more to the point that property now becomes the
most easily recognised evidence of a reputable degree of success as
distinguished from heroic or signal achievement. It therefore becomes
the conventional basis of esteem. Its possession in some amount becomes
necessary in order to any reputable standing in the community. It
becomes indispensable to accumulate, to acquire property, in order to
retain one's good name. When accumulated goods have in this way once
become the accepted badge of efficiency, the possession of wealth
presently assumes the character of an independent and definitive basis
of esteem. The possession of goods, whether acquired aggressively by
one's own exertion or passively by transmission through inheritance from
others, becomes a conventional basis of reputability. The possession
of wealth, which was at the outset valued simply as an evidence of
efficiency, becomes, in popular apprehension, itself a meritorious act.
Wealth is now itself intrinsically honourable and confers honour on
its possessor. By a further refinement, wealth acquired passively by
transmission from ancestors or other antecedents presently becomes even
more honorific than wealth acquired by the possessor's own effort;
but this distinction belongs at a later stage in the evolution of the
pecuniary culture and will be spoken of in its place.

Prowess and exploit may still remain the basis of award of the highest
popular esteem, although the possession of wealth has become the basis
of common place reputability and of a blameless social standing.
The predatory instinct and the consequent approbation of predatory
efficiency are deeply ingrained in the habits of thought of those
peoples who have passed under the discipline of a protracted predatory
culture. According to popular award, the highest honours within human
reach may, even yet, be those gained by an unfolding of extraordinary
predatory efficiency in war, or by a quasi-predatory efficiency in
statecraft; but for the purposes of a commonplace decent standing in the
community these means of repute have been replaced by the acquisition
and accumulation of goods. In order to stand well in the eyes of the
community, it is necessary to come up to a certain, somewhat indefinite,
conventional standard of wealth; just as in the earlier predatory stage
it is necessary for the barbarian man to come up to the tribe's standard
of physical endurance, cunning, and skill at arms. A certain sta