It is the individuals placed in this position who have the liveliest incentive to reconstruct the received scheme of life and are most readily persuaded to accept new standards; and it is through the need of the means of livelihood that men are placed in such a position.

The pressure exerted by the environment upon the group, and making for a readjustment of the group's scheme of life, impinges upon the members of the group in the form of pecuniary exigencies; and it is owing to this fact--that external forces are in great part translated into the form of pecuniary or economic exigencies--it is owing to this fact that we can say that the forces which count toward a readjustment of institutions in any modern industrial community are chiefly economic forces; or more specifically, these forces take the form of pecuniary pressure.

Such a readjustment as is here contemplated is substantially a change in men's views as to what is good and right, and the means through which a change is wrought in men's apprehension of what is good and right is in large part the pressure of pecuniary exigencies.
Any change in men's views as to what is good and right in human life make its way but tardily at the best.

Especially is this true of any change in the direction of what is called progress; that is to say, in the direction of divergence from the archaic position--from the position which may be accounted the point of departure at any step in the social evolution of the community.

Retrogression, reapproach to a standpoint to which the race has been long habituated in the past, is easier.