Of course it remains true that in a community where the economic structure is still substantially a system of status; where the attitude of the average of persons in the community is consequently shaped by and adapted to the relation of personal dominance and personal subservience; or where for any other reason--of tradition or of inherited aptitude--the population as a whole is strongly inclined to devout observances; there a devout habit of mind in any individual, not in excess of the average of the community, must be taken simply as a detail of the prevalent habit of life.

In this light, a devout individual in a devout community can not be called a case of reversion, since he is abreast of the average of the community.

But as seen from the point of view of the modern industrial situation, exceptional devoutness--devotional zeal that rises appreciably above the average pitch of devoutness in the community--may safely be set down as in all cases an atavistic trait.
It is, of course, equally legitimate to consider these phenomena from a different point of view.

They may be appreciated for a different purpose, and the characterization here offered may be turned about.
In speaking from the point of view of the devotional interest, or the interest of devout taste, it may, with equal cogency, be said that the spiritual attitude bred in men by the modern industrial life is unfavorable to a free development of the life of faith.

It might fairly be objected to the later development of the industrial process that its discipline tends to "materialism," to the elimination of filial piety.
From the aesthetic point of view, again, something to a similar purport might be said.