orific waste. Hand labor is a more wasteful method
of production; hence the goods turned out by this method are more
serviceable for the purpose of pecuniary reputability; hence the marks
of hand labor come to be honorific, and the goods which exhibit these
marks take rank as of higher grade than the corresponding machine
product. Commonly, if not invariably, the honorific marks of hand
labor are certain imperfections and irregularities in the lines of the
hand-wrought article, showing where the workman has fallen short in the
execution of the design. The ground of the superiority of hand-wrought
goods, therefore, is a certain margin of crudeness. This margin must
never be so wide as to show bungling workmanship, since that would be
evidence of low cost, nor so narrow as to suggest the ideal precision
attained only by the machine, for that would be evidence of low cost.

The appreciation of those evidences of honorific crudeness to which
hand-wrought goods owe their superior worth and charm in the eyes
of well-bred people is a matter of nice discrimination. It requires
training and the formation of right habits of thought with respect to
what may be called the physiognomy of goods. Machine-made goods of
daily use are often admired and preferred precisely on account of their
excessive perfection by the vulgar and the underbred who have not given
due thought to the punctilios of elegant consumption. The ceremonial
inferiority of machine products goes to show that the perfection of
skill and workmanship embodied in any costly innovations in the finish
of goods is not sufficient of itself to secure them acceptance and
permanent favor. The innovation must have the support of the canon of
conspicuous waste. Any feature in the physiognomy of goods, however
pleasing in itself, and however well it may approve itself to the taste
for effective work, will not be tolerated if it proves obnoxious to this
norm of pecuniary reputability.

The ceremonial inferiority or uncleanness in consumable goods due to
"commonness," or in other words to their slight cost of production,
has been taken very seriously by many persons. The objection to machine
products is often formulated as an objection to the commonness of such
goods. What is common is within the (pecuniary) reach of many people.
Its consumption is therefore not honorific, since it does not serve the
purpose of a favorable invidious comparison with other consumers. Hence
the consum