Page:The Theory of the Leisure Class.pdf/239

 means of life or for the right to live―except in so far as the predatory propensities of their ruling classes keep up the tradition of war and and rapine. These communities are no longer hostile to one another by force of circumstances, other than the circumstances of tradition and temperament. Their material interests―apart, possibly, from the interests of the collective good fame―are not only no longer incompatible, but the success of any one of the communities unquestionably furthers the fulness of life of any other community in the group, for the present and for an incalculable time to come. No one of them any longer has any material interest in getting the better of any other. The same is not true in the same degree as regards individuals and their relations to one another.

The collective interests of any modern community centre in industrial efficiency. The individual is serviceable for the ends of the community somewhat in proportion to his efficiency in the productive employments, vulgarly so called. This collective interest is best served by honesty, diligence, peacefulness, goodwill, an absence of self-seeking, and an habitual recognition and apprehension of causal sequence, without admixture of animistic belief and without a sense of dependence on any preternatural intervention in the course of events. Not much is to be said for the beauty, moral excellence, or general worthiness and reputability of such a prosy human nature as these traits imply; and there is little ground of enthusiasm for the manner of collective life that would result from the prevalence of these traits in unmitigated dominance.