scope of the discretion of the leisure class as regards questions of
form and detail in the community's scheme of life is large; while as
regards the substantial principles of reputability, the changes which
it can effect lie within a narrow margin of tolerance. Its example and
precept carries the force of prescription for all classes below it; but
in working out the precepts which are handed down as governing the form
and method of reputability--in shaping the usages and the spiritual
attitude of the lower classes--this authoritative prescription
constantly works under the selective guidance of the canon of
conspicuous waste, tempered in varying degree by the instinct of
workmanship. To those norms is to be added another broad principle of
human nature--the predatory animus--which in point of generality and of
psychological content lies between the two just named. The effect of the
latter in shaping the accepted scheme of life is yet to be discussed.
The canon of reputability, then, must adapt itself to the economic
circumstances, the traditions, and the degree of spiritual maturity
of the particular class whose scheme of life it is to regulate. It is
especially to be noted that however high its authority and however true
to the fundamental requirements of reputability it may have been at
its inception, a specific formal observance can under no circumstances
maintain itself in force if with the lapse of time or on its
transmission to a lower pecuniary class it is found to run counter
to the ultimate ground of decency among civilized peoples, namely,
serviceability for the purpose of an invidious comparison in pecuniary
success. It is evident that these canons of expenditure have much to
say in determining the standard of living for any community and for any
class. It is no less evident that the standard of living which prevails
at any time or at any given social altitude will in its turn have much
to say as to the forms which honorific expenditure will take, and as
to the degree to which this "higher" need will dominate a people's
consumption. In this respect the control exerted by the accepted
standard of living is chiefly of a negative character; it acts almost
solely to prevent recession from a scale of conspicuous expenditure that
has once become habitual.

A standard of living is of the nature of habit. It is an habitual scale
and method of responding to given stimuli. The difficulty in the way
of receding from