The instinct of workmanship is present in all men, and asserts itself even under very adverse circumstances.

So that however wasteful a given expenditure may be in reality, it must at least have some colorable excuse in the way of an ostensible purpose.

The manner in which, under special circumstances, the instinct eventuates in a taste for exploit and an invidious discrimination between noble and ignoble classes has been indicated in an earlier chapter.

In so far as it comes into conflict with the law of conspicuous waste, the instinct of workmanship expresses itself not so much in insistence on substantial usefulness as in an abiding sense of the odiousness and aesthetic impossibility of what is obviously futile.
Being of the nature of an instinctive affection, its guidance touches chiefly and immediately the obvious and apparent violations of its requirements.

It is only less promptly and with less constraining force that it reaches such substantial violations of its requirements as are appreciated only upon reflection.
So long as all labor continues to be performed exclusively or usually by slaves, the baseness of all productive effort is too constantly and deterrently present in the mind of men to allow the instinct of workmanship seriously to take effect in the direction of industrial usefulness; but when the quasi-peaceable stage (with slavery and status) passes into the peaceable stage of industry (with wage labor and cash payment) the instinct comes more effectively into play.