Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/217

 THE IRKSOMENESS OF LABOR 1 99

tion, the incentives to aggression and the opportunities for achievement along this line increase. The conditions favorable to emulation are more fully met. With the increasing density of population that follows from a heightened industrial efficiency, the group passes, by force of circumstances, from the archaic condition of poverty-stricken peace to a stage of predatory life. This fighting stage — the beginning of barbarism — may involve aggressive predation, or the group may simply be 'placed on the defensive. One or the other, or both the lines of activity — and commonly both, no doubt — will be forced upon the group, on pain of extermination. This has apparently been the usual course of early social evolution.

When a group emerges into this predatory phase of its development, the employments which most occupy men's atten- tion are employments that involve exploit. 1 he most serious concern of the group, and at the same time the direction in which the most spectacular effect may be achieved by the indi- vidual, is conflict with men and beasts. It becomes easy to make a telling comparison between men when their work is a series of exploits carried out against these difficult adversaries or against the formidable movements of the elements. The assertion of the strong hand, successful aggression, usually of a destructive character, becomes the accepted basis of repute. The dominant life interest of the group throws its strong light upon this credit- able employment of force and sagacity, and the other, obscurer ways of serving the group's life fall into the background. The guiding animus of the group becomes a militant one, and men's actions are judged from the standpoint of the fighting man. What is recognized, without reflection and without misgiving, as serviceable and effective in such a group is fighting capacity. Exploit becomes the conventional ground of invidious comparison between individuals, and repute comes to rest on prowess.

As the predatory culture reaches a fuller development, there comes a distinction between employments. The tradition of prowess, as the \\xX.\xt. par excellence, gains in scope and consist- ency until prowess comes near being recognized as the sole virtue. Those employments alone are then worthy and reputable