ed. This
interest in work differentiates the workman from the criminal on the one
hand, and from the captain of industry on the other. Since work must be
done in order to the continued life of the community, there results a
qualified selection favoring the spiritual aptitude for work, within
a certain range of occupations. This much, however, is to be conceded,
that even within the industrial occupations the selective elimination
of the pecuniary traits is an uncertain process, and that there is
consequently an appreciable survival of the barbarian temperament even
within these occupations. On this account there is at present no broad
distinction in this respect between the leisure-class character and the
character of the common run of the population.

The whole question as to a class distinction in respect to spiritual
make-up is also obscured by the presence, in all classes of society, of
acquired habits of life that closely simulate inherited traits and at
the same time act to develop in the entire body of the population the
traits which they simulate. These acquired habits, or assumed traits of
character, are most commonly of an aristocratic cast. The prescriptive
position of the leisure class as the exemplar of reputability has
imposed many features of the leisure-class theory of life upon the
lower classes; with the result that there goes on, always and throughout
society, a more or less persistent cultivation of these aristocratic
traits. On this ground also these traits have a better chance of
survival among the body of the people than would be the case if it were
not for the precept and example of the leisure class. As one channel,
and an important one, through which this transfusion of aristocratic
views of life, and consequently more or less archaic traits of character
goes on, may be mentioned the class of domestic servants. These have
their notions of what is good and beautiful shaped by contact with the
master class and carry the preconceptions so acquired back among their
low-born equals, and so disseminate the higher ideals abroad through
the community without the loss of time which this dissemination might
otherwise suffer. The saying "Like master, like man," has a greater
significance than is commonly appreciated for the rapid popular
acceptance of many elements of upper-class culture.

There is also a further range of facts that go to lessen class
differences as regards the survival of the pecuniary