The latter is but a special development of the instinct of
workmanship, a variant, relatively late and ephemeral in spite of
its great absolute antiquity. The emulative predatory impulse --
or the instinct of sportsmanship, as it might well be called --
is essentially unstable in comparison with the primordial
instinct of workmanship out of which it has been developed and
differentiated. Tested by this ulterior norm of life, predatory
emulation, and therefore the life of sports, falls short.
The manner and the measure in which the institution of a leisure
class conduces to the conservation of sports and
invidious exploit can of course not be succinctly stated. From
the evidence already recited it appears that, in sentient and
inclinations, the leisure class is more favorable to a warlike
attitude and animus than the industrial classes. Something
similar seems to be true as regards sports. But it is chiefly in
its indirect effects, though the canons of decorous living, that
the institution has its influence on the prevalent sentiment with
respect to the sporting life. This indirect effect goes almost
unequivocally in the direction of furthering a survival of the
predatory temperament and habits; and this is true even with
respect to those variants of the sporting life which the higher
leisure-class code of proprieties proscribes; as, e.
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