ABSTRACT
The institution of a leisure class has an effect not only upon social structure but also upon the individual character of the members of society. The proximate tendency of the institution of a leisure class in shaping human character runs in the direction of spiritual survival and reversion. Its effect upon the temper of a community is of the nature of an arrested spiritual development. In the later culture especially, the institution has, on the whole, a conservative trend. The circumstances of life and the ends of effort that prevailed before the advent of the barbarian culture, shaped human nature and fixed it as regards certain fundamental traits. Traits that were suited to the earlier habits of life then became relatively useless in the individual struggle for existence. But the "economic man", whose only interest is the self-regarding one and whose only human trait is prudence, is useless for the purposes of modern industry.
