omenon in a community so devout as
ours. Devout observances are of economic importance as an index of a
concomitant variation of temperament, accompanying the predatory habit
of mind and so indicating the presence of industrially disserviceable
traits. They indicate the presence of a mental attitude which has a
certain economic value of its own by virtue of its influence upon
the industrial serviceability of the individual. But they are also of
importance more directly, in modifying the economic activities of the
community, especially as regards the distribution and consumption of
goods.

The most obvious economic bearing of these observances is seen in the
devout consumption of goods and services. The consumption of ceremonial
paraphernalia required by any cult, in the way of shrines, temples,
churches, vestments, sacrifices, sacraments, holiday attire, etc.,
serves no immediate material end. All this material apparatus may,
therefore, without implying deprecation, be broadly characterized as
items of conspicuous waste. The like is true in a general way of the
personal service consumed under this head; such as priestly education,
priestly service, pilgrimages, fasts, holidays, household devotions,
and the like. At the same time the observances in the execution of which
this consumption takes place serve to extend and protract the vogue of
those habits of thought on which an anthropomorphic cult rests. That is
to say, they further the habits of thought characteristic of the regime
of status. They are in so far an obstruction to the most effective
organization of industry under modern circumstances; and are, in the
first instance, antagonistic to the development of economic institutions
in the direction required by the situation of today. For the present
purpose, the indirect as well as the direct effects of this consumption
are of the nature of a curtailment of the community's economic
efficiency. In economic theory, then, and considered in its proximate
consequences, the consumption of goods and effort in the service of
an anthropomorphic divinity means a lowering of the vitality of the
community. What may be the remoter, indirect, moral effects of this
class of consumption does not admit of a succinct answer, and it is a
question which can not be taken up here.

It will be to the point, however, to note the general economic character
of devout consumption, in comparison with consumption for other
purposes. An indica