Sec. 12. We come, then, to the problem of the individual's encounter with a new commodity. In general, a purchase in such a case must amount to more or less of a departure from the scheme of life in force and a transition over to a different one. And a new commodity (in the sense in which the term has been used above) is apt to be initially more tempting than an addition along some line of expenditure already represented in the budget. The latter, supposing there has been no change of price and no increase of income, is usually a mere irregularity, an insurgent departure from some one specification of a total plan without preliminary compensating adjustment or appropriate change at other points. The erratic outlay, if considerable, will result in sheer disorder and extravagance--indefensible and self-condemned on the principles of the individual's own economy. But with a new commodity the case stands differently. It is more interesting to consider a really new proposal than to reopen a case once closed when no evidence distinctly new is offered. A sheer "temptation" or an isolated impulse toward new outlay along a line already measured in one's scheme has the force of habit and a presumption of un-wisdom to overcome. If the case is one not of temptation but of "being urged" one is apt to answer, "No, I can make no use of any more of _that_." But a new commodity has the charm of its novelty, a charm consisting in the promise, in positive fashion, of new qualitative values about which a new entire schedule will have to be organized. Partly its strength of appeal lies in its radicalism; it gains ready attention not only by its promise but by its boldness. "Preparedness" gains a more ready acclaim than better schools or the extirpation of disease. The automobile and the "moving picture" probably have a vogue today far surpassing any use of earlier "equivalents" that a mere general augmentation of incomes could have brought about. Indeed, the economic danger of the middle classes in present-day society lies not in mere occasional excess at certain points but in heedless commitment to a showy and thinned-out scheme of life in which the elements are ill-chosen and ill-proportioned and from which, as a whole, abiding satisfaction cannot be drawn. It is where real and thoroughgoing change in the manner of life is hopeless that irregular intemperance of various sorts appears to bulk relatively largest as an economic evil.