rly becomes specialized
and aroused exclusively by people for whom they develop
a sense of personal affection and common sympathy. Any
intrusion from without this circle becomes an intrusion upon
privacy.

SATISFACTION IN PERSONAL POSSESSION: THE ACQUISITIVE INSTINCT.
An almost universal human trait of considerable social consequence
is the satisfaction men experience in having objects
that are their own. Both animals and humans, apart from
training, display a tendency to get and hold objects. This
tendency may take extreme forms, as in the case of miserliness
or kleptomania. It is evidenced in special ways in the
collections that children, and some grown-ups, make of
miscellaneous objects without any particular use, and with no
particular aesthetic value.

The objects which satisfy this instinct of possession may
include material goods, family, or larger groups. In primitive
tribes under the patriarchal system, the patriarch practically
owns the tribe. Our laws not so long ago recognized
the marriage relation as a state in which the wife is
possessed or owned by the husband.

Possession gives the owner various kinds of satisfaction.
The instinctive satisfaction in possession itself may be quite
irrespective of the values of the objects owned, and deprivation
may be fiercely resisted out of all proportion to the value
of the objects. Especially will this be the case if the object
possessed has become surrounded with other emotional
attachments, so that an individual may be as bitterly chagrined
and piqued by being deprived of some slight memoir or keepsake
as of a large sum of money. In the same way the fighting
spirit of a whole tribe or nation may be aroused by the
invasion or seizure of a small and unimportant bit of land, or by
the chance of its possession.

The instinctive sense of satisfaction, as in the last mentioned
case is enhanced by the sense of importance which
comes from possession, and which enhances one's own individuality
and personality. A man's vast holdings in wealth,
land, factories, machinery, or private estates is, in a sense,
regarded by him as an extension of his personality. He is
confirmed in this impression because it is so regarded by his
neighbors and the whole social group. A great landowner is
a celebrity throughout the countryside, and, as Mr. Veblen
points out, a large part of the luxurious display and expenditure
of the leisure classes is their way of publicly and conspicuous