e of modern life 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 later
chapters.

From what has been said, it appears that the leisure-class life and
the leisure-class scheme of life should further the conservation of the
barbarian temperament; chiefly of the quasi-peaceable, 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 given to mechanical industry.

In a general and uncertain way this holds true, but 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 self-regarding one and whose
only human trait is prudence is useless for the purposes of modern
industry.

The modern industry requires an impersonal, non-invidious interest in
the work in hand. Without this the elaborate processes of industry
would be impossible, and would, indeed, never have been conceiv