[Footnote 207-8: Concerning the application of the above principle in industry and in the care of the poor, see _infra_. The advantages afforded by consumption in common, or the combination of use, have been enthusiastically dwelt upon by _Fourier_, and the organization of his phalansteries is based essentially on that principle. In these colossal palaces, which, spite of all their magnificence, cost less than the hundred huts of which they take the place, a ball is given every evening, because it is cheaper to light one large hall, in which all may congregate. The division of use, or of consumption also, is here developed in a high degree. When 12 persons eat at the same table they have 12 different kinds of cheese, 12 different kinds of soup, etc. Even little children are allowed to yield to the full to their gluttonous propensities, since on them depends the productive activity of the so-called _séries passionnées_. Compare Nouveau Monde, 272. The Saint-Simonists also characterize the _association universelle_ as the highest goal of human development. (_Bazard_, Exposition, 144 ff.) On the danger of this development to family life, see _Sismondi_, Etudes I, 43.] SECTION CCVIII. NATURE AND KINDS OF CONSUMPTION.--NOTIONAL CONSUMPTION. By the notional consumption (_Meinungsconsumtion_), as Storch calls it, operated by a change of fashion, many goods lose their value, without as much as suffering the least change of form or leaving the merchant's shop. This kind of consumption, too, is exceedingly different in different nations. Thus, in Germany, for instance, fashions are much more persistent than in France.[208-1] In the most flourishing times of Holland, only noblemen and officers changed with the fashions, while the merchants and other people wore their clothes until they went to pieces.[208-2] In the East, fashions in clothing are very constant;[208-3] but the expensive custom there prevails, for a son, instead of moving into the house occupied by his father, to let it go to ruin, and to build a new one as a matter of preference. The same is true even in the case of royal castles. Hence, in Persia, most of the cities are half full of ruins, and are in time moved from one place to another.[208-4]