In the case of the former
class an archaic habit of mind persists because no effectual
economic pressure constrains this class to an adaptation of its
habits of thought to the changing situation; while in the latter
the reason for a failure to adjust their habits of thought to the
altered requirements of industrial efficiency is innutrition,
absence of such surplus of energy as is needed in order to make
the adjustment with facility, together with a lack of opportunity
to acquire and become habituated to the modern point of view. The
trend of the selective process runs in much the same direction in
both cases.
From the point of view which the modern industrial life
inculcates, phenomena are habitually subsumed under the
quantitative relation of mechanical sequence. The indigent
classes not only fall short of the modicum of leisure necessary
in order to appropriate and assimilate the more recent
generalizations of science which this point of view involves, but
they also ordinarily stand in such a relation of personal
dependence or subservience to their pecuniary superiors as
materially to retard their emancipation from habits of thought
proper to the regime of status. The result is that these classes
in some measure retain that general habit of mind the chief
expression of which is a strong sense of personal status, and of
which devoutness is one feature.
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