ck serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer's
hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has
utility as an evidence of leisure. But it is also a weapon, and it meets
a felt need of barbarian man on that ground. The handling of so tangible
and primitive a means of offense is very comforting to any one who is
gifted with even a moderate share of ferocity. The exigencies of
the language make it impossible to avoid an apparent implication of
disapproval of the aptitudes, propensities, and expressions of life here
under discussion. It is, however, not intended to imply anything in the
way of deprecation or commendation of any one of these phases of human
character or of the life process. The various elements of the prevalent
human nature are taken up from the point of view of economic theory,
and the traits discussed are gauged and graded with regard to their
immediate economic bearing on the facility of the collective life
process. That is to say, these phenomena are here apprehended from
the economic point of view and are valued with respect to their direct
action in furtherance or hindrance of a more perfect adjustment of the
human collectivity to the environment and to the institutional structure
required by the economic situation of the collectivity for the present
and for the immediate future. For these purposes the traits handed down
from the predatory culture are less serviceable than might be. Although
even in this connection it is not to be overlooked that the energetic
aggressiveness and pertinacity of predatory man is a heritage of no mean
value. The economic value--with some regard also to the social value in
the narrower sense--of these aptitudes and propensities is attempted to
be passed upon without reflecting on their value as seen from another
point of view. When contrasted with the prosy mediocrity of the
latter-day industrial scheme of life, and judged by the accredited
standards of morality, and more especially by the standards of
aesthetics and of poetry, these survivals from a more primitive type of
manhood may have a very different value from that here assigned them.
But all this being foreign to the purpose in hand, no expression
of opinion on this latter head would be in place here. All that is
admissible is to enter the caution that these standards of excellence,
which are alien to the present purpose, must not be allowed to influence
our economic appreciation