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
leisure-class 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.

Chapter Eight ~~ Industrial Exemption and Conservatism

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 gr