estive little monograph on the subject. It is in the
interest of machine industry that fashions should be standardized over a
wide area, and it is the function of advertising to achieve this result.
It is also of interest to commerce that fashions should change and this
also is largely, but not wholly, a matter of advertising. Tarde
distinguishes between custom and fashion as the two forms in which all
cultural traits are transmitted. "In periods when custom is in the
ascendant, men are more infatuated about their country than about their
time; for it is the past which is pre-eminently praised. In ages when
fashion rules, men are prouder, on the contrary, of their time than of
their country."[320]

The most acute analysis that has been made of fashion is contained in
the observation of Sumner in _Folkways_. Sumner pointed out that fashion
though differing from, is intimately related to, the mores. Fashion
fixes the attention of the community at a given time and place and by so
doing determines what is sometimes called the Spirit of the Age, the
_Zeitgeist_. By the introduction of new fashions the leaders of society
gain that distinction in the community by which they are able to
maintain their prestige and so maintain their position as leaders. But
in doing this, they too are influenced by the fashions which they
introduce. Eventually changes in fashion affect the mores.[321]

Fashion is related to reform and to revolution, because it is one of the
fundamental ways in which social changes take place and because, like
reform and revolution, it also is related to the mores.

Fashion is distinguished from reform by the fact that the changes it
introduces are wholly irrational if not at the same time wholly
unpredictable. Reform, on the other hand, is nothing if not rational. It
achieves its ends by agitation and discussion. Attempts have been made
to introduce fashions by agitation, but they have not succeeded. On the
other hand, reform is itself a fashion and has largely absorbed in
recent years the interest that was formerly bestowed on party politics.

There has been a great deal written about reforms but almost nothing
about _reform_. It is a definite type of collective behavior which has
come into existence and gained popularity under conditions of modern
life. The reformer and the agitator, likewise, are definite,
temperamental, and social types. Reform tends under modern conditions to
become a vocation and a prof