cumulates 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 single-handed, and he is also made to witness his host's
facility in etiquette.

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 latter-day leisure-class
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 non-invidious
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 trans