lowerclass types of man which are conceived to constitute the body of the population of the same

The case of the boy may seem not to bear seriously on the question of the relative endowment of prowess

with which the several classes of society are gifted; but it is at least of some value as going to show that this

fighting impulse belongs to a more archaic temperament than that possessed by the average adult man of the

industrious classes. In this, as in many other features of child life, the child reproduces, temporarily and in

miniature, some of the earlier phases of the development of adult man. Under this interpretation, the boy's

predilection for exploit and for isolation of his own interest is to be taken as a transient reversion to the

human nature that is normal to the early barbarian culture the predatory culture proper. In this respect, as

in much else, the leisureclass and the delinquentclass character shows a persistence into adult life of traits

that are normal to childhood and youth, and that are likewise normal or habitual to the earlier stages of

culture. Unless the difference is traceable entirely to a fundamental difference between persistent ethnic

types, the traits that distinguish the swaggering delinquent and the punctilious gentleman of leisure from the

common crowd are, in some measure, marks of an arrested spiritual development. They mark an immature

phase, as compared with the stage of development attained by the average of the adults in the modern

industrial community. And it will appear presently that the puerile spiritual makeup of these representatives

of the upper and the lowest social strata shows itself also in the presence of other archaic traits than this

As if to leave no doubt about the essential immaturity of the fighting temperament, we have, bridging the

interval between legitimate boyhood and adult manhood, the aimless and playful, but more or less systematic

and elaborate, disturbances of the peace in vogue among schoolboys of a slightly higher age. In the common

run of cases, these disturbances are confined to the period of adolescence. They recur with decreasing

frequency and acuteness as youth merges into adult life, and so they reproduce, in a general way, in the life of

the individual, the sequence by which the group has passed from the predatory to a more settled habit of life.

In an appreciable number of cases the spiritual growth of the individual comes to a close before he emerges

from this puerile phase; in these cases the fighting temper persists through life. Those individuals who in

spiritual development eventually reach man's estate, therefore, ordinarily pass through a temporary archaic

phase corresponding to the permanent spiritual level of the fighting and sporting men. Different individuals

will, of course, achieve spiritual maturity and sobriety in this respect in different degrees; and those who fail

of the average remain as an undissolved residue of crude humanity in the modern industrial community and

as a foil for that selective process of adaptation which makes for a heightened industrial efficiency and the

fullness of life of the collectivity. This arrested spiritual development may express itself not only in a direct

participation by adults in youthful exploits of ferocity, but also indirectly in aiding and abetting disturbances

of this kind on the part of younger persons. It thereby furthers the formation of habits of ferocity which may

persist in the later life of the growing generation, and so retard any movement in the direction of a more

peaceable effective temperament on the part of the community. If a person so endowed with a proclivity for

exploits is in a position to guide the development of habits in the adolescent members of the community, the

influence which he exerts in the direction of conservation and reversion to prowess may be very considerable.

This is the significance, for instance, of the fostering care latterly bestowed by many clergymen and other

pillars of society upon "boys' brigades" and similar pseudomilitary organizations. The same is true of the

encouragement given to the growth of "college spirit," college athletics, and the like, in the higher institutions

These manifestations of the predatory temperament are all to be classed under the head of exploit. They are

partly simple and unreflected expressions of an attitude of emulative ferocity, partly activities deliberately

entered upon with a view to gaining repute for prowess. Sports of all kinds are of the same general character,

including prizefights, bullfights, athletics, shooting, angling, yachting, and games of skill, even where the

element of destructive physical efficiency is not an obtrusive feature. Sports shade off from the basis of

hostile combat, through skill, to cunning and chicanery, without its being possible to draw a line at any point.

The ground of an addiction to sports is an archaic spiritual constitution the possession of the predatory

emulative propensity in a relatively high potency, A strong proclivity to adventuresome exploit and to the

infliction of damage is especially pronounced in those employments which are in colloquial usage

It is perhaps truer, or at least more evident, as regards sports than as regards the other expressions of

predatory emulation already spoken of, that the temperament which inclines men to them is essentially a

boyish temperament. The addiction to sports, therefore, in a peculiar degree marks an arrested development

of the man's moral nature. This peculiar boyishness of temperament in sporting men immediately becomes

apparent when attention is directed to the large element of makebelieve that is present in all sporting

activity. Sports share this character of makebelieve with the games and exploits to which children,

especially boys, are habitually inclined. Makebelieve does not enter in the same proportion into all sports,

but it is present in a very appreciable degree in all. It is apparently present in a larger measure in

sportsmanship proper and in athletic contests than in set games of skill of a more sedentary character;

although this rule may not be found to apply with any great uniformity. It is noticeable, for instance, that even

very mildmannered and matteroffact men who go out shooting are apt to carry an excess of arms and

accoutrements in order to impress upon their own imagination the seriousness of their undertaking. These

huntsmen are also prone to a histrionic, prancing gait and to an elaborate exaggeration of the motions,

whether of stealth or of onslaught, involved in their deeds of exploit. Similarly in athletic sports there is

almost invariably present a good share of rant and swagger and ostensible mystification features which

mark the histrionic nature of these employments. In all this, of course, the reminder of boyish makebelieve

is plain enough. The slang of athletics, by the way, is in great part made up of extremely sanguinary locutions

borrowed from the terminology of warfare. Except where it is adopted as a necessary means of secret

communication, the use of a special slang in any employment is probably to be accepted as evidence that the

A further feature in which sports differ from the duel and similar disturbances of the peace is the peculiarity

that they admit of other motives being assigned for them besides the impulses of exploit and ferocity. There

is probably little if any other motive present in any given case, but the fact that other reasons for indulging in

sports are frequently assigned goes to say that other grounds are sometimes present in a subsidiary way.

Sportsmen hunters and anglers are more or less in the habit of assigning a love of nature, the need of

recreation, and the like, as the incentives to their favorite pastime. These motives are no doubt frequently

present and make up a part of the attractiveness of the sportsman's life; but these can not be the chief

incentives. These ostensible needs could be more readily and fully satisfied without the accompaniment of a

systematic effort to take the life of those creatures that make up an essential feature of that "nature" that is

beloved by the sportsman. It is, indeed, the most noticeable effect of the sportsman's activity to keep nature in

a state of chronic desolation by killing off all living thing whose destruction he can compass.

Still, there is ground for the sportsman's claim that under the existing conventionalities his need of recreation

and of contact with nature can best be satisfied by the course which he takes. Certain canons of good

breeding have been imposed by the prescriptive example of a predatory leisure class in the past and have

been somewhat painstakingly conserved by the usage of the latterday representatives of that class; and these

canons will not permit him, without blame, to seek contact with nature on other terms. From being an

honorable employment handed down from the predatory culture as the highest form of everyday leisure,

sports have come to be the only form of outdoor activity that has the full sanction of decorum. Among the

proximate incentives to shooting and angling, then, may be the need of recreation and outdoor life. The

remoter cause which imposes the necessity of seeking these objects under the cover of systematic slaughter is

a prescription that can not be violated except at the risk of disrepute and consequent lesion to one's

The case of other kinds of sport is somewhat similar. Of these, athletic games are the best example.

Prescriptive usage with respect to what forms of activity, exercise, and recreation are permissible under the

code of reputable living is of course present here also. Those who are addicted to athletic sports, or who

admire them, set up the claim that these afford the best available means of recreation and of "physical

culture." And prescriptive usage gives countenance to the claim. The canons of reputable living exclude from

the scheme of life of the leisure class all activity that can not be classed as conspicuous leisure. And

consequently they tend by prescription to exclude it also from the scheme of life of the community generally.

At the same time purposeless physical exertion is tedious and distasteful beyond tolerance. As has been

noticed in another connection, recourse is in such a case had to some form of activity which shall at least

afford a colorable pretense of purpose, even if the object assigned be only a makebelieve. Sports satisfy

these requirements of substantial futility together with a colorable makebelieve of purpose. In addition to

this they afford scope for emulation, and are attractive also on that account. In order to be decorous, an

employment must conform to the leisureclass canon of reputable waste; at the same time all activity, in

order to be persisted in as an habitual, even if only partial, expression of life, must conform to the generically

human canon of efficiency for some serviceable objective end. The leisureclass canon demands strict and

comprehensive futility, the instinct of workmanship demands purposeful action. The leisureclass canon of

decorum acts slowly and pervasively, by a selective elimination of all substantially useful or purposeful

modes of action from the accredited scheme of life; the instinct of workmanship acts impulsively and may be

satisfied, provisionally, with a proximate purpose. It is only as the apprehended ulterior futility of a given line

of action enters the reflective complex of consciousness as an element essentially alien to the normally

purposeful trend of the life process that its disquieting and deterrent effect on the consciousness of the agent

The individual's habits of thought make an organic complex, the trend of which is necessarily in the direction

of serviceability to the life process. When it is attempted to assimilate systematic waste or futility, as an end

in life, into this organic complex, there presently supervenes a revulsion. But this revulsion of the organism

may be avoided if the attention can be confined to the proximate, unreflected purpose of dexterous or

emulative exertion. Sports hunting, angling, athletic games, and the like afford an exercise for

dexterity and for the emulative ferocity and astuteness characteristic of predatory life. So long as the

individual is but slightly gifted with reflection or with a sense of the ulterior trend of his actions so long as his

life is substantially a life of naive impulsive action so long the immediate and unreflected purposefulness

of sports, in the way of an expression of dominance, will measurably satisfy his instinct of workmanship.

This is especially true if his dominant impulses are the unreflecting emulative propensities of the predaceous

temperament. At the same time the canons of decorum will commend sports to him as expressions of a

pecuniarily blameless life. It is by meeting these two requirements, of ulterior wastefulness and proximate

purposefulness, that any given employment holds its place as a traditional and habitual mode of decorous

recreation. In the sense that other forms of recreation and exercise are morally impossible to persons of good

breeding and delicate sensibilities, then, sports are the best available means of recreation under existing

But those members of respectable society who advocate athletic games commonly justify their attitude on

this head to themselves and to their neighbors on the ground that these games serve as an invaluable means of

development. They not only improve the contestant's physique, but it is commonly added that they also foster

a manly spirit, both in the participants and in the spectators. Football is the particular game which will

probably first occur to any one in this community when the question of the serviceability of athletic games is

raised, as this form of athletic contest is at present uppermost in the mind of those who plead for or against

games as a means of physical or moral salvation. This typical athletic sport may, therefore, serve to illustrate

the bearing of athletics upon the development of the contestant's character and physique. It has been said, not

inaptly, that the relation of football to physical culture is much the same as that of the bullfight to

agriculture. Serviceability for these lusory institutions requires sedulous training or breeding. The material

used, whether brute or human, is subjected to careful selection and discipline, in order to secure and

accentuate certain aptitudes and propensities which are characteristic of the ferine state, and which tend to

obsolescence under domestication. This does not mean that the result in either case is an all around and

consistent rehabilitation of the ferine or barbarian habit of mind and body. The result is rather a onesided

return to barbarism or to the feroe natura a rehabilitation and accentuation of those ferine traits which

make for damage and desolation, without a corresponding development of the traits which would serve the

individual's selfpreservation and fullness of life in a ferine environment. The culture bestowed in football

gives a product of exotic ferocity and cunning. It is a rehabilitation of the early barbarian temperament,

together with a suppression of those details of temperament, which, as seen from the standpoint of the social

The physical vigor acquired in the training for athletic games so far as the training may be said to have

this effect is of advantage both to the individual and to the collectivity, in that, other things being equal, it

conduces to economic serviceability. The spiritual traits which go with athletic sports are likewise

economically advantageous to the individual, as contradistinguished from the interests of the collectivity.

This holds true in any community where these traits are present in some degree in the population. Modern

competition is in large part a process of selfassertion on the basis of these traits of predatory human nature.

In the sophisticated form in which they enter into the modern, peaceable emulation, the possession of these

traits in some measure is almost a necessary of life to the civilized man. But while they are indispensable to

the competitive individual, they are not directly serviceable to the community. So far as regards the

serviceability of the individual for the purposes of the collective life, emulative efficiency is of use only

indirectly if at all. Ferocity and cunning are of no use to the community except in its hostile dealings with

other communities; and they are useful to the individual only because there is so large a proportion of the

same traits actively present in the human environment to which he is exposed. Any individual who enters the

competitive struggle without the due endowment of these traits is at a disadvantage, somewhat as a hornless

The possession and the cultivation of the predatory traits of character may, of course, be desirable on other

than economic grounds. There is a prevalent aesthetic or ethical predilection for the barbarian aptitudes, and

the traits in question minister so effectively to this predilection that their serviceability in the aesthetic or

ethical respect probably offsets any economic unserviceability which they may give. But for the present

purpose that is beside the point. Therefore nothing is said here as to the desirability or advisability of sports

In popular apprehension there is much that is admirable in the type of manhood which the life of sport

fosters. There is selfreliance and goodfellowship, so termed in the somewhat loose colloquial use of the

words. From a different point of view the qualities currently so characterized might be described as

truculence and clannishness. The reason for the current approval and admiration of these manly qualities, as

well as for their being called manly, is the same as the reason for their usefulness to the individual. The

members of the community, and especially that class of the community which sets the pace in canons of taste,

are endowed with this range of propensities in sufficient measure to make their absence in others felt as a

shortcoming, and to make their possession in an exceptional degree appreciated as an attribute of superior

merit. The traits of predatory man are by no means obsolete in the common run of modern populations. They

are present and can be called out in bold relief at any time by any appeal to the sentiments in which they

express themselves unless this appeal should clash with the specific activities that make up our habitual

occupations and comprise the general range of our everyday interests. The common run of the population of

any industrial community is emancipated from these, economically considered, untoward propensities only in

the sense that, through partial and temporary disuse, they have lapsed into the background of subconscious

motives. With varying degrees of potency in different individuals, they remain available for the aggressive

shaping of men's actions and sentiments whenever a stimulus of more than everyday intensity comes in to

call them forth. And they assert themselves forcibly in any case where no occupation alien to the predatory

culture has usurped the individual's everyday range of interest and sentiment. This is the case among the

leisure class and among certain portions of the population which are ancillary to that class. Hence the facility

with which any new accessions to the leisure class take to sports; and hence the rapid growth of sports and of

the sporting sentient in any industrial community where wealth has accumulated sufficiently to exempt a

A homely and familiar fact may serve to show that the predaceous impulse does not prevail in the same

degree in all classes. Taken simply as a feature of modern life, the habit of carrying a walkingstick may

seem at best a trivial detail; but the usage has a significance for the point in question. The classes among

whom the habit most prevails the classes with whom the walkingstick is associated in popular

apprehension are the men of the leisure class proper, sporting men, and the lowerclass delinquents. To

these might perhaps be added the men engaged in the pecuniary employments. The same is not true of the

common run of men engaged in industry and it may be noted by the way that women do not carry a stick

except in case of infirmity, where it has a use of a different kind. The practice is of course in great measure a

matter of polite usage; but the basis of polite usage is, in turn, the proclivities of the class which sets the pace

in polite usage. The walkingstick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's hands are

employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure. But it is also a

weapon, and it meets a felt need of barbarian man on that ground. The handling of so tangible and primitive a

means of offense is very comforting to any one who is gifted with even a moderate share of ferocity. The

exigencies of the language make it impossible to avoid an apparent implication of disapproval of the

aptitudes, propensities, and expressions of life here under discussion. It is, however, not intended to imply

anything in the way of deprecation or commendation of any one of these phases of human character or of the

life process. The various elements of the prevalent human nature are taken up from the point of view of

economic theory, and the traits discussed are gauged and graded with regard to their immediate economic

bearing on the facility of the collective life process. That is to say, these phenomena are here apprehended

from the economic point of view and are valued with respect to their direct action in furtherance or hindrance

of a more perfect adjustment of the human collectivity to the environment and to the institutional structure

required by the economic situation of the collectivity for the present and for the immediate future. For these

purposes the traits handed down from the predatory culture are less serviceable than might be. Although even

in this connection it is not to be overlooked that the energetic aggressiveness and pertinacity of predatory man

is a heritage of no mean value. The economic value with some regard also to the social value in the

narrower sense of these aptitudes and propensities is attempted to be passed upon without reflecting on

their value as seen from another point of view. When contrasted with the prosy mediocrity of the latterday

industrial scheme of life, and judged by the accredited standards of morality, and more especially by the

standards of aesthetics and of poetry, these survivals from a more primitive type of manhood may have a very

different value from that here assigned them. But all this being foreign to the purpose in hand, no expression

of opinion on this latter head would be in place here. All that is admissible is to enter the caution that these

standards of excellence, which are alien to the present purpose, must not be allowed to influence our

economic appreciation of these traits of human character or of the activities which foster their growth. This

applies both as regards those persons who actively participate in sports and those whose sporting experience

consists in contemplation only. What is here said of the sporting propensity is likewise pertinent to sundry

reflections presently to be made in this connection on what would colloquially be known as the religious life.

The last paragraph incidentally touches upon the fact that everyday speech can scarcely be employed in

discussing this class of aptitudes and activities without implying deprecation or apology. The fact is

significant as showing the habitual attitude of the dispassionate common man toward the propensities which

express themselves in sports and in exploit generally. And this is perhaps as convenient a place as any to

discuss that undertone of deprecation which runs through all the voluminous discourse in defense or in

laudation of athletic sports, as well as of other activities of a predominantly predatory character. The same

apologetic frame of mind is at least beginning to be observable in the spokesmen of most other institutions

handed down from the barbarian phase of life. Among these archaic institutions which are felt to need

apology are comprised, with others, the entire existing system of the distribution of wealth, together with the

resulting class distinction of status; all or nearly all forms of consumption that come under the head of

conspicuous waste; the status of women under the patriarchal system; and many features of the traditional

creeds and devout observances, especially the exoteric expressions of the creed and the naive apprehension of

received observances. What is to be said in this connection of the apologetic attitude taken in commending

sports and the sporting character will therefore apply, with a suitable change in phraseology, to the apologies

There is a feeling usually vague and not commonly avowed in so many words by the apologist himself,

but ordinarily perceptible in the manner of his discourse that these sports, as well as the general range of

predaceous impulses and habits of thought which underlie the sporting character, do not altogether commend

themselves to common sense. "As to the majority of murderers, they are very incorrect characters." This

aphorism offers a valuation of the predaceous temperament, and of the disciplinary effects of its overt

expression and exercise, as seen from the moralist's point of view. As such it affords an indication of what is

the deliverance of the sober sense of mature men as to the degree of availability of the predatory habit of

mind for the purposes of the collective life. It is felt that the presumption is against any activity which

involves habituation to the predatory attitude, and that the burden of proof lies with those who speak for the

rehabilitation of the predaceous temper and for the practices which strengthen it. There is a strong body of

popular sentiment in favor of diversions and enterprises of the kind in question; but there is at the same time

present in the community a pervading sense that this ground of sentiment wants legitimation. The required

legitimation is ordinarily sought by showing that although sports are substantially of a predatory, socially

disintegrating effect; although their proximate effect runs in the direction of reversion to propensities that are

industrially disserviceable; yet indirectly and remotely by some not readily comprehensible process of

polar induction, or counterirritation perhaps sports are conceived to foster a habit of mind that is

serviceable for the social or industrial purpose. That is to say, although sports are essentially of the nature of

invidious exploit, it is presumed that by some remote and obscure effect they result in the growth of a

temperament conducive to noninvidious work. It is commonly attempted to show all this empirically or it is

rather assumed that this is the empirical generalization which must be obvious to any one who cares to see it.

In conducting the proof of this thesis the treacherous ground of inference from cause to effect is somewhat

shrewdly avoided, except so far as to show that the "manly virtues" spoken of above are fostered by sports.

But since it is these manly virtues that are (economically) in need of legitimation, the chain of proof breaks

off where it should begin. In the most general economic terms, these apologies are an effort to show that, in

spite of the logic of the thing, sports do in fact further what may broadly be called workmanship. So long as

he has not succeeded in persuading himself or others that this is their effect the thoughtful apologist for sports

will not rest content, and commonly, it is to be admitted, he does not rest content. His discontent with his own

vindication of the practice in question is ordinarily shown by his truculent tone and by the eagerness with

which he heaps up asseverations in support of his position. But why are apologies needed? If there prevails a

body of popular sentient in favor of sports, why is not that fact a sufficient legitimation? The protracted

discipline of prowess to which the race has been subjected under the predatory and quasipeaceable culture

has transmitted to the men of today a temperament that finds gratification in these expressions of ferocity and

cunning. So, why not accept these sports as legitimate expressions of a normal and wholesome human

nature? What other norm is there that is to be lived up to than that given in the aggregate range of

propensities that express themselves in the sentiments of this generation, including the hereditary strain of

prowess? The ulterior norm to which appeal is taken is the instinct of workmanship, which is an instinct more

fundamental, of more ancient prescription, than the propensity to predatory emulation. The latter is but a

special development of the instinct of workmanship, a variant, relatively late and ephemeral in spite of its

great absolute antiquity. The emulative predatory impulse or the instinct of sportsmanship, as it might

well be called is essentially unstable in comparison with the primordial instinct of workmanship out of

which it has been developed and differentiated. Tested by this ulterior norm of life, predatory emulation, and

The manner and the measure in which the institution of a leisure class conduces to the conservation of sports

and invidious exploit can of course not be succinctly stated. From the evidence already recited it appears that,

in sentient and inclinations, the leisure class is more favorable to a warlike attitude and animus than the

industrial classes. Something similar seems to be true as regards sports. But it is chiefly in its indirect effects,

though the canons of decorous living, that the institution has its influence on the prevalent sentiment with

respect to the sporting life. This indirect effect goes almost unequivocally in the direction of furthering a

survival of the predatory temperament and habits; and this is true even with respect to those variants of the

sporting life which the higher leisureclass code of proprieties proscribes; as, e.g., prizefighting,

cockfighting, and other like vulgar expressions of the sporting temper. Whatever the latest authenticated

schedule of detail proprieties may say, the accredited canons of decency sanctioned by the institution say

without equivocation that emulation and waste are good and their opposites are disreputable. In the

crepuscular light of the social nether spaces the details of the code are not apprehended with all the facility

that might be desired, and these broad underlying canons of decency are therefore applied somewhat

unreflectingly, with little question as to the scope of their competence or the exceptions that have been

Addiction to athletic sports, not only in the way of direct participation, but also in the way of sentiment and

moral support, is, in a more or less pronounced degree, a characteristic of the leisure class; and it is a trait

which that class shares with the lowerclass delinquents, and with such atavistic elements throughout the

body of the community as are endowed with a dominant predaceous trend. Few individuals among the

populations of Western civilized countries are so far devoid of the predaceous instinct as to find no diversion

in contemplating athletic sports and games, but with the common run of individuals among the industrial

classes the inclination to sports does not assert itself to the extent of constituting what may fairly be called a

sporting habit. With these classes sports are an occasional diversion rather than a serious feature of life. This

common body of the people can therefore not be said to cultivate the sporting propensity. Although it is not

obsolete in the average of them, or even in any appreciable number of individuals, yet the predilection for

sports in the commonplace industrial classes is of the nature of a reminiscence, more or less diverting as an

occasional interest, rather than a vital and permanent interest that counts as a dominant factor in shaping the

organic complex of habits of thought into which it enters. As it manifests itself in the sporting life of today,

this propensity may not appear to be an economic factor of grave consequence. Taken simply by itself it does

not count for a great deal in its direct effects on the industrial efficiency or the consumption of any given

individual; but the prevalence and the growth of the type of human nature of which this propensity is a

characteristic feature is a matter of some consequence. It affects the economic life of the collectivity both as

regards the rate of economic development and as regards the character of the results attained by the

development. For better or worse, the fact that the popular habits of thought are in any degree dominated by

this type of character can not but greatly affect the scope, direction, standards, and ideals of the collective

economic life, as well as the degree of adjustment of the collective life to the environment.

Something to a like effect is to be said of other traits that go to make up the barbarian character. For the

purposes of economic theory, these further barbarian traits may be taken as concomitant variations of that

predaceous temper of which prowess is an expression. In great measure they are not primarily of an economic

character, nor do they have much direct economic bearing. They serve to indicate the stage of economic

evolution to which the individual possessed of them is adapted. They are of importance, therefore, as

extraneous tests of the degree of adaptation of the character in which they are comprised to the economic

exigencies of today, but they are also to some extent important as being aptitudes which themselves go to

As it finds expression in the life of the barbarian, prowess manifests itself in two main directions force

and fraud. In varying degrees these two forms of expression are similarly present in modern warfare, in the

pecuniary occupations, and in sports and games. Both lines of aptitudes are cultivated and strengthened by

the life of sport as well as by the more serious forms of emulative life. Strategy or cunning is an element

invariably present in games, as also in warlike pursuits and in the chase. In all of these employments strategy

tends to develop into finesse and chicanery. Chicanery, falsehood, browbeating, hold a wellsecured place in

the method of procedure of any athletic contest and in games generally. The habitual employment of an

umpire, and the minute technical regulations governing the limits and details of permissible fraud and

strategic advantage, sufficiently attest the fact that fraudulent practices and attempts to overreach one's

opponents are not adventitious features of the game. In the nature of the case habituation to sports should

conduce to a fuller development of the aptitude for fraud; and the prevalence in the community of that

predatory temperament which inclines men to sports connotes a prevalence of sharp practice and callous

disregard of the interests of others, inDividually and collectively. Resort to fraud, in any guise and under any

legitimation of law or custom, is an expression of a narrowly selfregarding habit of mind. It is needless to

dwell at any length on the economic value of this feature of the sporting character.

In this connection it is to be noteD that the most obvious characteristic of the physiognomy affected by

athletic and other sporting men is that of an extreme astuteness. The gifts and exploits of Ulysses are scarcely

second to those of Achilles, either in their substantial furtherance of the game or in the �clat which they give

the astute sporting man among his associates. The pantomime of astuteness is commonly the first step in that

assimilation to the professional sporting man which a youth undergoes after matriculation in any reputable

school, of the secondary or the higher education, as the case may be. And the physiognomy of astuteness, as a

decorative feature, never ceases to receive the thoughtful attention of men whose serious interest lies in

athletic games, races, or other contests of a similar emulative nature. As a further indication of their spiritual

kinship, it may be pointed out that the members of the lower delinquent class usually show this physiognomy

of astuteness in a marked degree, and that they very commonly show the same histrionic exaggeration of it

that is often seen in the young candidate for athletic honors. This, by the way, is the most legible mark of

The astute man, it may be remarked, is of no economic value to the community unless it be for the

purpose of sharp practice in dealings with other communities. His functioning is not a furtherance of the

generic life process. At its best, in its direct economic bearing, it is a conversion of the economic substance of

the collectivity to a growth alien to the collective life process very much after the analogy of what in

medicine would be called a benign tumor, with some tendency to transgress the uncertain line that divides the

benign from the malign growths. The two barbarian traits, ferocity and astuteness, go to make up the

predaceous temper or spiritual attitude. They are the expressions of a narrowly selfregarding habit of mind.

Both are highly serviceable for individual expediency in a life looking to invidious success. Both also have a

high aesthetic value. Both are fostered by the pecuniary culture. But both alike are of no use for the purposes

The gambling propensity is another subsidiary trait of the barbarian temperament. It is a concomitant

variation of character of almost universal prevalence among sporting men and among men given to warlike

and emulative activities generally. This trait also has a direct economic value. It is recognized to be a

hindrance to the highest industrial efficiency of the aggregate in any community where it prevails in an

appreciable degree. The gambling proclivity is doubtfully to be classed as a feature belonging exclusively to

the predatory type of human nature. The chief factor in the gambling habit is the belief in luck; and this belief

is apparently traceable, at least in its elements, to a stage in human evolution antedating the predatory culture.

It may well have been under the predatory culture that the belief in luck was developed into the form in

which it is present, as the chief element of the gambling proclivity, in the sporting temperament. It probably

owes the specific form under which it occurs in the modern culture to the predatory discipline. But the belief

in luck is in substance a habit of more ancient date than the predatory culture. It is one form of the artistic

apprehension of things. The belief seems to be a trait carried over in substance from an earlier phase into the

barbarian culture, and transmuted and transmitted through that culture to a later stage of human development

under a specific form imposed by the predatory discipline. But in any case, it is to be taken as an archaic trait,

inherited from a more or less remote past, more or less incompatible with the requirements of the modern

industrial process, and more or less of a hindrance to the fullest efficiency of the collective economic life of

While the belief in luck is the basis of the gambling habit, it is not the only element that enters into the habit

of betting. Betting on the issue of contests of strength and skill proceeds on a further motive, without which

the belief in luck would scarcely come in as a prominent feature of sporting life. This further motive is the

desire of the anticipated winner, or the partisan of the anticipated winning side, to heighten his side's

ascendency at the cost of the loser. Not only does the stronger side score a more signal victory, and the losing

side suffer a more painful and humiliating defeat, in proportion as the pecuniary gain and loss in the wager is

large; although this alone is a consideration of material weight. But the wager is commonly laid also with a

view, not avowed in words nor even recognized in set terms in petto, to enhancing the chances of success for

the contestant on which it is laid. It is felt that substance and solicitude expended to this end can not go for

naught in the issue. There is here a special manifestation of the instinct of workmanship, backed by an even

more manifest sense that the animistic congruity of things must decide for a victorious outcome for the side

in whose behalf the propensity inherent in events has been propitiated and fortified by so much of conative

and kinetic urging. This incentive to the wager expresses itself freely under the form of backing one's favorite

in any contest, and it is unmistakably a predatory feature. It is as ancillary to the predaceous impulse proper

that the belief in luck expresses itself in a wager. So that it may be set down that in so far as the belief in luck

comes to expression in the form of laying a wager, it is to be accounted an integral element of the predatory

type of character. The belief is, in its elements, an archaic habit which belongs substantially to early,

undifferentiated human nature; but when this belief is helped out by the predatory emulative impulse, and so

is differentiated into the specific form of the gambling habit, it is, in this higherdeveloped and specific form,

The belief in luck is a sense of fortuitous necessity in the sequence of phenomena. In its various mutations

and expressions, it is of very serious importance for the economic efficiency of any community in which it

prevails to an appreciable extent. So much so as to warrant a more detailed discussion of its origin and

content and of the bearing of its various ramifications upon economic structure and function, as well as a

discussion of the relation of the leisure class to its growth, differentiation, and persistence. In the developed,

integrated form in which it is most readily observed in the barbarian of the predatory culture or in the sporting

man of modern communities, the belief comprises at least two distinguishable elements which are to be

taken as two different phases of the same fundamental habit of thought, or as the same psychological factor in

two successive phases of its evolution. The fact that these two elements are successive phases of the same

general line of growth of belief does not hinder their coexisting in the habits of thought of any given

individual. The more primitive form (or the more archaic phase) is an incipient animistic belief, or an

animistic sense of relations and things, that imputes a quasipersonal character to facts. To the archaic man

all the obtrusive and obviously consequential objects and facts in his environment have a quasi�personal

individuality. They are conceived to be possessed of volition, or rather of propensities, which enter into the

complex of causes and affect events in an inscrutable manner. The sporting man's sense of luck and chance,

or of fortuitous necessity, is an inarticulate or inchoate animism. It applies to objects and situations, often in a

very vague way; but it is usually so far defined as to imply the possibility of propitiating, or of deceiving and

cajoling, or otherwise disturbing the holding of propensities resident in the objects which constitute the

apparatus and accessories of any game of skill or chance. There are few sporting men who are not in the habit

of wearing charms or talismans to which more or less of efficacy is felt to belong. And the proportion is not

much less of those who instinctively dread the "hoodooing" of the contestants or the apparatus engaged in

any contest on which they lay a wager; or who feel that the fact of their backing a given contestant or side in

the game does and ought to strengthen that side; or to whom the "mascot" which they cultivate means

In its simple form the belief in luck is this instinctive sense of an inscrutable teleological propensity in objects

or situations. Objects or events have a propensity to eventuate in a given end, whether this end or objective

point of the sequence is conceiveD to be fortuitously given or deliberately sought. From this simple animism

the belief shaDes off by insensible gradations into the second, derivative form or phase above referred to,

which is a more or less articulate belief in an inscrutable preternatural agency. The preternatural agency

works through the visible objects with which it is associated, but is not identified with these objects in point

of individuality. The use of the term "preternatural agency" here carries no further implication as to the nature

of the agency spoken of as preternatural. This is only a farther development of animistic belief. The

preternatural agency is not necessarily conceived to be a personal agent in the full sense, but it is an agency

which partakes of the attributes of personality to the extent of somewhat arbitrarily influencing the outcome

of any enterprise, and especially of any contest. The pervading belief in the hamingia or gipta (gaefa, authna)

which lends so much of color to the Icelandic sagas specifically, and to early Germanic folklegends, is an

illustration of this sense of an extraphysical propensity in the course of events.

In this expression or form of the belief the propensity is scarcely personified although to a varying extent an

individuality is imputed to it; and this individuated propensity is sometimes conceived to yield to

circumstances, commonly to circumstances of a spiritual or preternatural character. A wellknown and

striking exemplification of the belief in a fairly advanced stage of differentiation and involving an

anthropomorphic personification of the preternatural agent appealed to is afforded by the wager of battle.

Here the preternatural agent was conceived to act on request as umpire, anD to shape the outcome of the

contest in accordance with some stipulated ground of decision, such as the equity or legality of the respective

contestants' claims. The like sense of an inscrutable but spiritually necessary tendency in events is still

traceable as an obscure element in current popular belief, as shown, for instance, by the wellaccredited

maxim, "Thrice is he armed who knows his quarrel just," a maxim which retains much of its significance

for the average unreflecting person even in the civilized communities of today. The modern reminiscence of

the belief in the hamingia, or in the guidance of an unseen hand, which is traceable in the acceptance of this

maxim is faint and perhaps uncertain; and it seems in any case to be blended with other psychological

For the purpose in hand it is unnecessary to look more closely into the psychological process or the

ethnological line of descent by which the later of these two animistic apprehensions of propensity is derived

from the earlier. This question may be of the gravest importance to folkpsychology or to the theory of the

evolution of creeds and cults. The same is true of the more fundamental question whether the two are related

at all as successive phases in a sequence of development. Reference is here made to the existence of these

questions only to remark that the interest of the present discussion does not lie in that direction. So far as

concerns economic theory, these two elements or phases of the belief in luck, or in an extracausal trend or

propensity in things, are of substantially the same character. They have an economic significance as habits of

thought which affect the individual's habitual view of the facts and sequences with which he comes in

contact, and which thereby affect the individual's serviceability for the industrial purpose. Therefore, apart

from all question of the beauty, worth, or beneficence of any animistic belief, there is place for a discussion

of their economic bearing on the serviceability of the individual as an economic factor, and especially as an

It has already been noted in an earlier connection, that in order to have the highest serviceability in the

complex industrial processes of today, the individual must be endowed with the aptitude and the habit of

readily apprehending and relating facts in terms of causal sequence. Both as a whole and in its details, the

industrial process is a process of quantitative causation. The "intelligence" demanded of the workman, as well

as of the director of an industrial process, is little else than a degree of facility in the apprehension of and

adaptation to a quantitatively determined causal sequence. This facility of apprehension and adaptation is

what is lacking in stupid workmen, and the growth of this facility is the end sought in their education so

In so far as the individual's inherited aptitudes or his training incline him to account for facts and sequences

in other terms than those of causation or matteroffact, they lower his productive efficiency or industrial

usefulness. This lowering of efficiency through a penchant for animistic methods of apprehending facts is

especially apparent when taken in the masswhen a given population with an animistic turn is viewed as a

whole. The economic drawbacks of animism are more patent and its consequences are more farreaching

under the modern system of large industry than under any other. In the modern industrial communities,

industry is, to a constantly increasing extent, being organized in a comprehensive system of organs and

functions mutually conditioning one another; and therefore freedom from all bias in the causal apprehension

of phenomena grows constantly more requisite to efficiency on the part of the men concerned in industry.

Under a system of handicraft an advantage in dexterity, diligence, muscular force, or endurance may, in a

Similarly in agricultural industry of the traditional kind, which closely resembles handicraft in the nature of

the demands made upon the workman. In both, the workman is himself the prime mover chiefly depended

upon, and the natural forces engaged are in large part apprehended as inscrutable and fortuitous agencies,

whose working lies beyond the workman's control or discretion. In popular apprehension there is in these

forms of industry relatively little of the industrial process left to the fateful swing of a comprehensive

mechanical sequence which must be comprehended in terms of causation and to which the operations of

industry and the movements of the workmen must be adapted. As industrial methods develop, the virtues of

the handicraftsman count for less and less as an offset to scanty. intelligence or a halting acceptance of the

sequence of cause and effect. The industrial organization assumes more and more of the character of a

mechanism, in which it is man's office to discriminate and select what natural forces shall work out their

effects in his service. The workman's part in industry changes from that of a prime mover to that of

discrimination and valuation of quantitative sequences and mechanical facts. The faculty of a ready

apprehension and unbiased appreciation of causes in his environment grows in relative economic importance

and any element in the complex of his habits of thought which intrudes a bias at variance with this ready

appreciation of matteroffact sequence gains proportionately in importance as a disturbing element acting to

lower his industrial usefulness. Through its cumulative effect upon the habitual attitude of the population,

even a slight or inconspicuous bias towards accounting for everyday facts by recourse to other ground than

that of quantitative causation may work an appreciable lowering of the collective industrial efficiency of a

The animistic habit of mind may occur in the early, undifferentiated form of an inchoate animistic belief, or

in the later and more highly integrated phase in which there is an anthropomorphic personification of the

propensity imputed to facts. The industrial value of such a lively animistic sense, or of such recourse to a

preternatural agency or the guidance of an unseen hand, is of course very much the same in either case. As

affects the industrial serviceability of the individual, the effect is of the same kind in either case; but the

extent to which this habit of thought dominates or shapes the complex of his habits of thought varies with the

degree of immediacy, urgency, or exclusiveness with which the individual habitually applies the animistic or

anthropomorphic formula in dealing with the facts of his environment. The animistic habit acts in all cases to

blur the appreciation of causal sequence; but the earlier, less reflected, less defined animistic sense of

propensity may be expected to affect the intellectual processes of the individual in a more pervasive way than

the higher forms of anthropomorphism. Where the animistic habit is present in the naive form, its scope and

range of application are not defined or limited. It will therefore palpably affect his thinking at every turn of

the person's life wherever he has to do with the material means of life. In the later, maturer development

of animism, after it has been defined through the process of anthropomorphic elaboration, when its

application has been limited in a somewhat consistent fashion to the remote and the invisible, it comes about

that an increasing range of everyday facts are provisionally accounted for without recourse to the

preternatural agency in which a cultivated animism expresses itself. A highly integrated, personified

preternatural agency is not a convenient means of handling the trivial occurrences of life, and a habit is

therefore easily fallen into of accounting for many trivial or vulgar phenomena in terms of sequence. The

provisional explanation so arrived at is by neglect allowed to stand as definitive, for trivial purposes, until

special provocation or perplexity recalls the individual to his allegiance. But when special exigencies arise,

that is to say, when there is peculiar need of a full and free recourse to the law of cause and effect, then the

individual commonly has recourse to the preternatural agency as a universal solvent, if he is possessed of an

The extracausal propensity or agent has a very high utility as a recourse in perplexity, but its utility is

altogether of a noneconomic kind. It is especially a refuge and a fund of comfort where it has attained the

degree of consistency and specialization that belongs to an anthropomorphic divinity. It has much to

commend it even on other grounds than that of affording the perplexed individual a means of escape from the

difficulty of accounting for phenomena in terms of causal sequence. It would scarcely be in place here to

dwell on the obvious and wellaccepted merits of an anthropomorphic divinity, as seen from the point of

view of the aesthetic, moral, or spiritual interest, or even as seen from the less remote standpoint of political,

military, or social policy. The question here concerns the less picturesque and less urgent economic value of

the belief in such a preternatural agency, taken as a habit of thought which affects the industrial serviceability

of the believer. And even within this narrow, economic range, the inquiry is perforce confined to the

immediate bearing of this habit of thought upon the believer's workmanlike serviceability, rather than

extended to include its remoter economic effects. These remoter effects are very difficult to trace. The inquiry

into them is so encumbered with current preconceptions as to the degree in which life is enhanced by spiritual

contact with such a divinity, that any attempt to inquire into their economic value must for the present be

The immediate, direct effect of the animistic habit of thought upon the general frame of mind of the believer

goes in the direction of lowering his effective intelligence in the respect in which intelligence is of especial

consequence for modern industry. The effect follows, in varying degree, whether the preternatural agent or

propensity believed in is of a higher or a lower cast. This holds true of the barbarian's and the sporting man's

sense of luck and propensity, and likewise of the somewhat higher developed belief in an anthropomorphic

divinity, such as is commonly possessed by the same class. It must be taken to hold true also though with

what relative degree of cogency is not easy to say of the more adequately developed anthropomorphic

cults, such as appeal to the devout civilized man. The industrial disability entailed by a popular adherence to

one of the higher anthropomorphic cults may be relatively slight, but it is not to be overlooked. And even

these highclass cults of the Western culture do not represent the last dissolving phase of this human sense of

extracausal propensity. Beyond these the same animistic sense shows itself also in such attenuations of

anthropomorphism as the eighteenthcentury appeal to an order of nature and natural rights, and in their

modern representative, the ostensibly postDarwinian concept of a meliorative trend in the process of

evolution. This animistic explanation of phenomena is a form of the fallacy which the logicians knew by the

name of ignava ratio. For the purposes of industry or of science it counts as a blunder in the apprehension and

valuation of facts. Apart from its direct industrial consequences, the animistic habit has a certain significance

for economic theory on other grounds. (1) It is a fairly reliable indication of the presence, and to some extent

even of the degree of potency, of certain other archaic traits that accompany it and that are of substantial

economic consequence; and (2) the material consequences of that code of devout proprieties to which the

animistic habit gives rise in the development of an anthropomorphic cult are of importance both (a) as

affecting the community's consumption of goods and the prevalent canons of taste, as already suggested in an

earlier chapter, and (b) by inducing and conserving a certain habitual recognition of the relation to a superior,

As regards the point last named (b), that body of habits of thought which makes up the character of any

individual is in some sense an organic whole. A marked variation in a given direction at any one point carries

with it, as its correlative, a concomitant variation in the habitual expression of life in other directions or other

groups of activities. These various habits of thought, or habitual expressions of life, are all phases of the

single life sequence of the individual; therefore a habit formed in response to a given stimulus will

necessarily affect the character of the response made to other stimuli. A modification of human nature at any

one point is a modification of human nature as a whole. On this ground, and perhaps to a still greater extent

on obscurer grounds that can not be discussed here, there are these concomitant variations as between the

different traits of human nature. So, for instance, barbarian peoples with a welldeveloped predatory scheme

of life are commonly also possessed of a strong prevailing animistic habit, a wellformed anthropomorphic

cult, and a lively sense of status. On the other hand, anthropomorphism and the realizing sense of an animistic

propensity in material are less obtrusively present in the life of the peoples at the cultural stages which

precede and which follow the barbarian culture. The sense of status is also feebler; on the whole, in peaceable

communities. It is to be remarked that a lively, but slightly specialized, animistic belief is to be found in most

if not all peoples living in the antepredatory, savage stage of culture. The primitive savage takes his

animism less seriously than the barbarian or the degenerate savage. With him it eventuates in fantastic

mythmaking, rather than in coercive superstition. The barbarian culture shows sportsmanship, status, and

anthropomorphism. There is commonly observable a like concomitance of variations in the same respects in

the individual temperament of men in the civilized communities of today. Those modern representatives of

the predaceous barbarian temper that make up the sporting element are commonly believers in luck; at least

they have a strong sense of an animistic propensity in things, by force of which they are given to gambling.

So also as regards anthropomorphism in this class. Such of them as give in their adhesion to some creed

commonly attach themselves to one of the naively and consistently anthropomorphic creeds; there are

relatively few sporting men who seek spiritual comfort in the less anthropomorphic cults, such as the

Closely bound up with this correlation of anthropomorphism and prowess is the fact that anthropomorphic

cults act to conserve, if not to initiate, habits of mind favorable to a regime of status. As regards this point, it

is quite impossible to say where the disciplinary effect of the cult ends and where the evidence of a

concomitance of variations in inherited traits begins. In their finest development, the predatory temperament,

the sense of status, and the anthropomorphic cult all together belong to the barbarian culture; and something

of a mutual causal relation subsists between the three phenomena as they come into sight in communities on

that cultural level. The way in which they recur in correlation in the habits and attitudes of individuals and

classes today goes far to imply a like causal or organic relation between the same psychological phenomena

considered as traits or habits of the individual. It has appeared at an earlier point in the discussion that the

relation of status, as a feature of social structure, is a consequence of the predatory habit of life. As regards its

line of derivation, it is substantially an elaborated expression of the predatory attitude. On the other hand, an

anthropomorphic cult is a code of detailed relations of status superimposed upon the concept of a

preternatural, inscrutable propensity in material things. So that, as regards the external facts of its derivation,

the cult may be taken as an outgrowth of archaic man's pervading animistic sense, defined and in some

degree transformed by the predatory habit of life, the result being a personified preternatural agency, which is

by imputation endowed with a full complement of the habits of thought that characterize the man of the

The grosser psychological features in the case, which have an immediate bearing on economic theory and are

consequently to be taken account of here, are therefore: (a) as has appeared in an earlier chapter, the

predatory, emulative habit of mind here called prowess is but the barbarian variant of the generically human

instinct of workmanship, which has fallen into this specific form under the guidance of a habit of invidious

comparison of persons; (b) the relation of status is a formal expression of such an invidious comparison duly

gauged and graded according to a sanctioned schedule; (c) an anthropomorphic cult, in the days of its early

vigor at least, is an institution the characteristic element of which is a relation of status between the human

subject as inferior and the personified preternatural agency as superior. With this in mind, there should be no

difficulty in recognizing the intimate relation which subsists between these three phenomena of human nature

and of human life; the relation amounts to an identity in some of their substantial elements. On the one hand,

the system of status and the predatory habit of life are an expression of the instinct of workmanship as it takes

form under a custom of invidious comparison; on the other hand, the anthropomorphic cult and the habit of

devout observances are an expression of men's animistic sense of a propensity in material things, elaborated

under the guidance of substantially the same general habit of invidious comparison. The two categories

the emulative habit of life and the habit of devout observances are therefore to be taken as complementary

elements of the barbarian type of human nature and of its modern barbarian variants. They are expressions of

much the same range of aptitudes, made in response to different sets of stimuli.

A discoursive rehearsal of certain incidents of modern life will show the organic relation of the

anthropomorphic cults to the barbarian culture and temperament. It will likewise serve to show how the

survival and efficacy of the cults and he prevalence of their schedule of devout observances are related to the

institution of a leisure class and to the springs of action underlying that institution. Without any intention to

commend or to deprecate the practices to be spoken of under the head of devout observances, or the spiritual

and intellectual traits of which these observances are the expression, the everyday phenomena of current

anthropomorphic cults may be taken up from the point of view of the interest which they have for economic

theory. What can properly be spoken of here are the tangible, external features of devout observances. The

moral, as well as the devotional value of the life of faith lies outside of the scope of the present inquiry. Of

course no question is here entertained as to the truth or beauty of the creeds on which the cults proceed. And

even their remoter economic bearing can not be taken up here; the subject is too recondite and of too grave

Something has been said in an earlier chapter as to the influence which pecuniary standards of value exert

upon the processes of valuation carried out on other bases, not related to the pecuniary interest. The relation

is not altogether onesided. The economic standards or canons of valuation are in their turn influenced by

extraeconomic standards of value. Our judgments of the economic bearing of facts are to some extent

shaped by the dominant presence of these weightier interests. There is a point of view, indeed, from which

the economic interest is of weight only as being ancillary to these higher, noneconomic interests. For the

present purpose, therefore, some thought must he taken to isolate the economic interest or the economic

hearing of these phenomena of anthropomorphic cults. It takes some effort to divest oneself of the more

serious point of view, and to reach an economic appreciation of these facts, with as little as may be of the bias

due to higher interests extraneous to economic theory. In the discussion of the sporting temperament, it has

appeared that the sense of an animistic propensity in material things and events is what affords the spiritual

basis of the sporting man's gambling habit. For the economic purpose, this sense of propensity is substantially

the same psychological element as expresses itself, under a variety of forms, in animistic beliefs and

anthropomorphic creeds. So far as concerns those tangible psychological features with which economic

theory has to deal, the gambling spirit which pervades the sporting element shades off by insensible

gradations into that frame of mind which finds gratification in devout observances. As seen from the point of

view of economic theory, the sporting character shades off into the character of a religious devotee. Where

the betting man's animistic sense is helped out by a somewhat consistent tradition, it has developed into a

more or less articulate belief in a preternatural or hyperphysical agency, with something of an

anthropomorphic content. And where this is the case, there is commonly a perceptible inclination to make

terms with the preternatural agency by some approved method of approach and conciliation. This element of

propitiation and cajoling has much in common with the crasser forms of worship if not in historical

derivation, at least in actual psychological content. It obviously shades off in unbroken continuity into what is

recognized as superstitious practice and belief, and so asserts its claim to kinship with the grosser

The sporting or gambling temperament, then, comprises some of the substantial psychological elements that

go to make a believer in creeds and an observer of devout forms, the chief point of coincidence being the

belief in an inscrutable propensity or a preternatural interposition in the sequence of events. For the purpose

of the gambling practice the belief in preternatural agency may be, and ordinarily is, less closely formulated,

especially as regards the habits of thought and the scheme of life imputed to the preternatural agent; or, in

other words, as regards his moral character and his purposes in interfering in events. With respect to the

individuality or personality of the agency whose presence as luck, or chance, or hoodoo, or mascot, etc., he

feels and sometimes dreads and endeavors to evade, the sporting man's views are also less specific, less

integrated and differentiated. The basis of his gambling activity is, in great measure, simply an instinctive

sense of the presence of a pervasive extraphysical and arbitrary force or propensity in things or situations,

which is scarcely recognized as a personal agent. The betting man is not infrequently both a believer in luck,

in this naive sense, and at the same time a pretty staunch adherent of some form of accepted creed. He is

especially prone to accept so much of the creed as concerts the inscrutable power and the arbitrary habits of

the divinity which has won his confidence. In such a case he is possessed of two, or sometimes more than

two, distinguishable phases of animism. Indeed, the complete series of successive phases of animistic belief

is to be found unbroken in the spiritual furniture of any sporting community. Such a chain of animistic

conceptions will comprise the most elementary form of an instinctive sense of luck and chance and fortuitous

necessity at one end of the series, together with the perfectly developed anthropomorphic divinity at the other

end, with all intervening stages of integration. Coupled with these beliefs in preternatural agency goes an

instinctive shaping of conduct to conform with the surmised requirements of the lucky chance on the one

hand, and a more or less devout submission to the inscrutable decrees of the divinity on the other hand.

There is a relationship in this respect between the sporting temperament and the temperament of the

delinquent classes; and the two are related to the temperament which inclines to an anthropomorphic cult.

Both the delinquent and the sporting man are on the average more apt to be adherents of some accredited

creed, and are also rather more inclined to devout observances, than the general average of the community. it

is also noticeable that unbelieving members of these classes show more of a proclivity to become proselytes

to some accredited faith than the average of unbelievers. This fact of observation is avowed by the

spokesmen of sports, especially in apologizing for the more naively predatory athletic sports. Indeed, it is

somewhat insistently claimed as a meritorious feature of sporting life that the habitual participants in athletic

games are in some degree peculiarly given to devout practices. And it is observable that the cult to which

sporting men and the predaceous delinquent classes adhere, or to which proselytes from these classes

commonly attach themselves, is ordinarily not one of the socalled higher faiths, but a cult which has to do

with a thoroughly anthropomorphic divinity. Archaic, predatory human nature is not satisfied with abstruse

conceptions of a dissolving personality that shades off into the concept of quantitative causal sequence, such

as the speculative, esoteric creeds of Christendom impute to the First Cause, Universal Intelligence, World

Soul, or Spiritual Aspect. As an instance of a cult of the character which the habits of mind of the athlete and

the delinquent require, may be cited that branch of the church militant known as the Salvation Army. This is

to some extent recruited from the lowerclass delinquents, and it appears to comprise also, among its officers

especially, a larger proportion of men with a sporting record than the proportion of such men in the aggregate

College athletics afford a case in point. It is contended by exponents of the devout element in college life

and there seems to be no ground for disputing the claim that the desirable athletic material afforded by

any student body in this country is at the same time predominantly religious; or that it is at least given to

devout observances to a greater degree than the average of those students whose interest in athletics and other

college sports is less. This is what might be expected on theoretical grounds. It may be remarked, by the way,

that from one point of view this is felt to reflect credit on the college sporting life, on athletic games, and on

those persons who occupy themselves with these matters. It happens not frequently that college sporting men

devote themselves to religious propaganda, either as a vocation or as a byoccupation; and it is observable

that when this happens they are likely to become propagandists of some one of the more anthropomorphic

cults. In their teaching they are apt to insist chiefly on the personal relation of status which subsists between

This intimate relation between athletics and devout observance among college men is a fact of sufficient

notoriety; but it has a special feature to which attention has not been called, although it is obvious enough.

The religious zeal which pervades much of the college sporting element is especially prone to express itself in

an unquestioning devoutness and a naive and complacent submission to an inscrutable Providence. It

therefore by preference seeks affliation with some one of those lay religious organizations which occupy

themselves with the spread of the exoteric forms of faith as, e.g., the Young Men's Christian Association

or the Young People's Society for Christian Endeavor. These lay bodies are organized to further "practical"

religion; and as if to enforce the argument and firmly establish the close relationship between the sporting

temperament and the archaic devoutness, these lay religious bodies commonly devote some appreciable

portion of their energies to the furtherance of athletic contests and similar games of chance and skill. It might

even be said that sports of this kind are apprehended to have some efficacy as a means of grace. They are

apparently useful as a means of proselyting, and as a means of sustaining the devout attitude in converts once

made. That is to say, the games which give exercise to the animistic sense and to the emulative propensity

help to form and to conserve that habit of mind to which the more exoteric cults are congenial. Hence, in the

hands of the lay organizations, these sporting activities come to do duty as a novitiate or a means of induction

into that fuller unfolding of the life of spiritual status which is the privilege of the full communicant along.

That the exercise of the emulative and lower animistic proclivities are substantially useful for the devout

purpose seems to be placed beyond question by the fact that the priesthood of many denominations is

following the lead of the lay organizations in this respect. Those ecclesiastical organizations especially which

stand nearest the lay organizations in their insistence on practical religion have gone some way towards

adopting these or analogous practices in connection with the traditional devout observances. So there are

"boys' brigades," and other organizations, under clerical sanction, acting to develop the emulative proclivity

and the sense of status in the youthful members of the congregation. These pseudomilitary organizations

tend to elaborate and accentuate the proclivity to emulation and invidious comparison, and so strengthen the

native facility for discerning and approving the relation of personal mastery and subservience. And a believer

is eminently a person who knows how to obey and accept chastisement with good grace. But the habits of

thought which these practices foster and conserve make up but one half of the substance of the

anthropomorphic cults. The other, complementary element of devout life the animistic habit of mind is

recruited and conserved by a second range of practices organized under clerical sanction. These are the class

of gambling practices of which the church bazaar or raffle may be taken as the type. As indicating the degree

of legitimacy of these practices in connection with devout observances proper, it is to be remarked that these

raffles, and the like trivial opportunities for gambling, seem to appeal with more effect to the common run of

the members of religious organizations than they do to persons of a less devout habit of mind.

All this seems to argue, on the one hand, that the same temperament inclines people to sports as inclines them

to the anthropomorphic cults, and on the other hand that the habituation to sports, perhaps especially to

athletic sports, acts to develop the propensities which find satisfaction in devout observances. Conversely; it

also appears that habituation to these observances favors the growth of a proclivity for athletic sports and for

all games that give play to the habit of invidious comparison and of the appeal to luck. Substantially the same

range of propensities finds expression in both these directions of the spiritual life. That barbarian human

nature in which the predatory instinct and the animistic standpoint predominate is normally prone to both.

The predatory habit of mind involves an accentuated sense of personal dignity and of the relative standing of

individuals. The social structure in which the predatory habit has been the dominant factor in the shaping of

institutions is a structure based on status. The pervading norm in the predatory community's scheme of life is

the relation of superior and inferior, noble and base, dominant and subservient persons and classes, master

and slave. The anthropomorphic cults have come down from that stage of industrial development and have

been shaped by the same scheme of economic differentiation a differentiation into consumer and producer

and they are pervaded by the same dominant principle of mastery and subservience. The cults impute to

their divinity the habits of thought answering to the stage of economic differentiation at which the cults took

shape. The anthropomorphic divinity is conceived to be punctilious in all questions of precedence and is

prone to an assertion of mastery and an arbitrary exercise of power an habitual resort to force as the final

In the later and maturer formulations of the anthropomorphic creed this imputed habit of dominance on the

part of a divinity of awful presence and inscrutable power is chastened into "the fatherhood of God." The

spiritual attitude and the aptitudes imputed to the preternatural agent are still such as belong under the regime

of status, but they now assume the patriarchal cast characteristic of the quasipeaceable stage of culture. Still

it is to be noted that even in this advanced phase of the cult the observances in which devoutness finds

expression consistently aim to propitiate the divinity by extolling his greatness and glory and by professing

subservience and fealty. The act of propitiation or of worship is designed to appeal to a sense of status

imputed to the inscrutable power that is thus approached. The propitiatory formulas most in vogue are still

such as carry or imply an invidious comparison. A loyal attachment to the person of an anthropomorphic

divinity endowed with such an archaic human nature implies the like archaic propensities in the devotee. For

the purposes of economic theory, the relation of fealty, whether to a physical or to an extraphysical person, is

to be taken as a variant of that personal subservience which makes up so large a share of the predatory and

The barbarian conception of the divinity, as a warlike chieftain inclined to an overbearing manner of

government, has been greatly softened through the milder manners and the soberer habits of life that

characterize those cultural phases which lie between the early predatory stage and the present. But even after

this chastening of the devout fancy, and the consequent mitigation of the harsher traits of conduct and

character that are currently imputed to the divinity, there still remains in the popular apprehension of the

divine nature and temperament a very substantial residue of the barbarian conception. So it comes about, for

instance, that in characterizing the divinity and his relations to the process of human life, speakers and writers

are still able to make effective use of similes borrowed from the vocabulary of war and of the predatory

manner of life, as well as of locutions which involve an invidious comparison. Figures of speech of this

import are used with good effect even in addressing the less warlike modern audiences, made up of adherents

of the blander variants of the creed. This effective use of barbarian epithets and terms of comparison by

popular speakers argues that the modern generation has retained a lively appreciation of the dignity and merit

of the barbarian virtues; and it argues also that there is a degree of congruity between the devout attitude and

the predatory habit of mind. It is only on second thought, if at all, that the devout fancy of modern

worshippers revolts at the imputation of ferocious and vengeful emotions and actions to the object of their

adoration. It is a matter of common observation that sanguinary epithets applied to the divinity have a high

aesthetic and honorific value in the popular apprehension. That is to say, suggestions which these epithets

The guiding habits of thought of a devout person move on the plane of an archaic scheme of life which has

outlived much of its usefulness for the economic exigencies of the collective life of today. In so far as the

economic organization fits the exigencies of the collective life of today, it has outlived the regime of status,

and has no use and no place for a relation of personal subserviency. So far as concerns the economic

efficiency of the community, the sentiment of personal fealty, and the general habit of mind of which that

sentiment is an expression, are survivals which cumber the ground and hinder an adequate adjustment of

human institutions to the existing situation. The habit of mind which best lends itself to the purposes of a

peaceable, industrial community, is that matteroffact temper which recognizes the value of material facts

simply as opaque items in the mechanical sequence. It is that frame of mind which does not instinctively

impute an animistic propensity to things, nor resort to preternatural intervention as an explanation of

perplexing phenomena, nor depend on an unseen hand to shape the course of events to human use. To meet

the requirements of the highest economic efficiency under modern conditions, the world process must

habitually be apprehended in terms of quantitative, dispassionate force and sequence.

As seen from the point of view of the later economic exigencies, devoutness is, perhaps in all cases, to be

looked upon as a survival from an earlier phase of associated life a mark of arrested spiritual

development. Of course it remains true that in a community where the economic structure is still substantially

a system of status; where the attitude of the average of persons in the community is consequently shaped by

and adapted to the relation of personal dominance and personal subservience; or where for any other reason

of tradition or of inherited aptitude the population as a whole is strongly inclined to devout

observances; there a devout habit of mind in any individual, not in excess of the average of the community,

must be taken simply as a detail of the prevalent habit of life. In this light, a devout individual in a devout

community can not be called a case of reversion, since he is abreast of the average of the community. But as

seen from the point of view of the modern industrial situation, exceptional devoutness devotional zeal that

rises appreciably above the average pitch of devoutness in the community may safely be set down as in all

It is, of course, equally legitimate to consider these phenomena from a different point of view. They may be

appreciated for a different purpose, and the characterization here offered may be turned about. In speaking

from the point of view of the devotional interest, or the interest of devout taste, it may, with equal cogency,

be said that the spiritual attitude bred in men by the modern industrial life is unfavorable to a free

development of the life of faith. It might fairly be objected to the later development of the industrial process

that its discipline tends to "materialism," to the elimination of filial piety. From the aesthetic point of view,

again, something to a similar purport might be said. But, however legitimate and valuable these and the like

reflections may be for their purpose, they would not be in place in the present inquiry, which is exclusively

concerned with the valuation of these phenomena from the economic point of view.

The grave economic significance of the anthropomorphic habit of mind and of the addiction to devout

observances must serve as apology for speaking further on a topic which it can not but be distasteful to

discuss at all as an economic phenomenon in a community so devout as ours. Devout observances are of

economic importance as an index of a concomitant variation of temperament, accompanying the predatory

habit of mind and so indicating the presence of industrially disserviceable traits. They indicate the presence of

a mental attitude which has a certain economic value of its own by virtue of its influence upon the industrial

serviceability of the individual. But they are also of importance more directly, in modifying the economic

activities of the community, especially as regards the distribution and consumption of goods.

The most obvious economic bearing of these observances is seen in the devout consumption of goods and

services. The consumption of ceremonial paraphernalia required by any cult, in the way of shrines, temples,

churches, vestments, sacrifices, sacraments, holiday attire, etc., serves no immediate material end. All this

material apparatus may, therefore, without implying deprecation, be broadly characterized as items of

conspicuous waste. The like is true in a general way of the personal service consumed under this head; such

as priestly education, priestly service, pilgrimages, fasts, holidays, household devotions, and the like. At the

same time the observances in the execution of which this consumption takes place serve to extend and

protract the vogue of those habits of thought on which an anthropomorphic cult rests. That is to say, they

further the habits of thought characteristic of the regime of status. They are in so far an obstruction to the

most effective organization of industry under modern circumstances; and are, in the first instance,

antagonistic to the development of economic institutions in the direction required by the situation of today.

For the present purpose, the indirect as well as the direct effects of this consumption are of the nature of a

curtailment of the community's economic efficiency. In economic theory, then, and considered in its

proximate consequences, the consumption of goods and effort in the service of an anthropomorphic divinity

means a lowering of the vitality of the community. What may be the remoter, indirect, moral effects of this

class of consumption does not admit of a succinct answer, and it is a question which can not be taken up here.

It will be to the point, however, to note the general economic character of devout consumption, in comparison

with consumption for other purposes. An indication of the range of motives and purposes from which devout

consumption of goods proceeds will help toward an appreciation of the value both of this consumption itself

and of the general habit of mind to which it is congenial. There is a striking parallelism, if not rather a

substantial identity of motive, between the consumption which goes to the service of an anthropomorphic

divinity and that which goes to the service of a gentleman of leisure chieftain or patriarch in the upper

class of society during the barbarian culture. Both in the case of the chieftain and in that of the divinity there

are expensive edifices set apart for the behoof of the person served. These edifices, as well as the properties

which supplement them in the service, must not be common in kind or grade; they always show a large

element of conspicuous waste. It may also be noted that the devout edifices are invariably of an archaic cast

in their structure and fittings. So also the servants, both of the chieftain and of the divinity, must appear in the

presence clothed in garments of a special, ornate character. The characteristic economic feature of this

apparel is a more than ordinarily accentuated conspicuous waste, together with the secondary feature more

accentuated in the case of the priestly servants than in that of the servants or courtiers of the barbarian

potentate that this court dress must always be in some degree of an archaic fashion. Also the garments

worn by the lay members of the community when they come into the presence, should be of a more

expensive kind than their everyday apparel. Here, again, the parallelism between the usage of the chieftain's

audience hall and that of the sanctuary is fairly well marked. In this respect there is required a certain

ceremonial "cleanness" of attire, the essential feature of which, in the economic respect, is that the garments

worn on these occasions should carry as little suggestion as may be of any industrial occupation or of any

This requirement of conspicuous waste and of ceremonial cleanness from the traces of industry extends also

to the apparel, and in a less degree to the food, which is consumed on sacred holidays; that is to say, on days

set apart tabu for the divinity or for some member of the lower ranks of the preternatural leisure class.

In economic theory, sacred holidays are obviously to be construed as a season of vicarious leisure performed

for the divinity or saint in whose name the tabu is imposed and to whose good repute the abstention from

useful effort on these days is conceived to inure. The characteristic feature of all such seasons of devout

vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid tabu on all activity that is of human use. In the case of fastdays the

conspicuous abstention from gainful occupations and from all pursuits that (materially) further human life is

further accentuated by compulsory abstinence from such consumption as would conduce to the comfort or the

It may be remarked, parenthetically, that secular holidays are of the same origin, by slightly remoter

derivation. They shade off by degrees from the genuinely sacred days, through an intermediate class of

semisacred birthdays of kings and great men who have been in some measure canonized, to the deliberately

invented holiday set apart to further the good repute of some notable event or some striking fact, to which it is

intended to do honor, or the good fame of which is felt to be in need of repair. The remoter refinement in the

employment of vicarious leisure as a means of augmenting the good repute of a phenomenon or datum is seen

at its best in its very latest application. A day of vicarious leisure has in some communities been set apart as

Labor Day. This observance is designed to augment the prestige of the fact of labor, by the archaic, predatory

method of a compulsory abstention from useful effort. To this datum of laboringeneral is imputed the good

repute attributable to the pecuniary strength put in evidence by abstaining from labor. Sacred holidays, and

holidays generally, are of the nature of a tribute levied on the body of the people. The tribute is paid in

vicarious leisure, and the honorific effect which emerges is imputed to the person or the fact for whose good

repute the holiday has been instituted. Such a tithe of vicarious leisure is a perquisite of all members of the

preternatural leisure class and is indispensable to their good fame. Un saint qu'on ne ch�me pas is indeed a

Besides this tithe of vicarious leisure levied on the laity, there are also special classes of persons the

various grades of priests and hierodules whose time is wholly set apart for a similar service. It is not only

incumbent on the priestly class to abstain from vulgar labor, especially so far as it is lucrative or is

apprehended to contribute to the temporal wellbeing of mankind. The tabu in the case of the priestly class

goes farther and adds a refinement in the form of an injunction against their seeking worldly gain even where

it may be had without debasing application to industry. It is felt to he unworthy of the servant of the divinity,

or rather unworthy the dignity of the divinity whose servant he is, that he should seek material gain or take

thought for temporal matters. "Of all contemptible things a man who pretends to be a priest of God and is a

priest to his own comforts and ambitions is the most contemptible." There is a line of discrimination, which a

cultivated taste in matters of devout observance finds little difficulty in drawing, between such actions and

conduct as conduce to the fullness of human life and such as conduce to the good fame of the

anthropomorphic divinity; and the activity of the priestly class, in the ideal barbarian scheme, falls wholly on

the hither side of this line. What falls within the range of economics falls below the proper level of solicitude

of the priesthood in its best estate. Such apparent exceptions to this rule as are afforded, for instance, by some

of the medieval orders of monks (the members of which actually labored to some useful end), scarcely

impugn the rule. These outlying orders of the priestly class are not a sacerdotal element in the full sense of

the term. And it is noticeable also that these doubtfully sacerdotal orders, which countenanced their members

in earning a living, fell into disrepute through offending the sense of propriety in the communities where they

The priest should not put his hand to mechanically productive work; but he should consume in large measure.

But even as regards his consumption it is to be noted that it should take such forms as do not obviously

conduce to his own comfort or fullness of life; it should conform to the rules governing vicarious

consumption, as explained under that head in an earlier chapter. It is not ordinarily in good form for the

priestly class to appear well fed or in hilarious spirits. Indeed, in many of the more elaborate cults the

injunction against other than vicarious consumption by this class frequently goes so far as to enjoin

mortification of the flesh. And even in those modern denominations which have been organized under the

latest formulations of the creed, in a modern industrial community, it is felt that all levity and avowed zest in

the enjoyment of the good things of this world is alien to the true clerical decorum. Whatever suggests that

these servants of an invisible master are living a life, not of devotion to their master's good fame, but of

application to their own ends, jars harshly on our sensibilities as something fundamentally and eternally

wrong. They are a servant class, although, being servants of a very exalted master, they rank high in the

social scale by virtue of this borrowed light. Their consumption is vicarious consumption; and since, in the

advanced cults, their master has no need of material gain, their occupation is vicarious leisure in the full

sense. "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." It may be added

that so far as the laity is assimilated to the priesthood in the respect that they are conceived to he servants of

the divinity. so far this imputed vicarious character attaches also to the layman's life. The range of application

of this corollary is somewhat wide. It applies especially to such movements for the reform or rehabilitation of

the religious life as are of an austere, pietistic, ascetic cast where the human subject is conceived to hold

his life by a direct servile tenure from his spiritual sovereign. That is to say, where the institution of the

priesthood lapses, or where there is an exceptionally lively sense of the immediate and masterful presence of

the divinity in the affairs of life, there the layman is conceived to stand in an immediate servile relation to the

divinity, and his life is construed to be a performance of vicarious leisure directed to the enhancement of his

master's repute. In such cases of reversion there is a return to the unmediated relation of subservience, as the

dominant fact of the devout attitude. The emphasis is thereby throw on an austere and discomforting

vicarious leisure, to the neglect of conspicuous consumption as a means of grace.

A doubt will present itself as to the full legitimacy of this characterization of the sacerdotal scheme of life, on

the ground that a considerable proportion of the modern priesthood departs from the scheme in many details.

The scheme does not hold good for the clergy of those denominations which have in some measure diverged

from the old established schedule of beliefs or observances. These take thought, at least ostensibly or

permissively, for the temporal welfare of the laity, as well as for their own. Their manner of life, not only in

the privacy of their own household, but often even before the public, does not differ in an extreme degree

from that of secularminded persons, either in its ostensible austerity or in the archaism of its apparatus. This

is truest for those denominations that have wandered the farthest. To this objection it is to be said that we

have here to do not with a discrepancy in the theory of sacerdotal life, but with an imperfect conformity to the

scheme on the part of this body of clergy. They are but a partial and imperfect representative of the

priesthood, and must not be taken as exhibiting the sacerdotal scheme of life in an authentic and competent

manner. The clergy of the sects and denominations might be characterized as a halfcaste priesthood, or a

priesthood in process of becoming or of reconstitution. Such a priesthood may be expected to show the

characteristics of the sacerdotal office only as blended and obscured with alien motives and traditions, due to

the disturbing presence of other factors than those of animism and status in the purposes of the organizations

Appeal may be taken direct to the taste of any person with a discriminating and cultivated sense of the

sacerdotal proprieties, or to the prevalent sense of what constitutes clerical decorum in any community at all

accustomed to think or to pass criticism on what a clergyman may or may not do without blame. Even in the

most extremely secularized denominations, there is some sense of a distinction that should be observed

between the sacerdotal and the lay scheme of life. There is no person of sensibility but feels that where the

members of this denominational or sectarian clergy depart from traditional usage, in the direction of a less

austere or less archaic demeanor and apparel, they are departing from the ideal of priestly decorum. There is

probably no community and no sect within the range of the Western culture in which the bounds of

permissible indulgence are not drawn appreciably closer for the incumbent of the priestly office than for the

common layman. If the priest's own sense of sacerdotal propriety does not effectually impose a limit, the

prevalent sense of the proprieties on the part of the community will commonly assert itself so obtrusively as

Few if any members of any body of clergy, it may be added, would avowedly seek an increase of salary for

gain's sake; and if such avowal were openly made by a clergyman, it would be found obnoxious to the sense

of propriety among his congregation. It may also be noted in this connection that no one but the scoffers and

the very obtuse are not instinctively grieved inwardly at a jest from the pulpit; and that there are none whose

respect for their pastor does not suffer through any mark of levity on his part in any conjuncture of life,

except it be levity of a palpably histrionic kind a constrained unbending of dignity. The diction proper to

the sanctuary and to the priestly office should also carry little if any suggestion of effective everyday life, and

should not draw upon the vocabulary of modern trade or industry. Likewise, one's sense of the proprieties is

readily offended by too detailed and intimate a handling of industrial and other purely human questions at the

hands of the clergy. There is a certain level of generality below which a cultivated sense of the proprieties in

homiletical discourse will not permit a wellbred clergyman to decline in his discussion of temporal interests.

These matters that are of human and secular consequence simply, should properly be handled with such a

degree of generality and aloofness as may imply that the speaker represents a master whose interest in secular

It is further to be noticed that the nonconforming sects and variants whose priesthood is here under

discussion, vary among themselves in the degree of their conformity to the ideal scheme of sacerdotal life. In

a general way it will be found that the divergence in this respect is widest in the case of the relatively young

denominations, and especially in the case of such of the newer denominations as have chiefly a lower

middleclass constituency. They commonly show a large admixture of humanitarian, philanthropic, or other

motives which can not be classed as expressions of the devotional attitude; such as the desire of learning or of

conviviality, which enter largely into the effective interest shown by members of these organizations. The

nonconforming or sectarian movements have commonly proceeded from a mixture of motives, some of

which are at variance with that sense of status on which the priestly office rests. Sometimes, indeed, the

motive has been in good part a revulsion against a system of status. Where this is the case the institution of

the priesthood has broken down in the transition, at least partially. The spokesman of such an organization is

at the outset a servant and representative of the organization, rather than a member of a special priestly class

and the spokesman of a divine master. And it is only by a process of gradual specialization that, in succeeding

generations, this spokesman regains the position of priest, with a full investiture of sacerdotal authority, and

with its accompanying austere, archaic and vicarious manner of life. The like is true of the breakdown and

redintegration of devout ritual after such a revulsion. The priestly office, the scheme of sacerdotal life, and

the schedule of devout observances are rehabilitated only gradually, insensibly, and with more or less

variation in details, as a persistent human sense of devout propriety reasserts its primacy in questions

touching the interest in the preternatural and it may be added, as the organization increases in wealth, and

so acquires more of the point of view and the habits of thought of a leisure class.

Beyond the priestly class, and ranged in an ascending hierarchy,ordinarily comes a superhuman vicarious

leisure class of saints, angels, etc. or their equivalents in the ethnic cults. These rise in grade, one above

another, according to elaborate system of status. The principle of status runs through the entire hierarchical

system, both visible and invisible. The good fame of these several orders of the supernatural hierarchy also

commonly requires a certain tribute of vicarious consumption and vicarious leisure. In many cases they

accordingly have devoted to their service suborders of attendants or dependents who perform a vicarious

leisure for them, after much the same fashion as was found in an earlier chapter to be true of the dependent

It may not appear without reflection how these devout observances and the peculiarity of temperament which

they imply, or the consumption of goods and services which is comprised in the cult, stand related to the

leisure class of a modern community, or to the economic motives of which that class is the exponent in the

modern scheme of life to this end a summary review of certain facts bearing on this relation will be useful. It

appears from an earlier passage in this discussion that for the purpose of the collective life of today,

especially so far as concerns the industrial efficiency of the modern community, the characteristic traits of the

devout temperament are a hindrance rather than a help. It should accordingly be found that the modern

industrial life tends selectively to eliminate these traits of human nature from the spiritual constitution of the

classes that are immediately engaged in the industrial process. It should hold true, approximately, that

devoutness is declining or tending to obsolescence among the members of what may be called the effective

industrial community. At the same time it should appear that this aptitude or habit survives in appreciably

greater vigor among those classes which do not immediately or primarily enter into the community's life

It has already been pointed out that these latter classes, which live by, rather than in, the industrial process,

are roughly comprised under two categories (1) the leisure class proper, which is shielded from the stress of

the economic situation; and (2) the indigent classes, including the lowerclass delinquents, which are unduly

exposed to the stress. In the case of the former class an archaic habit of mind persists because no effectual

economic pressure constrains this class to an adaptation of its habits of thought to the changing situation;

while in the latter the reason for a failure to adjust their habits of thought to the altered requirements of

industrial efficiency is innutrition, absence of such surplus of energy as is needed in order to make the

adjustment with facility, together with a lack of opportunity to acquire and become habituated to the modern

point of view. The trend of the selective process runs in much the same direction in both cases.

From the point of view which the modern industrial life inculcates, phenomena are habitually subsumed

under the quantitative relation of mechanical sequence. The indigent classes not only fall short of the

modicum of leisure necessary in order to appropriate and assimilate the more recent generalizations of

science which this point of view involves, but they also ordinarily stand in such a relation of personal

dependence or subservience to their pecuniary superiors as materially to retard their emancipation from habits

of thought proper to the regime of status. The result is that these classes in some measure retain that general

habit of mind the chief expression of which is a strong sense of personal status, and of which devoutness is

In the older communities of the European culture, the hereditary leisure class, together with the mass of the

indigent population, are given to devout observances in an appreciably higher degree than the average of the

industrious middle class, wherever a considerable class of the latter character exists. But in some of these

countries, the two categories of conservative humanity named above comprise virtually the whole population.

Where these two classes greatly preponderate, their bent shapes popular sentiment to such an extent as to bear

down any possible divergent tendency in the inconsiderable middle class, and imposes a devout attitude upon

This must, of course, not be construed to say that such communities or such classes as are exceptionally

prone to devout observances tend to conform in any exceptional degree to the specifications of any code of

morals that we may be accustomed to associate with this or that confession of faith. A large measure of the

devout habit of mind need not carry with it a strict observance of the injunctions of the Decalogue or of the

common law. Indeed, it is becoming somewhat of a commonplace with observers of criminal life in European

communities that the criminal and dissolute classes are, if anything, rather more devout, and more naively so,

than the average of the population. It is among those who constitute the pecuniary middle class and the body

of lawabiding citizens that a relative exemption from the devotional attitude is to be looked for. Those who

best appreciate the merits of the higher creeds and observances would object to all this and say that the

devoutness of the lowclass delinquents is a spurious, or at the best a superstitious devoutness; and the point

is no doubt well taken and goes directly and cogently to the purpose intended. But for the purpose of the

present inquiry these extraeconomic, extrapsychological distinctions must perforce be neglected, however

What has actually taken place with regard to class emancipation from the habit of devout observance is

shown by the latterday complaint of the clergy that the churches are losing the sympathy of the artisan

classes, and are losing their hold upon them. At the same time it is currently believed that the middle class,

commonly so called, is also falling away in the cordiality of its support of the church, especially so far as

regards the adult male portion of that class. These are currently recognized phenomena, and it might seem

that a simple reference to these facts should sufficiently substantiate the general position outlined. Such an

appeal to the general phenomena of popular church attendance and church membership may be sufficiently

convincing for the proposition here advanced. But it will still be to the purpose to trace in some detail the

course of events and the particular forces which have wrought this change in the spiritual attitude of the more

advanced industrial communities of today. It will serve to illustrate the manner in which economic causes

work towards a secularization of men's habits of thought. In this respect the American community should

afford an exceptionally convincing illustration, since this community has been the least trammelled by

After making due allowance for exceptions and sporadic departures from the normal, the situation here at the

present time may be summarized quite briefly. As a general rule the classes that are low in economic

efficiency, or in intelligence, or both, are peculiarly devout as, for instance, the Negro population of the

South, much of the lowerclass foreign population, much of the rural population, especially in those sections

which are backward in education, in the stage of development of their industry, or in respect of their

industrial contact with the rest of the community. So also such fragments as we possess of a specialized or

hereditary indigent class, or of a segregated criminal or dissolute class; although among these latter the

devout habit of mind is apt to take the form of a naive animistic belief in luck and in the efficacy of

shamanistic practices perhaps more frequently than it takes the form of a formal adherence to any accredited

creed. The artisan class, on the other hand, is notoriously falling away from the accredited anthropomorphic

creeds and from all devout observances. This class is in an especial degree exposed to the characteristic

intellectual and spiritual stress of modern organized industry, which requires a constant recognition of the

undisguised phenomena of impersonal, matteroffact sequence and an unreserved conformity to the law of

cause and effect. This class is at the same time not underfed nor overworked to such an extent as to leave no

The case of the lower or doubtful leisure class in America the middle class commonly so called is

somewhat peculiar. It differs in respect of its devotional life from its European counterpart, but it differs in

degree and method rather than in substance. The churches still have the pecuniary support of this class;

although the creeds to which the class adheres with the greatest facility are relatively poor in

anthropomorphic content. At the same time the effective middleclass congregation tends, in many cases,

more or less remotely perhaps, to become a congregation of women and minors. There is an appreciable lack

of devotional fervor among the adult males of the middle class, although to a considerable extent there

survives among them a certain complacent, reputable assent to the outlines of the accredited creed under

which they were born. Their everyday life is carried on in a more or less close contact with the industrial

This peculiar sexual differentiation, which tends to delegate devout observances to the women and their

children, is due, at least in part, to the fact that the middleclass women are in great measure a (vicarious)

leisure class. The same is true in a less degree of the women of the lower, artisan classes. They live under a

regime of status handed down from an earlier stage of industrial development, and thereby they preserve a

frame of mind and habits of thought which incline them to an archaic view of things generally. At the same

time they stand in no such direct organic relation to the industrial process at large as would tend strongly to

break down those habits of thought which, for the modern industrial purpose, are obsolete. That is to say, the

peculiar devoutness of women is a particular expression of that conservatism which the women of civilized

communities owe, in great measure, to their economic position. For the modern man the patriarchal relation

of status is by no means the dominant feature of life; but for the women on the other hand, and for the upper

middleclass women especially, confined as they are by prescription and by economic circumstances to their

"domestic sphere," this relation is the most real and most formative factor of life. Hence a habit of mind

favorable to devout observances and to the interpretation of the facts of life generally in terms of personal

status. The logic, and the logical processes, of her everyday domestic life are carried over into the realm of

the supernatural, and the woman finds herself at home and content in a range of ideas which to the man are in

Still the men of this class are also not devoid of piety, although it is commonly not piety of an aggressive or

exuberant kind. The men of the upper middle class commonly take a more complacent attitude towards

devout observances than the men of the artisan class. This may perhaps be explained in part by saying that

what is true of the women of the class is true to a less extent also of the men. They are to an appreciable

extent a sheltered class; and the patriarchal relation of status which still persists in their conjugal life and in

their habitual use of servants, may also act to conserve an archaic habit of mind and may exercise a retarding

influence upon the process of secularization which their habits of thought are undergoing. The relations of the

American middleclass man to the economic community, however, are usually pretty close and exacting;

although it may be remarked, by the way and in qualification, that their economic activity frequently also

partakes in some degree of the patriarchal or quasipredatory character. The occupations which are in good

repute among this class and which have most to do with shaping the class habits of thought, are the pecuniary

occupations which have been spoken of in a similar connection in an earlier chapter. There is a good deal of

the relation of arbitrary command and submission, and not a little of shrewd practice, remotely akin to

predatory fraud. All this belongs on the plane of life of the predatory barbarian, to whom a devotional attitude

is habitual. And in addition to this, the devout observances also commend themselves to this class on the

ground of reputability. But this latter incentive to piety deserves treatment by itself and will be spoken of

presently. There is no hereditary leisure class of any consequence in the American community, except in the

South. This Southern leisure class is somewhat given to devout observances; more so than any class of

corresponding pecuniary standing in other parts of the country. It is also well known that the creeds of the

South are of a more oldfashioned cast than their counterparts in the North. Corresponding to this more

archaic devotional life of the South is the lower industrial development of that section. The industrial

organization of the South is at present, and especially it has been until quite recently, of a more primitive

character than that of the American community taken as a whole. It approaches nearer to handicraft, in the

paucity and rudeness of its mechanical appliances, and there is more of the element of mastery and

subservience. It may also be noted that, owing to the peculiar economic circumstances of this section, the

greater devoutness of the Southern population, both white and black, is correlated with a scheme of life which

in many ways recalls the barbarian stages of industrial development. Among this population offenses of an

archaic character also are and have been relatively more prevalent and are less deprecated than they are

elsewhere; as, for example, duels, brawls, feuds, drunkenness, horseracing, cockfighting, gambling, male

sexual incontinence (evidenced by the considerable number of mulattoes). There is also a livelier sense of

As regards the wealthier class of the North, the American leisure class in the best sense of the term, it is, to

begin with, scarcely possible to speak of an hereditary devotional attitude. This class is of too recent growth

to be possessed of a wellformed transmitted habit in this respect, or even of a special homegrown tradition.

Still, it may be noted in passing that there is a perceptible tendency among this class to give in at least a

nominal, and apparently something of a real, adherence to some one of the accredited creeds. Also, weddings,

funerals, and the like honorific events among this class are pretty uniformly solemnized with some especial

degree of religious circumstance. It is impossible to say how far this adherence to a creed is a bona fide

reversion to a devout habit of mind, and how far it is to be classed as a case of protective mimicry assumed

for the purpose of an outward assimilation to canons of reputability borrowed from foreign ideals. Something

of a substantial devotional propensity seems to be present, to judge especially by the somewhat peculiar

degree of ritualistic observance which is in process of development in the upperclass cults. There is a

tendency perceptible among the upperclass worshippers to affiliate themselves with those cults which lay

relatively great stress on ceremonial and on the spectacular accessories of worship; and in the churches in

which an upperclass membership predominates, there is at the same time a tendency to accentuate the

ritualistic, at the cost of the intellectual features in the service and in the apparatus of the devout observances.

This holds true even where the church in question belongs to a denomination with a relatively slight general

development of ritual and paraphernalia. This peculiar development of the ritualistic element is no doubt due

in part to a predilection for conspicuously wasteful spectacles, but it probably also in part indicates something

of the devotional attitude of the worshippers. So far as the latter is true, it indicates a relatively archaic form

of the devotional habit. The predominance of spectacular effects in devout observances is noticeable in all

devout communities at a relatively primitive stage of culture and with a slight intellectual development. It is

especially characteristic of the barbarian culture. Here there is pretty uniformly present in the devout

observances a direct appeal to the emotions through all the avenues of sense. And a tendency to return to this

naive, sensational method of appeal is unmistakable in the upperclass churches of today. It is perceptible in

a less degree in the cults which claim the allegiance of the lower leisure class and of the middle classes. There

is a reversion to the use of colored lights and brilliant spectacles, a freer use of symbols, orchestral music and

incense, and one may even detect in "processionals" and "recessionals" and in richly varied genuflexional

evolutions, an incipient reversion to so antique an accessory of worship as the sacred dance. This reversion to

spectacular observances is not confined to the upperclass cults, although it finds its best exemplification and

its highest accentuation in the higher pecuniary and social altitudes. The cults of the lowerclass devout

portion of the community, such as the Southern Negroes and the backward foreign elements of the

population, of course also show a strong inclination to ritual, symbolism, and spectacular effects; as might be

expected from the antecedents and the cultural level of those classes. With these classes the prevalence of

ritual and anthropomorphism are not so much a matter of reversion as of continued development out of the

past. But the use of ritual and related features of devotion are also spreading in other directions. In the early

days of the American community the prevailing denominations started out with a ritual and paraphernalia of

an austere simplicity; but it is a matter familiar to every one that in the course of time these denominations

have, in a varying degree, adopted much of the spectacular elements which they once renounced. In a general

way, this development has gone hand in hand with the growth of the wealth and the ease of life of the

worshippers and has reached its fullest expression among those classes which grade highest in wealth and

The causes to which this pecuniary stratification of devoutness is due have already been indicated in a general

way in speaking of class differences in habits of thought. Class differences as regards devoutness are but a

special expression of a generic fact. The lax allegiance of the lower middle class, or what may broadly be

called the failure of filial piety among this class, is chiefly perceptible among the town populations engaged

in the mechanical industries. In a general way, one does not, at the present time, look for a blameless filial

piety among those classes whose employment approaches that of the engineer and the mechanician. These

mechanical employments are in a degree a modern fact. The handicraftsmen of earlier times, who served an

industrial end of a character similar to that now served by the mechanician, were not similarily refractory

under the discipline of devoutness. The habitual activity of the men engaged in these branches of industry has

greatly changed, as regards its intellectual discipline, since the modern industrial processes have come into

vogue; and the discipline to which the mechanician is exposed in his daily employment affects the methods

and standards of his thinking also on topics which lie outside his everyday work. Familiarity with the highly

organized and highly impersonal industrial processes of the present acts to derange the animistic habits of

thought. The workman's office is becoming more and more exclusively that of discretion and supervision in a

process of mechanical, dispassionate sequences. So long as the individual is the chief and typical prime

mover in the process; so long as the obtrusive feature of the industrial process is the dexterity and force of the

individual handicraftsman; so long the habit of interpreting phenomena in terms of personal motive and

propensity suffers no such considerable and consistent derangement through facts as to lead to its elimination.

But under the later developed industrial processes, when the prime movers and the contrivances through

which they work are of an impersonal, nonindividual character, the grounds of generalization habitually

present in the workman's mind and the point of view from which he habitually apprehends phenomena is an

enforced cognizance of matteroffact sequence. The result, so far as concerts the workman's life of faith, is

It appears, then, that the devout habit of mind attains its best development under a relatively archaic culture;

the term "devout" being of course here used in its anthropological sense simply, and not as implying anything

with respect to the spiritual attitude so characterized, beyond the fact of a proneness to devout observances. It

appears also that this devout attitude marks a type of human nature which is more in consonance with the

predatory mode of life than with the laterdeveloped, more consistently and organically industrial life

process of the community. It is in large measure an expression of the archaic habitual sense of personal status

the relation of mastery and subservience and it therefore fits into the industrial scheme of the predatory

and the quasipeaceable culture, but does not fit into the industrial scheme of the present. It also appears that

this habit persists with greatest tenacity among those classes in the modern communities whose everyday life

is most remote from the mechanical processes of industry and which are the most conservative also in other

respects; while for those classes that are habitually in immediate contact with modern industrial processes,

and whose habits of thought are therefore exposed to the constraining force of technological necessities, that

animistic interpretation of phenomena and that respect of persons on which devout observance proceeds are

in process of obsolescence. And also as bearing especially on the present discussion it appears that the

devout habit to some extent progressively gains in scope and elaboration among those classes in the modern

communities to whom wealth and leisure accrue in the most pronounced degree. In this as in other relations,

the institution of a leisure class acts to conserve, and even to rehabilitate, that archaic type of human nature

and those elements of the archaic culture which the industrial evolution of society in its later stages acts to

In an increasing proportion as time goes on, the anthropomorphic cult, with its code of devout observations,

suffers a progressive disintegration through the stress of economic exigencies and the decay of the system of

status. As this disintegration proceeds, there come to be associated and blended with the devout attitude

certain other motives and impulses that are not always of an anthropomorphic origin, nor traceable to the

habit of personal subservience. Not all of these subsidiary impulses that blend with the habit of devoutness in

the later devotional life are altogether congruous with the devout attitude or with the anthropomorphic

apprehension of the sequence of phenomena. The origin being not the same, their action upon the scheme of

devout life is also not in the same direction. In many ways they traverse the underlying norm of subservience

or vicarious life to which the code of devout observations and the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal institutions are

to be traced as their substantial basis. Through the presence of these alien motives the social and industrial

regime of status gradually disintegrates, and the canon of personal subservience loses the support derived

from an unbroken tradition. Extraneous habits and proclivities encroach upon the field of action occupied by

this canon, and it presently comes about that the ecclesiastical and sacerdotal structures are partially

converted to other uses, in some measure alien to the purposes of the scheme of devout life as it stood in the

Among these alien motives which affect the devout scheme in its later growth, may be mentioned the motives

of charity and of social goodfellowship, or conviviality; or, in more general terms, the various expressions

of the sense of human solidarity and sympathy. It may be added that these extraneous uses of the

ecclesiastical structure contribute materially to its survival in name and form even among people who may be

ready to give up the substance of it. A still more characteristic and more pervasive alien element in the

motives which have gone to formally uphold the scheme of devout life is that nonreverent sense of aesthetic

congruity with the environment, which is left as a residue of the latterday act of worship after elimination of

its anthropomorphic content. This has done good service for the maintenance of the sacerdotal institution

through blending with the motive of subservience. This sense of impulse of aesthetic congruity is not

primarily of an economic character, but it has a considerable indirect effect in shaping the habit of mind of

the individual for economic purposes in the later stages of industrial development; its most perceptible effect

in this regard goes in the direction of mitigating the somewhat pronounced selfregarding bias that has been

transmitted by tradition from the earlier, more competent phases of the regime of status. The economic

bearing of this impulse is therefore seen to transverse that of the devout attitude; the former goes to qualify, if

not eliminate, the selfregarding bias, through sublation of the antithesis or antagonism of self and notself;

while the latter, being and expression of the sense of personal subservience and mastery, goes to accentuate

this antithesis and to insist upon the divergence between the selfregarding interest and the interests of the

This noninvidious residue of the religious life the sense of communion with the environment, or with the

generic life process as well as the impulse of charity or of sociability, act in a pervasive way to shape

men's habits of thought for the economic purpose. But the action of all this class of proclivities is somewhat

vague, and their effects are difficult to trace in detail. So much seems clear, however, as that the action of this

entire class of motives or aptitudes tends in a direction contrary to the underlying principles of the institution

of the leisure class as already formulated. The basis of that institution, as well as of the anthropomorphic cults

associated with it in the cultural development, is the habit of invidious comparison; and this habit is

incongruous with the exercise of the aptitudes now in question. The substantial canons of the leisureclass

scheme of life are a conspicuous waste of time and substance and a withdrawal from the industrial process;

while the particular aptitudes here in question assert themselves, on the economic side, in a deprecation of

waste and of a futile manner of life, and in an impulse to participation in or identification with the life

process, whether it be on the economic side or in any other of its phases or aspects.

It is plain that these aptitudes and habits of life to which they give rise where circumstances favor their

expression, or where they assert themselves in a dominant way, run counter to the leisureclass scheme of

life; but it is not clear that life under the leisureclass scheme, as seen in the later stages of its development,

tends consistently to the repression of these aptitudes or to exemption from the habits of thought in which

they express themselves. The positive discipline of the leisure�class scheme of life goes pretty much all the

other way. In its positive discipline, by prescription and by selective elimination, the leisureclass scheme

favors the allpervading and alldominating primacy of the canons of waste and invidious comparison at

every conjuncture of life. But in its negative effects the tendency of the leisureclass discipline is not so

unequivocally true to the fundamental canons of the scheme. In its regulation of human activity for the

purpose of pecuniary decency the leisureclass canon insists on withdrawal from the industrial process. That

is to say, it inhibits activity in the directions in which the impecunious members of the community habitually

put forth their efforts. Especially in the case of women, and more particularly as regards the upperclass and

uppermiddleclass women of advanced industrial communities, this inhibition goes so far as to insist on

withdrawal even from the emulative process of accumulation by the quasipredator methods of the pecuniary

The pecuniary or the leisureclass culture, which set out as an emulative variant of the impulse of

workmanship, is in its latest development beginning to neutralize its own ground, by eliminating the habit of

invidious comparison in respect of efficiency, or even of pecuniary standing. On the other hand, the fact that

members of the leisure class, both men and women, are to some extent exempt from the necessity of finding a

livelihood in a competitive struggle with their fellows, makes it possible for members of this class not only to

survive, but even, within bounds, to follow their bent in case they are not gifted with the aptitudes which

make for success in the competitive struggle. That is to say, in the latest and fullest development of the

institution, the livelihood of members of this class does not depend on the possession and the unremitting

exercise of those aptitudes are therefore greater in the higher grades of the leisure class than in the general

In an earlier chapter, in discussing the conditions of survival of archaic traits, it has appeared that the peculiar

position of the leisure class affords exceptionally favorable chances for the survival of traits which

characterize the type of human nature proper to an earlier and obsolete cultural stage. The class is sheltered

from the stress of economic exigencies, and is in this sense withdrawn from the rude impact of forces which

make for adaptation to the economic situation. The survival in the leisure class, and under the leisureclass

scheme of life, of traits and types that are reminiscent of the predatory culture has already been discussed.

These aptitudes and habits have an exceptionally favorable chance of survival under the leisure�class regime.

Not only does the sheltered pecuniary position of the leisure class afford a situation favorable to the survival

of such individuals as are not gifted with the complement of aptitudes required for serviceability in the

modern industrial process; but the leisureclass canons of reputability at the same time enjoin the

conspicuous exercise of certain predatory aptitudes. The employments in which the predatory aptitudes find

exercise serve as an evidence of wealth, birth, and withdrawal from the industrial process. The survival of the

predatory traits under the leisureclass culture is furthered both negatively, through the industrial exemption

of the class, and positively, through the sanction of the leisureclass canons of decency.

With respect to the survival of traits characteristic of the antepredatory savage culture the case is in some

degree different. The sheltered position of the leisure class favors the survival also of these traits; but the

exercise of the aptitudes for peace and goodwill does not have the affirmative sanction of the code of

proprieties. Individuals gifted with a temperament that is reminiscent of the antepredatory culture are placed

at something of an advantage within the leisure class, as compared with similarly gifted individuals outside

the class, in that they are not under a pecuniary necessity to thwart these aptitudes that make for a

noncompetitive life; but such individuals are still exposed to something of a moral constraint which urges

them to disregard these inclinations, in that the code of proprieties enjoins upon them habits of life based on

the predatory aptitudes. So long as the system of status remains intact, and so long as the leisure class has

other lines of non�industrial activity to take to than obvious killing of time in aimless and wasteful fatigation,

so long no considerable departure from the leisureclass scheme of reputable life is to be looked for. The

occurrence of nonpredatory temperament with the class at that stage is to be looked upon as a case of

sporadic reversion. But the reputable nonindustrial outlets for the human propensity to action presently fail,

through the advance of economic development, the disappearance of large game, the decline of war, the

obsolescence of proprietary government, and the decay of the priestly office. When this happens, the situation

begins to change. Human life must seek expression in one direction if it may not in another; and if the

As indicated above, the exemption from pecuniary stress has been carried farther in the case of the

leisureclass women of the advanced industrial communities than in that of any other considerable group of

persons. The women may therefore be expected to show a more pronounced reversion to a noninvidious

temperament than the men. But there is also among men of the leisure class a perceptible increase in the

range and scope of activities that proceed from aptitudes which are not to be classed as selfregarding, and

the end of which is not an invidious distinction. So, for instance, the greater number of men who have to do

with industry in the way of pecuniarily managing an enterprise take some interest and some pride in seeing

that the work is well done and is industrially effective, and this even apart from the profit which may result

from any improvement of this kind. The efforts of commercial clubs and manufacturers' organizations in this

direction of noninvidious advancement of industrial efficiency are also well know.

The tendency to some other than an invidious purpose in life has worked out in a multitude of organizations,

the purpose of which is some work of charity or of social amelioration. These organizations are often of a

quasireligious or pseudoreligious character, and are participated in by both men and women. Examples

will present themselves in abundance on reflection, but for the purpose of indicating the range of the

propensities in question and of characterizing them, some of the more obvious concrete cases may be cited.

Such, for instance, are the agitation for temperance and similar social reforms, for prison reform, for the

spread of education, for the suppression of vice, and for the avoidance of war by arbitration, disarmament, or

other means; such are, in some measure, university settlements, neighborhood guilds, the various

organizations typified by the Young Men's Christian Association and Young People's Society for Christian

Endeavor, sewingclubs, art clubs, and even commercial clubs; such are also, in some slight measure, the

pecuniary foundations of semipublic establishments for charity, education, or amusement, whether they are

endowed by wealthy individuals or by contributions collected from persons of smaller means in so far as

It is of course not intended to say that these efforts proceed entirely from other motives than those of a

selfregarding kind. What can be claimed is that other motives are present in the common run of cases, and

that the perceptibly greater prevalence of effort of this kind under the circumstances of the modern industrial

life than under the unbroken regime of the principle of status, indicates the presence in modern life of an

effective scepticism with respect to the full legitimacy of an emulative scheme of life. It is a matter of

sufficient notoriety to have become a commonplace jest that extraneous motives are commonly present

among the incentives to this class of work motives of a selfregarding kind, and especially the motive of

an invidious distinction. To such an extent is this true, that many ostensible works of disinterested public

spirit are no doubt initiated and carried on with a view primarily to the enhance repute or even to the

pecuniary gain, of their promoters. In the case of some considerable groups of organizations or

establishments of this kind the invidious motive is apparently the dominant motive both with the initiators of

the work and with their supporters. This last remark would hold true especially with respect to such works as

lend distinction to their doer through large and conspicuous expenditure; as, for example, the foundation of a

university or of a public library or museum; but it is also, and perhaps equally, true of the more commonplace

work of participation in such organizations. These serve to authenticate the pecuniary reputability of their

members, as well as gratefully to keep them in mind of their superior status by pointing the contrast between

themselves and the lowerlying humanity in whom the work of amelioration is to be wrought; as, for

example, the university settlement, which now has some vogue. But after all allowances and deductions have

been made, there is left some remainder of motives of a nonemulative kind. The fact itself that distinction or

a decent good fame is sought by this method is evidence of a prevalent sense of the legitimacy , and of the

presumptive effectual presence, of a nonemulative, noninvidious interest, as a consistent factor in the

In all this latterday range of leisureclass activities that proceed on the basis of a noninvidious and

nonreligious interest, it is to be noted that the women participate more actively and more persistently than

the men except, of course, in the case of such works as require a large expenditure of means. The

dependent pecuniary position of the women disables them for work requiring large expenditure. As regards

the general range of ameliorative work, the members of the priesthood or clergy of the less naively devout

sects, or the secularized denominations, are associated with the class of women. This is as the theory would

have it. In other economic relations, also, this clergy stands in a somewhat equivocal position between the

class of women and that of the men engaged in economic pursuits. By tradition and by the prevalent sense of

the proprieties, both the clergy and the women of the welltodo classes are placed in the position of a

vicarious leisure class; with both classes the characteristic relation which goes to form the habits of thought

of the class is a relation of subservience that is to say, an economic relation conceived in personal terms;

in both classes there is consequently perceptible a special proneness to construe phenomena in terms of

personal relation rather than of causal sequence; both classes are so inhibited by the canons of decency from

the ceremonially unclean processes of the lucrative or productive occupations as to make participation in the

industrial life process of today a moral impossibility for them. The result of this ceremonial exclusion from

productive effort of the vulgar sort is to draft a relatively large share of the energies of the modern feminine

and priestly classes into the service of other interests than the selfregarding one. The code leaves no

alternative direction in which the impulse to purposeful action may find expression. The effect of a consistent

inhibition on industrially useful activity in the case of the leisureclass women shows itself in a restless

assertion of the impulse to workmanship in other directions than that of business activity. As has been noticed

already, the everyday life of the welltodo women and the clergy contains a larger element of status than

that of the average of the men, especially than that of the men engaged in the modern industrial occupations

proper. Hence the devout attitude survives in a better state of preservation among these classes than among

the common run of men in the modern communities. Hence an appreciable share of the energy which seeks

expression in a nonlucrative employment among these members of the vicarious leisure classes may be

expected to eventuate in devout observances and works of piety. Hence, in part, the excess of the devout

proclivity in women, spoken of in the last chapter. But it is more to the present point to note the effect of this

proclivity in shaping the action and coloring the purposes of the nonlucrative movements and organizations

here under discussion. Where this devout coloring is present it lowers the immediate efficiency of the

organizations for any economic end to which their efforts may be directed. Many organizations, charitable

and ameliorative, divide their attention between the devotional and the secular wellbeing of the people

whose interests they aim to further. It can scarcely he doubted that if they were to give an equally serious

attention and effort undividedly to the secular interests of these people, the immediate economic value of

their work should be appreciably higher than it is. It might of course similarly be said, if this were the place to

say it, that the immediate efficiency of these works of amelioration for the devout might be greater if it were

Some deduction is to be made from the economic value of this class of noninvidious enterprise, on account

of the intrusion of the devotional interest. But there are also deductions to be made on account of the presence

of other alien motives which more or less broadly traverse the economic trend of this nonemulative

expression of the instinct of workmanship. To such an extent is this seen to be true on a closer scrutiny, that,

when all is told, it may even appear that this general class of enterprises is of an altogether dubious economic

value as measured in terms of the fullness or facility of life of the individuals or classes to whose

amelioration the enterprise is directed. For instance, many of the efforts now in reputable vogue for the

amelioration of the indigent population of large cities are of the nature, in great part, of a mission of culture.

It is by this means sought to accelerate the rate of speed at which given elements of the upperclass culture

find acceptance in the everyday scheme of life of the lower classes. The solicitude of "settlements," for

example, is in part directed to enhance the industrial efficiency of the poor and to teach them the more

adequate utilization of the means at hand; but it is also no less consistently directed to the inculcation, by

precept and example, of certain punctilios of upperclass propriety in manners and customs. The economic

substance of these proprieties will commonly be found on scrutiny to be a conspicuous waste of time and

goods. Those good people who go out to humanize the poor are commonly, and advisedly, extremely

scrupulous and silently insistent in matters of decorum and the decencies of life. They are commonly persons

of an exemplary life and gifted with a tenacious insistence on ceremonial cleanness in the various items of

their daily consumption. The cultural or civilizing efficacy of this inculcation of correct habits of thought

with respect to the consumption of time and commodities is scarcely to be overrated; nor is its economic

value to the individual who acquires these higher and more reputable ideals inconsiderable. Under the

circumstances of the existing pecuniary culture, the reputability, and consequently the success, of the

individual is in great measure dependent on his proficiency in demeanor and methods of consumption that

argue habitual waste of time and goods. But as regards the ulterior economic bearing of this training in

worthier methods of life, it is to be said that the effect wrought is in large part a substitution of costlier or less

efficient methods of accomplishing the same material results, in relations where the material result is the fact

of substantial economic value. The propaganda of culture is in great part an inculcation of new tastes, or

rather of a new schedule of proprieties, which have been adapted to the upperclass scheme of life under the

guidance of the leisureclass formulation of the principles of status and pecuniary decency. This new

schedule of proprieties is intruded into the lowerclass scheme of life from the code elaborated by an element

of the population whose life lies outside the industrial process; and this intrusive schedule can scarcely be

expected to fit the exigencies of life for these lower classes more adequately than the schedule already in

vogue among them, and especially not more adequately than the schedule which they are themselves working

All this of course does not question the fact that the prOprieties of the substituted schedule are more decorous

than those which they displace. The doubt which presents itself is simply a doubt as to the economic

expediency of this work of regeneration that is to say, the economic expediency in that immediate and

material bearing in which the effects of the change can be ascertained with some degree of confidence, and as

viewed from the standpoint not of the individual but of the facility of life of the collectivity. For an

appreciation of the economic expediency of these enterprises of amelioration, therefore, their effective work

is scarcely to be taken at its face value, even where the aim of the enterprise is primarily an economic one and

where the interest on which it proceeds is in no sense selfregarding or invidious. The economic reform

wrought is largely of the nature of a permutation in the methods of conspicuous waste.

But something further is to be said with respect to the character of the disinterested motives and canons of

procedure in all work of this class that is affected by the habits of thought characteristic of the pecuniary

culture; and this further consideration may lead to a further qualification of the conclusions already reached.

As has been seen in an earlier chapter, the canons of reputability or decency under the pecuniary culture insist

on habitual futility of effort as the mark of a pecuniarily blameless life. There results not only a habit of

disesteem of useful occupations, but there results also what is of more decisive consequence in guiding the

action of any organized body of people that lays claim to social good repute. There is a tradition which

requires that one should not be vulgarly familiar with any of the processes or details that have to do with the

material necessities of life. One may meritoriously show a quantitative interest in the wellbeing of the

vulgar, through subscriptions or through work on managing committees and the like. One may, perhaps even

more meritoriously, show solicitude in general and in detail for the cultural welfare of the vulgar, in the way

of contrivances for elevating their tastes and affording them opportunities for spiritual amelioration. But one

should not betray an intimate knowledge of the material circumstances of vulgar life, or of the habits of

thought of the vulgar classes, such as would effectually direct the efforts of these organizations to a

materially useful end. This reluctance to avow an unduly intimate knowledge of the lowerclass conditions of

life in detail of course prevails in very different degrees in different individuals; but there is commonly

enough of it present collectively in any organization of the kind in question profoundly to influence its course

of action. By its cumulative action in shaping the usage and precedents of any such body, this shrinking from

an imputation of unseemly familiarity with vulgar life tends gradually to set aside the initial motives of the

enterprise, in favor of certain guiding principles of good repute, ultimately reducible to terms of pecuniary

merit. So that in an organization of long standing the initial motive of furthering the facility of life in these

classes comes gradually to be an ostensible motive only, and the vulgarly effective work of the organization

What is true of the efficiency of organizations for noninvidious work in this respect is true also as regards

the work of individuals proceeding on the same motives; though it perhaps holds true with more qualification

for individuals than for organized enterprises. The habit of gauging merit by the leisureclass canons of

wasteful expenditure and unfamiliarity with vulgar life, whether on the side of production or of consumption,

is necessarily strong in the individuals who aspire to do some work of public utility. And if the individual

should forget his station and turn his efforts to vulgar effectiveness, the common sense of the communitythe

sense of pecuniary decency would presently reject his work and set him right. An example of this is seen

in the administration of bequests made by publicspirited men for the single purpose (at least ostensibly) of

furthering the facility of human life in some particular respect. The objects for which bequests of this class

are most frequently made at present are most frequently made at present are schools, libraries, hospitals, and

asylums for the infirm or unfortunate. The avowed purpose of the donor in these cases is the amelioration of

human life in the particular respect which is named in the bequest; but it will be found an invariable rule that

in the execution of the work not a little of other motives, frequenCy incompatible with the initial motive, is

present and determines the particular disposition eventually made of a good share of the means which have

been set apart by the bequest. Certain funds, for instance, may have been set apart as a foundation for a

foundling asylum or a retreat for invalids. The diversion of expenditure to honorific waste in such cases is not

uncommon enough to cause surprise or even to raise a smile. An appreciable share of the funds is spent in the

construction of an edifice faced with some aesthetically objectionable but expensive stone, covered with

grotesque and incongruous details, and designed, in its battlemented walls and turrets and its massive portals

and strategic approaches, to suggest certain barbaric methods of warfare. The interior of the structure shows

the same pervasive guidance of the canons of conspicuous waste and predatory exploit. The windows, for

instance, to go no farther into detail, are placed with a view to impress their pecuniary excellence upon the

chance beholder from the outside, rather than with a view to effectiveness for their ostensible end in the

convenience or comfort of the beneficiaries within; and the detail of interior arrangement is required to

conform itself as best it may to this alien but imperious requirement of pecuniary beauty.

In all this, of course, it is not to he presumed that the donor would have found fault, or that he would have

done otherwise if he had taken control in person; it appears that in those cases where such a personal

direction is exercised where the enterprise is conducted by direct expenditure and superintendence instead

of by bequest the aims and methods of management are not different in this respect. Nor would the

beneficiaries, or the outside observers whose ease or vanity are not immediately touched, be pleased with a

different disposition of the funds. It would suit no one to have the enterprise conducted with a view directly

to the most economical and effective use of the means at hand for the initial, material end of the foundation.

All concerned, whether their interest is immediate and selfregarding, or contemplative only, agree that some

considerable share of the expenditure should go to the higher or spiritual needs derived from the habit of an

invidious comparison in predatory exploit and pecuniary waste. But this only goes to say that the canons of

emulative and pecuniary reputability so far pervade the common sense of the community as to permit no

escape or evasion, even in the case of an enterprise which ostensibly proceeds entirely on the basis of a

It may even be that the enterprise owes its honorific virtue, as a means of enhancing the donor's good repute,

to the imputed presence of this noninvidious motive; but that does not hinder the invidious interest from

guiding the expenditure. The effectual presence of motives of an emulative or invidious origin in

nonemulative works of this kind might be shown at length and with detail, in any one of the classes of

enterprise spoken of above. Where these honorific details occur, in such cases, they commonly masquerade

under designations that belong in the field of the aesthetic, ethical or economic interest. These special

motives, derived from the standards and canons of the pecuniary culture, act surreptitiously to divert effort of

a noninvidious kind from effective service, without disturbing the agent's sense of good intention or

obtruding upon his consciousness the substantial futility of his work. Their effect might be traced through the

entire range of that schedule of noninvidious, meliorative enterprise that is so considerable a feature, and

especially so conspicuous a feature, in the overt scheme of life of the welltodo. But the theoretical bearing

is perhaps clear enough and may require no further illustration; especially as some detailed attention will be

given to one of these lines of enterprise the establishments for the higher learning in another

Under the circumstances of the sheltered situation in which the leisure class is placed there seems, therefore,

to be something of a reversion to the range of noninvidious impulses that characterizes the antepredatory

savage culture. The reversion comprises both the sense of workmanship and the proclivity to indolence and

goodfellowship. But in the modern scheme of life canons of conduct based on pecuniary or invidious merit

stand in the way of a free exercise of these impulses; and the dominant presence of these canons of conduct

goes far to divert such efforts as are made on the basis of the noninvidious interest to the service of that

invidious interest on which the pecuniary culture rests. The canons of pecuniary decency are reducible for the

present purpose to the principles of waste, futility, and ferocity. The requirements of decency are imperiously

present in meliorative enterprise as in other lines of conduct, and exercise a selective surveillance over the

details of conduct and management in any enterprise. By guiding and adapting the method in detail, these

canons of decency go far to make all noninvidious aspiration or effort nugatory. The pervasive, impersonal,

uneager principle of futility is at hand from day to day and works obstructively to hinder the effectual

expression of so much of the surviving antepredatory aptitudes as is to be classed under the instinct of

workmanship; but its presence does not preclude the transmission of those aptitudes or the continued

In the later and farther development of the pecuniary culture, the requirement of withdrawal from the

industrial process in order to avoid social odium is carried so far as to comprise abstention from the emulative

employments. At this advanced stage the pecuniary culture negatively favors the assertion of the

noninvidious propensities by relaxing the stress laid on the merit of emulative, predatory , or pecuniary

occupations, as compared with those of an industrial or productive kind. As was noticed above, the

requirement of such withdrawal from all employment that is of human use applies more rigorously to the

upperclass women than to any other class, unless the priesthood of certain cults might be cited as an

exception, perhaps more apparent than real, to this rule. The reason for the more extreme insistence on a

futile life for this class of women than for the men of the same pecuniary and social grade lies in their being

not only an uppergrade leisure class but also at the same time a vicarious leisure class. There is in their case

It has been well and repeatedly said by popular writers and speakers who reflect the common sense of

intelligent people on questions of social structure and function that the position of woman in any community

is the most striking index of the level of culture attained by the community, and it might be added, by any

given class in the community. This remark is perhaps truer as regards the stage of economic development

than as regards development in any other respect. At the same time the position assigned to the woman in the

accepted scheme of life, in any community or under any culture, is in a very great degree an expression of

traditions which have been shaped by the circumstances of an earlier phase of development, and which have

been but partially adapted to the existing economic circumstances, or to the existing exigencies of

temperament and habits of mind by which the women living under this modern economic situation are

The fact has already been remarked upon incidentally in the course of the discussion of the growth of

economic institutions generally, and in particular in speaking of vicarious leisure and of dress, that the

position of women in the modern economic scheme is more widely and more consistently at variance with the

promptings of the instinct of workmanship than is the position of the men of the same classes. It is also

apparently true that the woman's temperament includes a larger share of this instinct that approves peace and

disapproves futility. It is therefore not a fortuitous circumstance that the women of modern industrial

communities show a livelier sense of the discrepancy between the accepted scheme of life and the exigencies

The several phases of the "woman question" have brought out in intelligible form the extent to which the life

of women in modern society, and in the polite circles especially, is regulated by a body of common sense

formulated under the economic circumstances of an earlier phase of development. It is still felt that woman's

life, in its civil, economic, and social bearing, is essentially and normally a vicarious life, the merit or demerit

of which is, in the nature of things, to be imputed to some other individual who stands in some relation of

ownership or tutelage to the woman. So, for instance, any action on the part of a woman which traverses an

injunction of the accepted schedule of proprieties is felt to reflect immediately upon the honor of the man

whose woman she is. There may of course be some sense of incongruity in the mind of any one passing an

opinion of this kind on the woman's frailty or perversity; but the commonsense judgment of the community

in such matters is, after all, delivered without much hesitation, and few men would question the legitimacy of

their sense of an outraged tutelage in any case that might arise. On the other hand, relatively little discredit

attaches to a woman through the evil deeds of the man with whom her life is associated.

The good and beautiful scheme of life, then that is to say the scheme to which we are habituated

assigns to the woman a "sphere" ancillary to the activity of the man; and it is felt that any departure from the

traditions of her assigned round of duties is unwomanly. If the question is as to civil rights or the suffrage,

our common sense in the matter that is to say the logical deliverance of our general scheme of life upon

the point in question says that the woman should be represented in the body politic and before the law, not

immediately in her own person, but through the mediation of the head of the household to which she belongs.

It is unfeminine in her to aspire to a selfdirecting, selfcentered life; and our common sense tells us that her

direct participation in the affairs of the community, civil or industrial, is a menace to that social order which

expresses our habits of thought as they have been formed under the guidance of the traditions of the

pecuniary culture. "All this fume and froth of 'emancipating woman from the slavery of man' and so on, is, to

use the chaste and expressive language of Elizabeth Cady Stanton inversely, 'utter rot.' The social relations of

the sexes are fixed by nature. Our entire civilization that is whatever is good in it is based on the

home." The "home" is the household with a male head. This view, but commonly expressed even more

chastely, is the prevailing view of the woman's status, not only among the common run of the men of

civilized communities, but among the women as well. Women have a very alert sense of what the scheme of

proprieties requires, and while it is true that many of them are ill at ease under the details which the code

imposes, there are few who do not recognize that the existing moral order, of necessity and by the divine right

of prescription, places the woman in a position ancillary to the man. In the last analysis, according to her own

sense of what is good and beautiful, the woman's life is, and in theory must be, an expression of the man's life

But in spite of this pervading sense of what is the good and natural place for the woman, there is also

perceptible an incipient development of sentiment to the effect that this whole arrangement of tutelage and

vicarious life and imputation of merit and demerit is somehow a mistake. Or, at least, that even if it may be a

natural growth and a good arrangement in its time and place, and in spite of its patent aesthetic value, still it

does not adequately serve the more everyday ends of life in a modern industrial community. Even that large

and substantial body of wellbred, upper and middleclass women to whose dispassionate, matronly sense of

the traditional proprieties this relation of status commends itself as fundamentally and eternally righteven

these, whose attitude is conservative, commonly find some slight discrepancy in detail between things as they

are and things as they should be in this respect. But that less manageable body of modern women who, by

force of youth, education, or temperament, are in some degree out of touch with the traditions of status

received from the barbarian culture, and in whom there is, perhaps, an undue reversion to the impulse of

selfexpression and workmanship these are touched with a sense of grievance too vivid to leave them at

In this "NewWoman" movement as these blind and incoherent efforts to rehabilitate the woman's

preglacial standing have been named there are at least two elements discernible, both of which are of an

economic character. These two elements or motives are expressed by the double watchword, "Emancipation"

and "Work." Each of these words is recognized to stand for something in the way of a widespread sense of

grievance. The prevalence of the sentiment is recognized even by people who do not see that there is any real

ground for a grievance in the situation as it stands today. It is among the women of the welltodo classes, in

the communities which are farthest advanced in industrial development, that this sense of a grievance to be

redressed is most alive and finds most frequent expression. That is to say, in other words, there is a demand,

more or less serious, for emancipation from all relation of status, tutelage, or vicarious life; and the revulsion

asserts itself especially among the class of women upon whom the scheme of life handed down from the

regime of status imposes with least litigation a vicarious life, and in those communities whose economic

development has departed farthest from the circumstances to which this traditional scheme is adapted. The

demand comes from that portion of womankind which is excluded by the canons of good repute from all

effectual work, and which is closely reserved for a life of leisure and conspicuous consumption.

More than one critic of this newwoman movement has misapprehended its motive. The case of the

American "new woman" has lately been summed up with some warmth by a popular observer of social

phenomena: "She is petted by her husband, the most devoted and hardworking of husbands in the world. ...

She is the superior of her husband in education, and in almost every respect. She is surrounded by the most

numerous and delicate attentions. Yet she is not satisfied. ... The AngloSaxon 'new woman' is the most

ridiculous production of modern times, and destined to be the most ghastly failure of the century." Apart from

the deprecation perhaps well placed which is contained in this presentment, it adds nothing but

obscurity to the woman question. The grievance of the new woman is made up of those things which this

typical characterization of the movement urges as reasons why she should be content. She is petted, and is

permitted, or even required, to consume largely and conspicuously vicariously for her husband or other

natural guardian. She is exempted, or debarred, from vulgarly useful employment in order to perform

leisure vicariously for the good repute of her natural (pecuniary) guardian. These offices are the conventional

marks of the unfree, at the same time that they are incompatible with the human impulse to purposeful

activity. But the woman is endowed with her sharewhich there is reason to believe is more than an even

share of the instinct of workmanship, to which futility of life or of expenditure is obnoxious. She must

unfold her life activity in response to the direct, unmediated stimuli of the economic environment with which

she is in contact. The impulse is perhaps stronger upon the woman than upon the man to live her own life in

her own way and to enter the industrial process of the community at something nearer than the second

So long as the woman's place is consistently that of a drudge, she is, in the average of cases, fairly contented

with her lot. She not only has something tangible and purposeful to do, but she has also no time or thought to

spare for a rebellious assertion of such human propensity to selfdirection as she has inherited. And after the

stage of universal female drudgery is passed, and a vicarious leisure without strenuous application becomes

the accredited employment of the women of the welltodo classes, the prescriptive force of the canon of

pecuniary decency, which requires the observance of ceremonial futility on their part, will long preserve

highminded women from any sentimental leaning to selfdirection and a "sphere of usefulness." This is

especially true during the earlier phases of the pecuniary culture, while the leisure of the leisure class is still

in great measure a predatory activity, an active assertion of mastery in which there is enough of tangible

purpose of an invidious kind to admit of its being taken seriously as an employment to which one may

without shame put one's hand. This condition of things has obviously lasted well down into the present in

some communities. It continues to hold to a different extent for different individuals, varying with the

vividness of the sense of status and with the feebleness of the impulse to workmanship with which the

individual is endowed. But where the economic structure of the community has so far outgrown the scheme

of life based on status that the relation of personal subservience is no longer felt to be the sole "natural"

human relation; there the ancient habit of purposeful activity will begin to assert itself in the less conformable

individuals against the more recent, relatively superficial, relatively ephemeral habits and views which the

predatory and the pecuniary culture have contributed to our scheme of life. These habits and views begin to

lose their coercive force for the community or the class in question so soon as the habit of mind and the views

of life due to the predatory and the quasipeaceable discipline cease to be in fairly close accord with the

laterdeveloped economic situation. This is evident in the case of the industrious classes of modern

communities; for them the leisureclass scheme of life has lost much of its binding force, especially as

regards the element of status. But it is also visibly being verified in the case of the upper classes, though not

The habits derived from the predatory and quasipeaceable culture are relatively ephemeral variants of

certain underlying propensities and mental characteristics of the race; which it owes to the protracted

discipline of the earlier, protoanthropoid cultural stage of peaceable, relatively undifferentiated economic

life carried on in contact with a relatively simple and invariable material environment. When the habits

superinduced by the emulative method of life have ceased to enjoy the section of existing economic

exigencies, a process of disintegration sets in whereby the habits of thought of more recent growth and of a

less generic character to some extent yield the ground before the more ancient and more pervading spiritual

In a sense, then, the newwoman movement marks a reversion to a more generic type of human character, or

to a less differentiated expression of human nature. It is a type of human nature which is to be characterized

as protoanthropoid, and, as regards the substance if not the form of its dominant traits, it belongs to a

cultural stage that may be classed as possibly subhuman. The particular movement or evolutional feature in

question of course shares this characterization with the rest of the later social development, in so far as this

social development shows evidence of a reversion to the spiritual attitude that characterizes the earlier,

undifferentiated stage of economic revolution. Such evidence of a general tendency to reversion from the

dominance of the invidious interest is not entirely wanting, although it is neither plentiful nor unquestionably

convincing. The general decay of the sense of status in modern industrial communities goes some way as

evidence in this direction; and the perceptible return to a disapproval of futility in human life, and a

disapproval of such activities as serve only the individual gain at the cost of the collectivity or at the cost of

other social groups, is evidence to a like effect. There is a perceptible tendency to deprecate the infliction of

pain, as well as to discredit all marauding enterprises, even where these expressions of the invidious interest

do not tangibly work to the material detriment of the community or of the individual who passes an opinion

on them. It may even be said that in the modern industrial communities the average, dispassionate sense of

men says that the ideal character is a character which makes for peace, goodwill, and economic efficiency,

The influence of the leisure class is not consistently for or against the rehabilitation of this protoanthropoid

human nature. So far as concerns the chance of survival of individuals endowed with an exceptionally large

share of the primitive traits, the sheltered position of the class favors its members directly by withdrawing

them from the pecuniary struggle; but indirectly, through the leisureclass canons of conspicuous waste of

goods and effort, the institution of a leisure class lessens the chance of survival of such individuals in the

entire body of the population. The decent requirements of waste absorb the surplus energy of the population

in an invidious struggle and leave no margin for the noninvidious expression of life. The remoter, less

tangible, spiritual effects of the discipline of decency go in the same direction and work perhaps more

effectually to the same end. The canons of decent life are an elaboration of the principle of invidious

comparison, and they accordingly act consistently to inhibit all noninvidious effort and to inculcate the

To the end that suitable habits of thought on certain heads may be conserved in the incoming generation, a

scholastic discipline is sanctioned by the common sense of the community and incorporated into the

accredited scheme of life. The habits of thought which are so formed under the guidance of teachers and

scholastic traditions have an economic value a value as affecting the serviceability of the individual no

less real than the similar economic value of the habits of thought formed without such guidance under the

discipline of everyday life. Whatever characteristics of the accredited scholastic scheme and discipline are

traceable to the predilections of the leisure class or to the guidance of the canons of pecuniary merit are to be

set down to the account of that institution, and whatever economic value these features of the educational

scheme possess are the expression in detail of the value of that institution. It will be in place, therefore, to

point out any peculiar features of the educational system which are traceable to the leisureclass scheme of

life, whether as regards the aim and method of the discipline, or as regards the compass and character of the

body of knowledge inculcated. It is in learning proper, and more particularly in the higher learning, that the

influence of leisureclass ideals is most patent; and since the purpose here is not to make an exhaustive

collation of data showing the effect of the pecuniary culture upon education, but rather to illustrate the

method and trend of the leisureclass influence in education, a survey of certain salient features of the higher

In point of derivation and early development, learning is somewhat closely related to the devotional function

of the community, particularly to the body of observances in which the service rendered the supernatural

leisure class expresses itself. The service by which it is sought to conciliate supernatural agencies in the

primitive cults is not an industrially profitable employment of the community's time and effort. It is,

therefore, in great part, to be classed as a vicarious leisure performed for the supernatural powers with whom

negotiations are carried on and whose goodwill the service and the professions of subservience are

conceived to procure. In great part, the early learning consisted in an acquisition of knowledge and facility in

the service of a supernatural agent. It was therefore closely analogous in character to the training required for

the domestic service of a temporal master. To a great extent, the knowledge acquired under the priestly

teachers of the primitive community was knowledge of ritual and ceremonial; that is to say, a knowledge of

the most proper, most effective, or most acceptable manner of approaching and of serving the preternatural

agents. What was learned was how to make oneself indispensable to these powers, and so to put oneself in a

position to ask, or even to require, their intercession in the course of events or their abstention from

interference in any given enterprise. Propitiation was the end, and this end was sought, in great part, by

acquiring facility in subservience. It appears to have been only gradually that other elements than those of

efficient service of the master found their way into the stock of priestly or shamanistic instruction.

The priestly servitor of the inscrutable powers that move in the external world came to stand in the position of

a mediator between these powers and the common run of unrestricted humanity; for he was possessed of a

knowledge of the supernatural etiquette which would admit him into the presence. And as commonly happens

with mediators between the vulgar and their masters, whether the masters be natural or preternatural, he

found it expedient to have the means at hand tangibly to impress upon the vulgar the fact that these

inscrutable powers would do what he might ask of them. Hence, presently, a knowledge of certain natural

processes which could be turned to account for spectacular effect, together with some sleight of hand, came

to be an integral part of priestly lore. Knowledge of this kind passes for knowledge of the "unknowable", and

it owes its serviceability for the sacerdotal purpose to its recondite character. It appears to have been from this

source that learning, as an institution, arose, and its differentiation from this its parent stock of magic ritual

and shamanistic fraud has been slow and tedious, and is scarcely yet complete even in the most advanced of

The recondite element in learning is still, as it has been in all ages, a very attractive and effective element for

the purpose of impressing, or even imposing upon, the unlearned; and the standing of the savant in the mind

of the altogether unlettered is in great measure rated in terms of intimacy with the occult forces. So, for

instance, as a typical case, even so late as the middle of this century, the Norwegian peasants have

instinctively formulated their sense of the superior erudition of such doctors of divinity as Luther,

Malanchthon, Peder Dass, and even so late a scholar in divinity as Grundtvig, in terms of the Black Art.

These, together with a very comprehensive list of minor celebrities, both living and dead, have been reputed

masters in all magical arts; and a high position in the ecclesiastical personnel has carried with it, in the

apprehension of these good people, an implication of profound familiarity with magical practice and the

occult sciences. There is a parallel fact nearer home, similarly going to show the close relationship, in popular

apprehension, between erudition and the unknowable; and it will at the same time serve to illustrate, in

somewhat coarse outline, the bent which leisureclass life gives to the cognitive interest. While the belief is

by no means confined to the leisure class, that class today comprises a disproportionately large number of

believers in occult sciences of all kinds and shades. By those whose habits of thought are not shaped by

contact with modern industry, the knowledge of the unknowable is still felt to the ultimate if not the only true

Learning, then, set out by being in some sense a byproduct of the priestly vicarious leisure class; and, at

least until a recent date, the higher learning has since remained in some sense a byproduct or byoccupation

of the priestly classes. As the body of systematized knowledge increased, there presently arose a distinction,

traceable very far back in the history of education, between esoteric and exoteric knowledge, the former

so far as there is a substantial difference between the two comprising such knowledge as is primarily of no

economic or industrial effect, and the latter comprising chiefly knowledge of industrial processes and of

natural phenomena which were habitually turned to account for the material purposes of life. This line of

demarcation has in time become, at least in popular apprehension, the normal line between the higher

It is significant, not only as an evidence of their close affiliation with the priestly craft, but also as indicating

that their activity to a good extent falls under that category of conspicuous leisure known as manners and

breeding, that the learned class in all primitive communities are great sticklers for form, precedent, gradations

of rank, ritual, ceremonial vestments, and learned paraphernalia generally. This is of course to be expected,

and it goes to say that the higher learning, in its incipient phase, is a leisureclass occupation more

specifically an occupation of the vicarious leisure class employed in the service of the supernatural leisure

class. But this predilection for the paraphernalia of learning goes also to indicate a further point of contact or

of continuity between the priestly office and the office of the savant. In point of derivation, learning, as well

as the priestly office, is largely an outgrowth of sympathetic magic; and this magical apparatus of form and

ritual therefore finds its place with the learned class of the primitive community as a matter of course. The

ritual and paraphernalia have an occult efficacy for the magical purpose; so that their presence as an integral

factor in the earlier phases of the development of magic and science is a matter of expediency, quite as much

This sense of the efficacy of symbolic ritual, and of sympathetic effect to be wrought through dexterous

rehearsal of the traditional accessories of the act or end to be compassed, is of course present more obviously

and in larger measure in magical practice than in the discipline of the sciences, even of the occult sciences.

But there are, I apprehend, few persons with a cultivated sense of scholastic merit to whom the ritualistic

accessories of science are altogether an idle matter. The very great tenacity with which these ritualistic

paraphernalia persist through the later course of the development is evident to any one who will reflect on

what has been the history of learning in our civilization. Even today there are such things in the usage of the

learned community as the cap and gown, matriculation, initiation, and graduation ceremonies, and the

conferring of scholastic degrees, dignities, and prerogatives in a way which suggests some sort of a scholarly

apostolic succession. The usage of the priestly orders is no doubt the proximate source of all these features of

learned ritual, vestments, sacramental initiation, the transmission of peculiar dignities and virtues by the

imposition of hands, and the like; but their derivation is traceable back of this point, to the source from which

the specialized priestly class proper came to be distinguished from the sorcerer on the one hand and from the

menial servant of a temporal master on the other hand. So far as regards both their derivation and their

psychological content, these usages and the conceptions on which they rest belong to a stage in cultural

development no later than that of the angekok and the rainmaker. Their place in the later phases of devout

observance, as well as in the higher educational system, is that of a survival from a very early animistic phase

These ritualistic features of the educational system of the present and of the recent past, it is quite safe to say,

have their place primarily in the higher, liberal, and classic institutions and grades of learning, rather than in

the lower, technological, or practical grades, and branches of the system. So far as they possess them, the

lower and less reputable branches of the educational scheme have evidently borrowed these things from the

higher grades; and their continued persistence among the practical schools, without the sanction of the

continued example of the higher and classic grades, would be highly improbable, to say the least. With the

lower and practical schools and scholars, the adoption and cultivation of these usages is a case of mimicry

due to a desire to conform as far as may be to the standards of scholastic reputability maintained by the upper

grades and classes, who have come by these accessory features legitimately, by the right of lineal devolution.

The analysis may even be safely carried a step farther. Ritualistic survivals and reversions come out in fullest

vigor and with the freest air of spontaneity among those seminaries of learning which have to do primarily

with the education of the priestly and leisure classes. Accordingly it should appear, and it does pretty plainly

appear, on a survey of recent developments in college and university life, that wherever schools founded for

the instruction of the lower classes in the immediately useful branches of knowledge grow into institutions of

the higher learning, the growth of ritualistic ceremonial and paraphernalia and of elaborate scholastic

"functions" goes hand in hand with the transition of the schools in question from the field of homely

practicality into the higher, classical sphere. The initial purpose of these schools, and the work with which

they have chiefly had to do at the earlier of these two stages of their evolution, has been that of fitting the

young of the industrious classes for work. On the higher, classical plane of learning to which they commonly

tend, their dominant aim becomes the preparation of the youth of the priestly and the leisure classes or of

an incipient leisure class for the consumption of goods, material and immaterial, according to a

conventionally accepted, reputable scope and method. This happy issue has commonly been the fate of

schools founded by "friends of the people" for the aid of struggling young men, and where this transition is

made in good form there is commonly, if not invariably, a coincident change to a more ritualistic life in the

In the school life of today, learned ritual is in a general way best at home in schools whose chief end is the

cultivation of the "humanities". This correlation is shown, perhaps more neatly than anywhere else, in the

lifehistory of the American colleges and universities of recent growth. There may be many exceptions from

the rule, especially among those schools which have been founded by the typically reputable and ritualistic

churches, and which, therefore, started on the conservative and classical plane or reached the classical

position by a shortcut; but the general rule as regards the colleges founded in the newer American

communities during the present century has been that so long as the constituency from which the colleges

have drawn their pupils has been dominated by habits of industry and thrift, so long the reminiscences of the

medicineman have found but a scant and precarious acceptance in the scheme of college life. But so soon as

wealth begins appreciably to accumulate in the community, and so soon as a given school begins to lean on a

leisureclass constituency, there comes also a perceptibly increased insistence on scholastic ritual and on

conformity to the ancient forms as regards vestments and social and scholastic solemnities. So, for instance,

there has been an approximate coincidence between the growth of wealth among the constituency which

supports any given college of the Middle West and the date of acceptance first into tolerance and then into

imperative vogue of evening dress for men and of the d�collet� for women, as the scholarly vestments

proper to occasions of learned solemnity or to the seasons of social amenity within the college circle. Apart

from the mechanical difficulty of so large a task, it would scarcely be a difficult matter to trace this

Cap and gown have been adopted as learned insignia by many colleges of this section within the last few

years; and it is safe to say that this could scarcely have occurred at a much earlier date, or until there had

grown up a leisureclass sentiment of sufficient volume in the community to support a strong movement of

reversion towards an archaic view as to the legitimate end of education. This particular item of learned ritual,

it may be noted, would not only commend itself to the leisureclass sense of the fitness of things, as

appealing to the archaic propensity for spectacular effect and the predilection for antique symbolism; but it at

the same time fits into the leisureclass scheme of life as involving a notable element of conspicuous waste.

The precise date at which the reversion to cap and gown took place, as well as the fact that it affected so large

a number of schools at about the same time, seems to have been due in some measure to a wave of atavistic

sense of conformity and reputability that passed over the community at that period.

It may not be entirely beside the point to note that in point of time this curious reversion seems to coincide

with the culmination of a certain vogue of atavistic sentiment and tradition in other directions also. The wave

of reversion seems to have received its initial impulse in the psychologically disintegrating effects of the

Civil War. Habituation to war entails a body of predatory habits of thought, whereby clannishness in some

measure replaces the sense of solidarity, and a sense of invidious distinction supplants the impulse to

equitable, everyday serviceability. As an outcome of the cumulative action of these factors, the generation

which follows a season of war is apt to witness a rehabilitation of the element of status, both in its social life

and in its scheme of devout observances and other symbolic or ceremonial forms. Throughout the eighties,

and less plainly traceable through the seventies also, there was perceptible a gradually advancing wave of

sentiment favoring quasipredatory business habits, insistence on status, anthropomorphism, and

conservatism generally. The more direct and unmediated of these expressions of the barbarian temperament,

such as the recrudescence of outlawry and the spectacular quasipredatory careers of fraud run by certain

"captains of industry", came to a head earlier and were appreciably on the decline by the close of the

seventies. The recrudescence of anthropomorphic sentiment also seems to have passed its most acute stage

before the close of the eighties. But the learned ritual and paraphernalia here spoken of are a still remoter and

more recondite expression of the barbarian animistic sense; and these, therefore, gained vogue and

elaboration more slowly and reached their most effective development at a still later date. There is reason to

believe that the culmination is now already past. Except for the new impetus given by a new war experience,

and except for the support which the growth of a wealthy class affords to all ritual, and especially to whatever

ceremonial is wasteful and pointedly suggests gradations of status, it is probable that the late improvements

and augmentation of scholastic insignia and ceremonial would gradually decline. But while it may be true

that the cap and gown, and the more strenuous observance of scholastic proprieties which came with them,

were floated in on this postbellum tidal wave of reversion to barbarism, it is also no doubt true that such a

ritualistic reversion could not have been effected in the college scheme of life until the accumulation of

wealth in the hands of a propertied class had gone far enough to afford the requisite pecuniary ground for a

movement which should bring the colleges of the country up to the leisureclass requirements in the higher

learning. The adoption of the cap and gown is one of the striking atavistic features of modern college life, and

at the same time it marks the fact that these colleges have definitely become leisureclass establishments,

As further evidence of the close relation between the educational system and the cultural standards of the

community, it may be remarked that there is some tendency latterly to substitute the captain of industry in

place of the priest, as the head of seminaries of the higher learning. The substitution is by no means complete

or unequivocal. Those heads of institutions are best accepted who combine the sacerdotal office with a high

degree of pecuniary efficiency. There is a similar but less pronounced tendency to intrust the work of

instruction in the higher learning to men of some pecuniary qualification. Administrative ability and skill in

advertising the enterprise count for rather more than they once did, as qualifications for the work of teaching.

This applies especially in those sciences that have most to do with the everyday facts of life, and it is

particularly true of schools in the economically singleminded communities. This partial substitution of

pecuniary for sacerdotal efficiency is a concomitant of the modern transition from conspicuous leisure to

conspicuous consumption, as the chief means of reputability. The correlation of the two facts is probably

The attitude of the schools and of the learned class towards the education of women serves to show in what

manner and to what extent learning has departed from its ancient station of priestly and leisureclass

prerogatives, and it indicates also what approach has been made by the truly learned to the modern, economic

or industrial, matteroffact standpoint. The higher schools and the learned professions were until recently

tabu to the women. These establishments were from the outset, and have in great measure continued to be,

The women, as has been shown elsewhere, were the original subservient class, and to some extent, especially

so far as regards their nominal or ceremonial position, they have remained in that relation down to the

present. There has prevailed a strong sense that the admission of women to the privileges of the higher

learning (as to the Eleusianin mysteries) would be derogatory to the dignity of the learned craft. It is therefore

only very recently, and almost solely in the industrially most advanced communities, that the higher grades of

schools have been freely opened to women. And even under the urgent circumstances prevailing in the

modern industrial communities, the highest and most reputable universities show an extreme reluctance in

making the move. The sense of class worthiness, that is to say of status, of a honorific differentiation of the

sexes according to a distinction between superior and inferior intellectual dignity, survives in a vigorous form

in these corporations of the aristocracy of learning. It is felt that the woman should, in all propriety, acquire

only such knowledge as may be classed under one or the other of two heads: (1) such knowledge as conduces

immediately to a better performance of domestic service the domestic sphere; (2) such accomplishments

and dexterity, quasischolarly and quasiartistic, as plainly come in under the head of a performance of

vicarious leisure. Knowledge is felt to be unfeminine if it is knowledge which expresses the unfolding of the

learner's own life, the acquisition of which proceeds on the learner's own cognitive interest, without

prompting from the canons of propriety, and without reference back to a master whose comfort or good

repute is to be enhanced by the employment or the exhibition of it. So, also, all knowledge which is useful as

For an appreciation of the relation which these higher seminaries of learning bear to the economic life of the

community, the phenomena which have been reviewed are of importance rather as indications of a general

attitude than as being in themselves facts of firstrate economic consequence. They go to show what is the

instinctive attitude and animus of the learned class towards the life process of an industrial community. They

serve as an exponent of the stage of development, for the industrial purpose, attained by the higher learning

and by the learned class, and so they afford an indication as to what may fairly be looked for from this class

at points where the learning and the life of the class bear more immediately upon the economic life and

efficiency of the community, and upon the adjustment of its scheme of life to the requirements of the time.

What these ritualistic survivals go to indicate is a prevalence of conservatism, if not of reactionary sentiment,

especially among the higher schools where the conventional learning is cultivated.

To these indications of a conservative attitude is to be added another characteristic which goes in the same

direction, but which is a symptom of graver consequence that this playful inclination to trivialities of form

and ritual. By far the greater number of American colleges and universities, for instance, are affiliated to

some religious denomination and are somewhat given to devout observances. Their putative familiarity with

scientific methods and the scientific point of view should presumably exempt the faculties of these schools

from animistic habits of thought; but there is still a considerable proportion of them who profess an

attachment to the anthropomorphic beliefs and observances of an earlier culture. These professions of

devotional zeal are, no doubt, to a good extent expedient and perfunctory, both on the part of the schools in

their corporate capacity, and on the part of the individual members of the corps of instructors; but it can not

be doubted that there is after all a very appreciable element of anthropomorphic sentiment present in the

higher schools. So far as this is the case it must be set down as the expression of an archaic, animistic habit of

mind. This habit of mind must necessarily assert itself to some extent in the instruction offered, and to this

extent its influence in shaping the habits of thought of the student makes for conservatism and reversion; it

acts to hinder his development in the direction of matteroffact knowledge, such as best serves the ends of

The college sports, which have so great a vogue in the reputable seminaries of learning today, tend in a

similar direction; and, indeed, sports have much in common with the devout attitude of the colleges, both as

regards their psychological basis and as regards their disciplinary effect. But this expression of the barbarian

temperament is to be credited primarily to the body of students, rather than to the temper of the schools as

such; except in so far as the colleges or the college officials as sometimes happens actively

countenance and foster the growth of sports. The like is true of college fraternities as of college sports, but

with a difference. The latter are chiefly an expression of the predatory impulse simply; the former are more

specifically an expression of that heritage of clannishness which is so large a feature in the temperament of

the predatory barbarian. It is also noticeable that a close relation subsists between the fraternities and the

sporting activity of the schools. After what has already been said in an earlier chapter on the sporting and

gambling habit, it is scarcely necessary further to discuss the economic value of this training in sports and in

But all these features of the scheme of life of the learned class, and of the establishments dedicated to the

conservation of the higher learning, are in a great measure incidental only. They are scarcely to be accounted

organic elements of the professed work of research and instruction for the ostensible pursuit of which the

schools exists. But these symptomatic indications go to establish a presumption as to the character of the

work performed as seen from the economic point of view and as to the bent which the serious work

carried on under their auspices gives to the youth who resort to the schools. The presumption raised by the

considerations already offered is that in their work also, as well as in their ceremonial, the higher schools may

be expected to take a conservative position; but this presumption must be checked by a comparison of the

economic character of the work actually performed, and by something of a survey of the learning whose

conservation is intrusted to the higher schools. On this head, it is well known that the accredited seminaries of

learning have, until a recent date, held a conservative position. They have taken an attitude of depreciation

towards all innovations. As a general rule a new point of view or a new formulation of knowledge have been

countenanced and taken up within the schools only after these new things have made their way outside of the

schools. As exceptions from this rule are chiefly to be mentioned innovations of an inconspicuous kind and

departures which do not bear in any tangible way upon the conventional point of view or upon the

conventional scheme of life; as, for instance, details of fact in the mathematicophysical sciences, and new

readings and interpretations of the classics, especially such as have a philological or literary bearing only.

Except within the domain of the "humanities", in the narrow sense, and except so far as the traditional point

of view of the humanities has been left intact by the innovators, it has generally held true that the accredited

learned class and the seminaries of the higher learning have looked askance at all innovation. New views,

new departures in scientific theory, especially in new departures which touch the theory of human relations at

any point, have found a place in the scheme of the university tardily and by a reluctant tolerance, rather than

by a cordial welcome; and the men who have occupied themselves with such efforts to widen the scope of

human knowledge have not commonly been well received by their learned contemporaries. The higher

schools have not commonly given their countenance to a serious advance in the methods or the content of

knowledge until the innovations have outlived their youth and much of their usefulness after they have

become commonplaces of the intellectual furniture of a new generation which has grown up under, and has

had its habits of thought shaped by, the new, extrascholastic body of knowledge and the new standpoint.

This is true of the recent past. How far it may be true of the immediate present it would be hazardous to say,

for it is impossible to see presentday facts in such perspective as to get a fair conception of their relative

So far, nothing has been said of the Maecenas function of the welltodo, which is habitually dwelt on at

some length by writers and speakers who treat of the development of culture and of social structure. This

leisureclass function is not without an important bearing on the higher and on the spread of knowledge and

culture. The manner and the degree in which the class furthers learning through patronage of this kind is

sufficiently familiar. It has been frequently presented in affectionate and effective terms by spokesmen whose

familiarity with the topic fits them to bring home to their hearers the profound significance of this cultural

factor. These spokesmen, however, have presented the matter from the point of view of the cultural interest,

or of the interest of reputability, rather than from that of the economic interest. As apprehended from the

economic point of view, and valued for the purpose of industrial serviceability, this function of the

welltodo, as well as the intellectual attitude of members of the welltodo class, merits some attention and

By way of characterization of the Maecenas relation, it is to be noted that, considered externally, as an

economic or industrial relation simply, it is a relation of status. The scholar under the patronage performs the

duties of a learned life vicariously for his patron, to whom a certain repute inures after the manner of the good

repute imputed to a master for whom any form of vicarious leisure is performed. It is also to be noted that, in

point of historical fact, the furtherance of learning or the maintenance of scholarly activity through the

Maecenas relation has most commonly been a furtherance of proficiency in classical lore or in the

humanities. The knowledge tends to lower rather than to heighten the industrial efficiency of the community.

Further, as regards the direct participation of the members of the leisure class in the furtherance of

knowledge, the canons of reputable living act to throw such intellectual interest as seeks expression among

the class on the side of classical and formal erudition, rather than on the side of the sciences that bear some

relation to the community's industrial life. The most frequent excursions into other than classical fields of

knowledge on the part of members of the leisure class are made into the discipline of law and the political,

and more especially the administrative, sciences. These socalled sciences are substantially bodies of maxims

of expediency for guidance in the leisureclass office of government, as conducted on a proprietary basis.

The interest with which this discipline is approached is therefore not commonly the intellectual or cognitive

interest simply. It is largely the practical interest of the exigencies of that relation of mastery in which the

members of the class are placed. In point of derivation, the office of government is a predatory function,

pertaining integrally to the archaic leisureclass scheme of life. It is an exercise of control and coercion over

the population from which the class draws its sustenance. This discipline, as well as the incidents of practice

which give it its content, therefore has some attraction for the class apart from all questions of cognition. All

this holds true wherever and so long as the governmental office continues, in form or in substance, to be a

proprietary office; and it holds true beyond that limit, in so far as the tradition of the more archaic phase of

governmental evolution has lasted on into the later life of those modern communities for whom proprietary

For that field of learning within which the cognitive or intellectual interest is dominant the sciences

properly so called the case is somewhat different, not only as regards the attitude of the leisure class, but

as regards the whole drift of the pecuniary culture. Knowledge for its own sake, the exercise of the faculty of

comprehensive without ulterior purpose, should, it might be expected, be sought by men whom no urgent

material interest diverts from such a quest. The sheltered industrial position of the leisure class should give

free play to the cognitive interest in members of this class, and we should consequently have, as many writers

confidently find that we do have, a very large proportion of scholars, scientists, savants derived from this

class and deriving their incentive to scientific investigation and speculation from the discipline of a life of

leisure. Some such result is to be looked for, but there are features of the leisureclass scheme of life, already

sufficiently dwelt upon, which go to divert the intellectual interest of this class to other subjects than that

causal sequence in phenomena which makes the content of the sciences. The habits of thought which

characterize the life of the class run on the personal relation of dominance, and on the derivative, invidious

concepts of honor, worth, merit, character, and the like. The casual sequence which makes up the subject

matter of science is not visible from this point of view. Neither does good repute attach to knowledge of facts

that are vulgarly useful. Hence it should appear probable that the interest of the invidious comparison with

respect to pecuniary or other honorific merit should occupy the attention of the leisure class, to the neglect of

the cognitive interest. Where this latter interest asserts itself it should commonly be diverted to fields of

speculation or investigation which are reputable and futile, rather than to the quest of scientific knowledge.

Such indeed has been the history of priestly and leisureclass learning so long as no considerable body of

systematized knowledge had been intruded into the scholastic discipline from an extrascholastic source. But

since the relation of mastery and subservience is ceasing to be the dominant and formative factor in the

community's life process, other features of the life process and other points of view are forcing themselves

upon the scholars. The truebred gentleman of leisure should, and does, see the world from the point of view

of the personal relation; and the cognitive interest, so far as it asserts itself in him, should seek to systematize

phenomena on this basis. Such indeed is the case with the gentleman of the old school, in whom the

leisureclass ideals have suffered no disintegration; and such is the attitude of his latterday descendant, in

so far as he has fallen heir to the full complement of upperclass virtues. But the ways of heredity are

devious, and not every gentleman's son is to the manor born. Especially is the transmission of the habits of

thought which characterize the predatory master somewhat precarious in the case of a line of descent in

which but one or two of the latest steps have lain within the leisureclass discipline. The chances of

occurrence of a strong congenital or acquired bent towards the exercise of the cognitive aptitudes are

apparently best in those members of the leisure class who are of lower class or middle class antecedents

that is to say, those who have inherited the complement of aptitudes proper to the industrious classes, and

who owe their place in the leisure class to the possession of qualities which count for more today than they

did in the times when the leisureclass scheme of life took shape. But even outside the range of these later

accessions to the leisure class there are an appreciable number of individuals in whom the invidious interest is

not sufficiently dominant to shape their theoretical views, and in whom the proclivity to theory is sufficiently

The higher learning owes the intrusion of the sciences in part to these aberrant scions of the leisure class, who

have come under the dominant influence of the latterday tradition of impersonal relation and who have

inherited a complement of human aptitudes differing in certain salient features from the temperament which

is characteristic of the regime of status. But it owes the presence of this alien body of scientific knowledge

also in part, and in a higher degree, to members of the industrious classes who have been in sufficiently easy

circumstances to turn their attention to other interests than that of finding daily sustenance, and whose

inherited aptitudes and anthropomorphic point of view does not dominate their intellectual processes. As

between these two groups, which approximately comprise the effective force of scientific progress, it is the

latter that has contributed the most. And with respect to both it seems to be true that they are not so much the

source as the vehicle, or at the most they are the instrument of commutation, by which the habits of thought

enforced upon the community, through contact with its environment under the exigencies of modern

associated life and the mechanical industries, are turned to account for theoretical knowledge.

Science, in the sense of an articulate recognition of causal sequence in phenomena, whether physical or

social, has been a feature of the Western culture only since the industrial process in the Western communities

has come to be substantially a process of mechanical contrivances in which man's office is that of

discrimination and valuation of material forces. Science has flourished somewhat in the same degree as the

industrial life of the community has conformed to this pattern, and somewhat in the same degree as the

industrial interest has dominated the community's life. And science, and scientific theory especially, has

made headway in the several departments of human life and knowledge in proportion as each of these several

departments has successively come into closer contact with the industrial process and the economic interest;

or perhaps it is truer to say, in proportion as each of them has successively escaped from the dominance of the

conceptions of personal relation or status, and of the derivative canons of anthropomorphic fitness and

It is only as the exigencies of modern industrial life have enforced the recognition of causal sequence in the

practical contact of mankind with their environment, that men have come to systematize the phenomena of

this environment and the facts of their own contact with it,in terms of causal sequence. So that while the

higher learning in its best development, as the perfect flower of scholasticism and classicism, was a

byproduct of the priestly office and the life of leisure, so modern science may be said to be a byproduct of

the industrial process. Through these groups of men, then investigators, savants, scientists, inventors,

speculators most of whom have done their most telling work outside the shelter of the schools, the habits

of thought enforced by the modern industrial life have found coherent expression and elaboration as a body of

theoretical science having to do with the causal sequence of phenomena. And from this extrascholastic field

of scientific speculation, changes of method and purpose have from time to time been intruded into the

In this connection it is to be remarked that there s a very perceptible difference of substance and purpose

between the instruction offered in the primary and secondary schools, on the one hand, and in the higher

seminaries of learning, on the other hand. The difference in point of immediate practicality of the information

imparted and of the proficiency acquired may be of some consequence and may merit the attention which it

has from time to time received; but there is more substantial difference in the mental and spiritual bent which

is favored by the one and the other discipline. This divergent trend in discipline between the higher and the

lower learning is especially noticeable as regards the primary education in its latest development in the

advanced industrial communities. Here the instruction is directed chiefly to proficiency or dexterity,

intellectual and manual, in the apprehension and employment of impersonal facts, in their casual rather than

in their honorific incidence. It is true, under the traditions of the earlier days, when the primary education was

also predominantly a leisureclass commodity, a free use is still mad of emulation as a spur to diligence in

the common run of primary schools; but even this use of emulation as an expedient is visibly declining in the

primary grades of instruction in communities where the lower education is not under the guidance of the

ecclesiastical or military tradition. All this holds true in a peculiar degree, and more especially on the spiritual

side, of such portions of the educational system as have been immediately affected by kindergarten methods

The peculiarly noninvidious trend of the kindergarten discipline, and the similar character of the

kindergarten influence in primary education beyond the limits of the kindergarten proper, should be taken in

connection with what has already been said of the peculiar spiritual attitude of leisureclass womankind

under the circumstances of the modern economic situation. The kindergarten discipline is at its best or at

its farthest remove from ancient patriarchal and pedagogical ideals in the advanced industrial

communities, where there is a considerable body of intelligent and idle women, and where the system of

status has somewhat abated in rigor under the disintegrating influence of industrial life and in the absence of

a consistent body of military and ecclesiastical traditions. It is from these women in easy circumstances that it

gets its moral support. The aims and methods of the kindergarten commend themselves with especial effect to

this class of women who are ill at ease under the pecuniary code of reputable life. The kindergarten, and

whatever the kindergarten spirit counts for in modern education, therefore, is to be set down, along with the

"newwoman movement," to the account of that revulsion against futility and invidious comparison which

the leisureclass life under modern circumstances induces in the women most immediately exposed to its

discipline. In this way it appears that, by indirection, the institution of a leisure class here again favors the

growth of a noninvidious attitude, which may, in the long run, prove a menace to the stability of the

institution itself, and even to the institution of individual ownership on which it rests.

During the recent past some tangible changes have taken place in the scope of college and university

teaching. These changes have in the main consisted in a partial displacement of the humanities those

branches of learning which are conceived to make for the traditional "culture", character, tastes, and ideals

by those more matteroffact branches which make for civic and industrial efficiency. To put the same thing

in other words, those branches of knowledge which make for efficiency (ultimately productive efficiency)

have gradually been gaining ground against those branches which make for a heightened consumption or a

lowered industrial efficiency and for a type of character suited to the regime of status. In this adaptation of

the scheme of instruction the higher schools have commonly been found on the conservative side; each step

which they have taken in advance has been to some extent of the nature of a concession. The sciences have

been intruded into the scholar's discipline from without, not to say from below. It is noticeable that the

humanities which have so reluctantly yielded ground to the sciences are pretty uniformly adapted to shape the

character of the student in accordance with a traditional selfcentred scheme of consumption; a scheme of

contemplation and enjoyment of the true, the beautiful, and the good, according to a conventional standard of

propriety and excellence, the salient feature of which is leisure otium cum dignitate. In language veiled by

their own habituation to the archaic, decorous point of view, the spokesmen of the humanities have insisted

upon the ideal embodied in the maxim, fruges consumere nati. This attitude should occasion no surprise in

The professed grounds on which it has been sought, as far as might be, to maintain the received standards and

methods of culture intact are likewise characteristic of the archaic temperament and of the leisureclass

theory of life. The enjoyment and the bent derived from habitual contemplation of the life, ideals,

speculations, and methods of consuming time and goods, in vogue among the leisure class of classical time

and goods, in vogue among the leisure class of classical antiquity, for instance, is felt to be "higher",

"nobler", "worthier", than what results in these respects from a like familiarity with the everyday life and the

knowledge and aspirations of commonplace humanity in a modern community. that learning the content of

which is an unmitigated knowledge of latterday men and things is by comparison "lower", "base", "ignoble"

one even hears the epithet "subhuman" applied to this matteroffact knowledge of mankind and of

This contention of the leisureclass spokesmen of the humanities seems to be substantially sound. In point of

substantial fact, the gratification and the culture, or the spiritual attitude or habit of mind, resulting from an

habitual contemplation of the anthropomorphism, clannishness, and leisurely selfcomplacency of the

gentleman of an early day, or from a familiarity with the animistic superstitions and the exuberant truculence

of the Homeric heroes, for instance, is, aesthetically considered, more legitimate than the corresponding

results derived from a matteroffact knowledge of things and a contemplation of latterday civic or

workmanlike efficiency. There can be but little question that the firstnamed habits have the advantage in

respect of aesthetic or honorific value, and therefore in respect of the "worth" which is made the basis of

award in the comparison. The content of the canons of taste, and more particularly of the canons of honor, is

in the nature of things a resultant of the past life and circumstances of the race, transmitted to the later

generation by inheritance or by tradition; and the fact that the protracted dominance of a predatory,

leisureclass scheme of life has profoundly shaped the habit of mind and the point of view of the race in the

past, is a sufficient basis for an aesthetically legitimate dominance of such a scheme of life in very much of

what concerns matters of taste in the present. For the purpose in hand, canons of taste are race habits,

acquired through a more or less protracted habituation to the approval or disapproval of the kind of things

upon which a favorable or unfavorable judgment of taste is passed. Other things being equal, the longer and

more unbroken the habituation, the more legitimate is the canon of taste in question. All this seems to be even

truer of judgments regarding worth or honor than of judgments of taste generally.

But whatever may be the aesthetic legitimacy of the derogatory judgment passed on the newer learning by the

spokesmen of the humanities, and however substantial may be the merits of the contention that the classic

lore is worthier and results in a more truly human culture and character, it does not concern the question in

hand. The question in hand is as to how far these branches of learning, and the point of view for which they

stand in the educational system, help or hinder an efficient collective life under modern industrial

circumstances how far they further a more facile adaptation to the economic situation of today. The

question is an economic, not an aesthetic one; and the leisureclass standards of learning which find

expression in the deprecatory attitude of the higher schools towards matteroffact knowledge are, for the

present purpose, to be valued from this point of view only. For this purpose the use of such epithets as

"noble", "base", "higher", "lower", etc., is significant only as showing the animus and the point of view of the

disputants; whether they contend for the worthiness of the new or of the old. All these epithets are honorific

or humilific terms; that is to say, they are terms of invidious comparison, which in the last analysis fall under

the category of the reputable or the disreputable; that is, they belong within the range of ideas that

characterizes the scheme of life of the regime of status; that is, they are in substance an expression of

sportsmanship of the predatory and animistic habit of mind; that is, they indicate an archaic point of view

and theory of life, which may fit the predatory stage of culture and of economic organization from which they

have sprung, but which are, from the point of view of economic efficiency in the broader sense,

The classics, and their position of prerogative in the scheme of education to which the higher seminaries of

learning cling with such a fond predilection, serve to shape the intellectual attitude and lower the economic

efficiency of the new learned generation. They do this not only by holding up an archaic ideal of manhood,

but also by the discrimination which they inculcate with respect to the reputable and the disreputable in

knowledge. This result is accomplished in two ways: (1) by inspiring an habitual aversion to what is merely

useful, as contrasted with what is merely honorific in learning, and so shaping the tastes of the novice that he

comes in good faith to find gratification of his tastes solely, or almost solely, in such exercise of the intellect

as normally results in no industrial or social gain; and (2) by consuming the learner's time and effort in

acquiring knowledge which is of no use,except in so far as this learning has by convention become

incorporated into the sum of learning required of the scholar, and has thereby affected the terminology and

diction employed in the useful branches of knowledge. Except for this terminological difficulty which is

itself a consequence of the vogue of the classics of the past a knowledge of the ancient languages, for

instance, would have no practical bearing for any scientist or any scholar not engaged on work primarily of a

linguistic character. Of course, all this has nothing to say as to the cultural value of the classics, nor is there

any intention to disparage the discipline of the classics or the bent which their study gives to the student. That

bent seems to be of an economically disserviceable kind, but this fact somewhat notorious indeed need

disturb no one who has the good fortune to find comfort and strength in the classical lore. The fact that

classical learning acts to derange the learner's workmanlike attitudes should fall lightly upon the

apprehension of those who hold workmanship of small account in comparison with the cultivation of

decorous ideals: Iam fides et pax et honos pudorque Priscus et neglecta redire virtus Audet.

Owing to the circumstance that this knowledge has become part of the elementary requirements in our system

of education, the ability to use and to understand certain of the dead languages of southern Europe is not only

gratifying to the person who finds occasion to parade his accomplishments in this respect, but the evidence of

such knowledge serves at the same time to recommend any savant to his audience, both lay and learned. It is

currently expected that a certain number of years shall have been spent in acquiring this substantially useless

information, and its absense creates a presumption of hasty and precarious learning, as well as of a vulgar

practicality that is equally obnoxious to the conventional standards of sound scholarship and intellectual

The case is analogous to what happens in the purchase of any article of consumption by a purchaser who is

not an expert judge of materials or of workmanship. He makes his estimate of value of the article chiefly on

the ground of the apparent expensiveness of the finish of those decorative parts and features which have no

immediate relation to the intrinsic usefulness of the article; the presumption being that some sort of

illdefined proportion subsists between the substantial value of an article and the expense of adornment

added in order to sell it. The presumption that there can ordinarily be no sound scholarship where a

knowledge of the classics and humanities is wanting leads to a conspicuous waste of time and labor on the

part of the general body of students in acquiring such knowledge. The conventional insistence on a modicum

of conspicuous waste as an incident of all reputable scholarship has affected our canons of taste and of

serviceability in matters of scholarship in much the same way as the same principle has influenced our

It is true, since conspicuous consumption has gained more and more on conspicuous leisure as a means of

repute, the acquisition of the dead languages is no longer so imperative a requirement as it once was, and its

talismanic virtue as a voucher of scholarship has suffered a concomitant impairment. But while this is true, it

is also true that the classics have scarcely lost in absolute value as a voucher of scholastic respectability, since

for this purpose it is only necessary that the scholar should be able to put in evidence some learning which is

conventionally recognized as evidence of wasted time; and the classics lend themselves with great facility to

this use. Indeed, there can be little doubt that it is their utility as evidence of wasted time and effort, and

hence of the pecuniary strength necessary in order to afford this waste, that has secured to the classics their

position of prerogative in the scheme of higher learning, and has led to their being esteemed the most

honorific of all learning. They serve the decorative ends of leisureclass learning better than any other body

In this respect the classics have until lately had scarcely a rival. They still have no dangerous rival on the

continent of Europe, but lately, since college athletics have won their way into a recognized standing as an

accredited field of scholarly accomplishment, this latter branch of learning if athletics may be freely

classed as learning has become a rival of the classics for the primacy in leisureclass education in

American and English schools. Athletics have an obvious advantage over the classics for the purpose of

leisureclass learning, since success as an athlete presumes, not only waste of time, but also waste of money,

as well as the possession of certain highly unindustrial archaic traits of character and temperament. In the

German universities the place of athletics and Greekletter fraternities, as a leisureclass scholarly

occupation, has in some measure been supplied by a skilled and graded inebriety and a perfunctory duelling.

The leisure class and its standard of virtue archaism and waste can scarcely have been concerned in the

introduction of the classics into the scheme of the higher learning; but the tenacious retention of the classics

by the higher schools, and the high degree of reputability which still attaches to them, are no doubt due to

"Classic" always carries this connotation of wasteful and archaic, whether it is used to denote the dead

languages or the obsolete or obsolescent forms of thought and diction in the living language, or to denote

other items of scholarly activity or apparatus to which it is applied with less aptness. So the archaic idiom of

the English language is spoken of as "classic" English. Its use is imperative in all speaking and writing upon

serious topics, and a facile use of it lends dignity to even the most commonplace and trivial string of talk. The

newest form of English diction is of course never written; the sense of that leisureclass propriety which

requires archaism in speech is present even in the most illiterate or sensational writers in sufficient force to

prevent such a lapse. On the other hand, the highest and most conventionalized style of archaic diction is

quite characteristically properly employed only in communications between an anthropomorphic divinity

and his subjects. Midway between these extremes lies the everyday speech of leisureclass conversation and

Elegant diction, whether in writing or speaking, is an effective means of reputability. It is of moment to know

with some precision what is the degree of archaism conventionally required in speaking on any given topic.

Usage differs appreciably from the pulpit to the marketplace; the latter, as might be expected, admits the use

of relatively new and effective words and turns of expression, even by fastidious persons. A discriminative

avoidance of neologisms is honorific, not only because it argues that time has been wasted in acquiring the

obsolescent habit of speech, but also as showing that the speaker has from infancy habitually associated with

persons who have been familiar with the obsolescent idiom. It thereby goes to show his leisureclass

antecedents. Great purity of speech is presumptive evidence of several lives spent in other than vulgarly

useful occupations; although its evidence is by no means entirely conclusive to this point.

As felicitous an instance of futile classicism as can well be found, outside of the Far East, is the conventional

spelling of the English language. A breach of the proprieties in spelling is extremely annoying and will

discredit any writer in the eyes of all persons who are possessed of a developed sense of the true and

beautiful. English orthography satisfies all the requirements of the canons of reputability under the law of

conspicuous waste. It is archaic, cumbrous, and ineffective; its acquisition consumes much time and effort;

failure to acquire it is easy of detection. Therefore it is the first and readiest test of reputability in learning,

On this head of purity of speech, as at other points where a conventional usage rests on the canons of

archaism and waste, the spokesmen for the usage instinctively take an apologetic attitude. It is contended, in

substance, that a punctilious use of ancient and accredited locutions will serve to convey thought more

adequately and more precisely than would be the straightforward use of the latest form of spoken English;

whereas it is notorious that the ideas of today are effectively expressed in the slang of today. Classic speech

has the honorific virtue of dignity; it commands attention and respect as being the accredited method of

communication under the leisureclass scheme of life, because it carries a pointed suggestion of the industrial

exemption of the speaker. The advantage of the accredited locutions lies in their reputability; they are

reputable because they are cumbrous and out of date, and therefore argue waste of time and exemption from