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.
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