s not at
the outset the chief element of their value. The man's prowess was
still primarily the group's prowess, and the possessor of the booty
felt himself to be primarily the keeper of the honour of his group. This
appreciation of exploit from the communal point of view is met with also
at later stages of social growth, especially as regards the laurels of
war.

But as soon as the custom of individual ownership begins to gain
consistency, the point of view taken in making the invidious comparison
on which private property rests will begin to change. Indeed, the one
change is but the reflex of the other. The initial phase of ownership,
the phase of acquisition by naive seizure and conversion, begins to pass
into the subsequent stage of an incipient organization of industry on
the basis of private property (in slaves); the horde develops into a
more or less self-sufficing industrial community; possessions then come
to be valued not so much as evidence of successful foray, but rather as
evidence of the prepotence of the possessor of these goods over other
individuals within the community. The invidious comparison now becomes
primarily a comparison of the owner with the other members of the
group. Property is still of the nature of trophy, but, with the cultural
advance, it becomes more and more a trophy of successes scored in the
game of ownership carried on between the members of the group under the
quasi-peaceable methods of nomadic life.

Gradually, as industrial activity further displaced predatory activity
in the community's everyday life and in men's habits of thought,
accumulated property more and more replaces trophies of predatory
exploit as the conventional exponent of prepotence and success. With the
growth of settled industry, therefore, the possession of wealth gains in
relative importance and effectiveness as a customary basis of repute and
esteem. Not that esteem ceases to be awarded on the basis of other, more
direct evidence of prowess; not that successful predatory aggression or
warlike exploit ceases to call out the approval and admiration of the
crowd, or to stir the envy of the less successful competitors; but
the opportunities for gaining distinction by means of this direct
manifestation of superior force grow less available both in scope and
frequency. At the same time opportunities for industrial aggression, and
for the accumulation of property, increase in scope and availability.
And it is even