ABSTRACT
The evolution of social structure has been a process of natural selection of institutions. The forces which have shaped the development of human life and of social structure are no doubt ultimately reducible to terms of living tissue and material environment. Social structure changes, develops, adapts itself to an altered situation, only through a change in the habits of thought of the several classes of the community. Any community may be viewed as an industrial or economic mechanism, the structure of which is made up of what is called its economic institutions. These institutions are habitual methods of carrying on the life process of the community in contact with the material environment in which it lives. The leisure class is the conservative class. The conservatism of the wealthy class is so obvious a feature that it has even come to be recognized as a mark of respectability.
