Goods are produced and consumed as a means to the fuller unfolding of human life; and their utility consists, in the first instance, in their efficiency as means to this end.

The end is, in the first instance, the fullness of life of the individual, taken in absolute terms.

But the human proclivity to emulation has seized upon the consumption of goods as a means to an invidious comparison, and has thereby invested constable goods with a secondary utility as evidence of relative ability to pay.

This indirect or secondary use of consumable goods lends an honorific character to consumption and presently also to the goods which best serve the emulative end of consumption.

The consumption of expensive goods is meritorious, and the goods which contain an appreciable element of cost in excess of what goes to give them serviceability for their ostensible mechanical purpose are honorific.