Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/561

Rh It is, however, shiftings of custom and opinion that have most affected the importance of material goods. The custom of wife-purchase, the system of wergeld, the acceptance of damages as a salve for injury, the shifting of prestige from heads, scalps, and bear's claws to herds, acres, and bonds, the reliance upon clothing instead of tattooing as a means of charming the opposite sex, the belief that burnt-offerings win the favor of the gods or that masses deliver the soul from purgatory, the decline of prophetism, the rise of a regular market for female virtue, the passing of political power from the Elders or the Fighters to the Wealthy, the decay of the distinction between noble and mean employments or sources of wealth, the yielding of patrician ranks to parvenu pressure, the obliterating of caste cleavage by class, the lapsing of birth as a ground of social superiority, the gaining of "conspicuous consumption" on "conspicuous leisure" as a means of good repute, the enlistment of the artist in the service of Crœsus instead of the service of temple or church—these have at various times augmented the powers of wealth, and driven the spur into the flank of greed.

There are other movements which have shorn lucre of some of its brute might and exalted the worth of personal merit or effort. The resumption of choice by women, the rise of the romantic ideal, the custom of courtship, and the dispensing with the "marriage portion" have unsealed the well-nigh choked-up spring of sex-love. "Justification by faith," the suppression of masses, pilgrimages, and indulgences, the dispensing with altar and image, the open Bible, the lay chalice, and the unadorned "meeting house" have done much to rout commercialism from religion. The protection of the law is no longer for those only who can pay for it. The courts of justice need no longer be supported by the fees of suitors. Public hospitals and free dispensaries socialize the healing art. The printing-press and the free library have democratized the sweets of literature. The abolition of hireling armies, of imprisonment for debt, of child labor, and of the property suffrage are so many dykes reclaiming smiling stretches from the dreary waste of commercialism. The struggle is endless, for while the growth of personality is