cterize the predatory
type; and it seems probable that the dolicho-blond type of European man
is possessed of a greater facility for such reversion to barbarism than
the other ethnic elements with which that type is associated in the
Western culture. Examples of such a reversion on a small scale abound in
the later history of migration and colonization. Except for the fear
of offending that chauvinistic patriotism which is so characteristic
a feature of the predatory culture, and the presence of which is
frequently the most striking mark of reversion in modern communities,
the case of the American colonies might be cited as an example of such a
reversion on an unusually large scale, though it was not a reversion of
very large scope.

The leisure class is in great measure sheltered from the stress of
those economic exigencies which prevail in any modern, highly organized
industrial community. The exigencies of the struggle for the means
of life are less exacting for this class than for any other; and as a
consequence of this privileged position we should expect to find it one
of the least responsive of the classes of society to the demands
which the situation makes for a further growth of institutions and a
readjustment to an altered industrial situation. The leisure class is
the conservative class. The exigencies of the general economic situation
of the community do not freely or directly impinge upon the members of
this class. They are not required under penalty of forfeiture to change
their habits of life and their theoretical views of the external world
to suit the demands of an altered industrial technique, since they
are not in the full sense an organic part of the industrial community.
Therefore these exigencies do not readily produce, in the members of
this class, that degree of uneasiness with the existing order which
alone can lead any body of men to give up views and methods of life that
have become habitual to them. The office of the leisure class in social
evolution is to retard the movement and to conserve what is obsolescent.
This proposition is by no means novel; it has long been one of the
commonplaces of popular opinion.

The prevalent conviction that the wealthy class is by nature
conservative has been popularly accepted without much aid from any
theoretical view as to the place and relation of that class in the
cultural development. When an explanation of this class conservatism is
offered, it is co