es in density, and as
human relations grow more complex and numerous, all the details of life
undergo a process of elaboration and selection; and in this process of
elaboration the use of trophies develops into a system of rank, titles,
degrees and insignia, typical examples of which are heraldic devices,
medals, and honorary decorations.

As seen from the economic point of view, leisure, considered as an
employment, is closely allied in kind with the life of exploit; and the
achievements which characterise a life of leisure, and which remain as
its decorous criteria, have much in common with the trophies of exploit.
But leisure in the narrower sense, as distinct from exploit and from any
ostensibly productive employment of effort on objects which are of no
intrinsic use, does not commonly leave a material product. The criteria
of a past performance of leisure therefore commonly take the form
of "immaterial" goods. Such immaterial evidences of past leisure are
quasi-scholarly or quasi-artistic accomplishments and a knowledge of
processes and incidents which do not conduce directly to the furtherance
of human life. So, for instance, in our time there is the knowledge
of the dead languages and the occult sciences; of correct spelling; of
syntax and prosody; of the various forms of domestic music and other
household art; of the latest properties of dress, furniture, and
equipage; of games, sports, and fancy-bred animals, such as dogs and
race-horses. In all these branches of knowledge the initial motive from
which their acquisition proceeded at the outset, and through which they
first came into vogue, may have been something quite different from
the wish to show that one's time had not been spent in industrial
employment; but unless these accomplishments had approved themselves as
serviceable evidence of an unproductive expenditure of time, they would
not have survived and held their place as conventional accomplishments
of the leisure class.

These accomplishments may, in some sense, be classed as branches of
learning. Beside and beyond these there is a further range of social
facts which shade off from the region of learning into that of physical
habit and dexterity. Such are what is known as manners and breeding,
polite usage, decorum, and formal and ceremonial observances generally.
This class of facts are even more immediately and obtrusively presented
to the observation, and they therefore more widely and more imper