Page:The Theory of the Leisure Class.pdf/351

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Survivals of the Non-Invidious Interest
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tudes which are not to be classed as self-regarding, and the end of which is not an invidious distinction. So, for instance, the greater number of men who have to do with industry in the way of pecuniarily managing an enterprise, take some interest and some pride in seeing that the work is well done and is industrially effective, and this even apart from the profit which may result from any improvement of this kind. The efforts of commercial clubs and manufacturers' organisations in this direction of non-invidious advancement of industrial efficiency are also well known.

The tendency to some other than an invidious purpose in life has worked out in a multitude of organisations, the purpose of which is some work of charity or of social amelioration. These organisations are often of a quasi-religious or pseudo-religious character, and are participated in by both men and women. Examples will present themselves in abundance on reflection, but for the purpose of indicating the range of the propensities in question and of characterising them, some of the more obvious concrete cases may be cited. Such, for instance, are the agitation for temperance and similar social reforms, for prison reform, for the spread of education, for the suppression of vice, and for the avoidance of war by arbitration, disarmament, or other means; such are, in some measure, university settlements, neighbourhood guilds, the various organisations typified by the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young People's Society for Christian Endeavour, sewing-circles, social clubs, art clubs, and even commercial clubs; such are also, in some slight measure,