ts of thought,
even in matters which, taken by themselves, are of minor importance. A
consequence of this increased reluctance, due to the solidarity of human
institutions, is that any innovation calls for a greater expenditure of
nervous energy in making the necessary readjustment than would otherwise
be the case. It is not only that a change in established habits of
thought is distasteful. The process of readjustment of the accepted
theory of life involves a degree of mental effort--a more or less
protracted and laborious effort to find and to keep one's bearings under
the altered circumstances. This process requires a certain expenditure
of energy, and so presumes, for its successful accomplishment, some
surplus of energy beyond that absorbed in the daily struggle for
subsistence. Consequently it follows that progress is hindered by
underfeeding and excessive physical hardship, no less effectually than
by such a luxurious life as will shut out discontent by cutting off the
occasion for it. The abjectly poor, and all those persons whose
energies are entirely absorbed by the struggle for daily sustenance, are
conservative because they cannot afford the effort of taking thought for
the day after tomorrow; just as the highly prosperous are conservative
because they have small occasion to be discontented with the situation
as it stands today.

From this proposition it follows that the institution of a leisure class
acts to make the lower classes conservative by withdrawing from them
as much as it may of the means of sustenance, and so reducing their
consumption, and consequently their available energy, to such a point
as to make them incapable of the effort required for the learning and
adoption of new habits of thought. The accumulation of wealth at the
upper end of the pecuniary scale implies privation at the lower end of
the scale. It is a commonplace that, wherever it occurs, a considerable
degree of privation among the body of the people is a serious obstacle
to any innovation.

This direct inhibitory effect of the unequal distribution of wealth
is seconded by an indirect effect tending to the same result. As has
already been seen, the imperative example set by the upper class in
fixing the canons of reputability fosters the practice of conspicuous
consumption. The prevalence of conspicuous consumption as one of the
main elements in the standard of decency among all classes is of course
not traceable wholly to the