As  if  to  leave  no  doubt  about  the  essential  immaturity
of  the  fighting  temperament,  we  have,  bridging  the
interval  between  legitimate  boyhood  and  adult  man-
hood, the  aimless  and  playful,  but  more  or  less  syste-
matic and  elaborate,  disturbances  of  the  peace  in  vogue
among  schoolboys  of  a  slightly  higher  age.  In  the  com-
mon run  of  cases,  these  disturbances  are  confined  to
the  period  of  adolescence.  They  recur  with  decreasing


254  The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class

frequency  and  acuteness  as  youth  merges  into  adult
life,  and  so  they  reproduce,  in  a  general  way,  in  the
life  of  the  individual,  the  sequence  by  which  the  group
has  passed  from  the  predatory  to  a  more  settled  habit
of  life.  In  an  appreciable  number  of  cases  the  spiritual
growth  of  the  individual  comes  to  a  close  before  he
emerges  from  this  puerile  phase  ;  in  these  cases  the
fighting  temper  persists  through  life.  Those  individ-
uals who  in  spiritual  development  eventually  reach
man's  estate,  therefore,  ordinarily  pass  through  a  tem-
porary archaic  phase  corresponding  to  the  permanent
spiritual  level  of  the  fighting  and  sporting  men.  Dif-
ferent individuals  will,  of  course,  achieve  spiritual  matur-
ity and  sobriety  in  this  respect  in  different  degrees ;
and  those  who  fail  of  the  average  remain  as  an  undis-
solved  residue  of  crude  humanity  in  the  modern  indus-
trial community  and  as  a  foil  for  that  selective  process
of  adaptation  which  makes  for  a  heightened  industrial
efficiency  and  the  fulness  of  life  of  the  collectivity.
