OCCUPATIONAL TYPES 329
improvement which is obvious and measurable, and within a measurable time.
(b) The typical business man emphasizes the virtues that lie at the basis of successful business. First in the list would doubtless be honesty, which is the form of the general virtue of truthfulness or integrity that has acquired a rather definite business significance. In the early days when busi ness first appeared as a distinct occupation it was associated with deceit, misrepresentation, dishonesty. But as the man ufacture and exchange of goods have gradually come to be vast and highly differentiated activities in which innumer able multitudes of people are engaged and knit together in ten thousand interdependent relations, it has become increas ingly necessary to stress the virtue of honesty. Business relations under modern conditions are impossible unless the business representations of men can be generally relied upon, especially when they enter into definite engagements. The sacredness of contracts is the corner-stone of the modern economic structure. To change the figure, we may call it the key-stone of the arch of business. Without it the whole edi fice would collapse. It has come to be recognized as the chief function of the law to guard contracts and the right of free contract. Honesty, therefore, in the sense of strict re liability in one s business promises, is a virtue which has the very emphatic sanction of the modern economic mind. Promptness in keeping engagements is another. In the early period of the modern capitalistic era industry was much em phasized, and is still stressed among those who are engaged in individual businesses, and as a virtue of employes is yet everywhere felt to be imperative ; but it is not felt as binding upon themselves by the class of idle capitalists, whose main relation to economic activity is to clip coupons and endorse dividend checks. And the development of this class is, it is to be feared, modifying for the worse our ideal in this re spect. In the early days of the present economic era fru gality was also a most highly praised virtue; but with the vast increase in wealth in recent decades and the consequent
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