deportment shall maintain itself in favour, it must continue to
have the support of, or at least not be incompatible with, the habit
or aptitude which constitutes the norm of its development. The need of
vicarious leisure, or conspicuous consumption of service, is a dominant
incentive to the keeping of servants. So long as this remains true it
may be set down without much discussion that any such departure from
accepted usage as would suggest an abridged apprenticeship in service
would presently be found insufferable. The requirement of an expensive
vicarious leisure acts indirectly, selectively, by guiding the formation
of our taste,--of our sense of what is right in these matters,--and so
weeds out unconformable departures by withholding approval of them.

As the standard of wealth recognized by common consent advances,
the possession and exploitation of servants as a means of showing
superfluity undergoes a refinement. The possession and maintenance of
slaves employed in the production of goods argues wealth and prowess,
but the maintenance of servants who produce nothing argues still higher
wealth and position. Under this principle there arises a class of
servants, the more numerous the better, whose sole office is fatuously
to wait upon the person of their owner, and so to put in evidence his
ability unproductively to consume a large amount of service. There
supervenes a division of labour among the servants or dependents whose
life is spent in maintaining the honour of the gentleman of leisure.
So that, while one group produces goods for him, another group, usually
headed by the wife, or chief, consumes for him in conspicuous leisure;
thereby putting in evidence his ability to sustain large pecuniary
damage without impairing his superior opulence.

This somewhat idealized and diagrammatic outline of the development and
nature of domestic service comes nearest being true for that cultural
stage which was here been named the "quasi-peaceable" stage of industry.
At this stage personal service first rises to the position of an
economic institution, and it is at this stage that it occupies the
largest place in the community's scheme of life. In the cultural
sequence, the quasi-peaceable stage follows the predatory stage proper,
the two being successive phases of barbarian life. Its characteristic
feature is a formal observance of peace and order, at the same time that
life at this stage still has too much of coercion