fectively reach the persons whose convictions it is desired
to affect. Usage has answered this question in different ways under
different circumstances.

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 breeding) which he is able to make
while he is under their direct observation.

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 self-complacency 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 compared with leisure.

It is also noticeable that the serviceability of co