iated as an attribute of
superior merit. The traits of predatory man are by no means obsolete in
the common run of modern populations. They are present and can be called
out in bold relief at any time by any appeal to the sentiments in
which they express themselves--unless this appeal should clash with the
specific activities that make up our habitual occupations and comprise
the general range of our everyday interests. The common run of the
population of any industrial community is emancipated from these,
economically considered, untoward propensities only in the sense
that, through partial and temporary disuse, they have lapsed into the
background of sub-conscious motives. With varying degrees of potency in
different individuals, they remain available for the aggressive shaping
of men's actions and sentiments whenever a stimulus of more than
everyday intensity comes in to call them forth. And they assert
themselves forcibly in any case where no occupation alien to the
predatory culture has usurped the individual's everyday range of
interest and sentiment. This is the case among the leisure class and
among certain portions of the population which are ancillary to that
class. Hence the facility with which any new accessions to the leisure
class take to sports; and hence the rapid growth of sports and of
the sporting sentient in any industrial community where wealth has
accumulated sufficiently to exempt a considerable part of the population
from work.

A homely and familiar fact may serve to show that the predaceous impulse
does not prevail in the same degree in all classes. Taken simply as a
feature of modern life, the habit of carrying a walking-stick may seem
at best a trivial detail; but the usage has a significance for the point
in question. The classes among whom the habit most prevails--the classes
with whom the walking-stick is associated in popular apprehension--are
the men of the leisure class proper, sporting men, and the lower-class
delinquents. To these might perhaps be added the men engaged in the
pecuniary employments. The same is not true of the common run of men
engaged in industry and it may be noted by the way that women do not
carry a stick except in case of infirmity, where it has a use of a
different kind. The practice is of course in great measure a matter
of polite usage; but the basis of polite usage is, in turn, the
proclivities of the class which sets the pace in polite usage. The
walking-sti