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 well-being. 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 inferiority and
demerit.

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. High-bred
manners and ways of living are items of conformity to the norm of
conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption.

Conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to
the gentleman of leisure. As wealth ac