In economic theory, sacred holidays are obviously to be
construed as a season of vicarious leisure performed for the
divinity or saint in whose name the tabu is imposed and to whose
good repute the abstention from useful effort on these days is
conceived to inure. The characteristic feature of all such
seasons of devout vicarious leisure is a more or less rigid tabu
on all activity that is of human use. In the case of fast-days
the conspicuous abstention from gainful occupations and from all
pursuits that (materially) further human life is further
accentuated by compulsory abstinence from such consumption as
would conduce to the comfort or the fullness of life of the
consumer.
It may be remarked, parenthetically, that secular holidays are of
the same origin, by slightly remoter derivation. They shade off
by degrees from the genuinely sacred days, through an
intermediate class of semi-sacred birthdays of kings and great
men who have been in some measure canonized, to the deliberately
invented holiday set apart to further the good repute of some
notable event or some striking fact, to which it is intended to
do honor, or the good fame of which is felt to be in need of
repair. The remoter refinement in the employment of vicarious
leisure as a means of augmenting the good repute of a phenomenon
or datum is seen at its best in its very latest application.
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