4 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mixed up together, and even to cause tliem occasionally to change 

 their places. Thus, in our own regime, undue emphasis is habitu- 

 ally laid upon the ceremonial side of life. Examination of the 

 Ten Commandments reveals six that are roughly describable as 

 utilitarian, the remaining four (a large proportion) referring to 

 religious observance. In common conversation, attendance at 

 church, and careful regard for other so-called religious d uties are 

 habitually placed on a level with, or even higher than, the careful 

 fulfillment of secular requirements. Popular ideas concerning the 

 Sabbath furnish a striking illustration of the point to which we 

 now refer. 



2. We pass now to the pre-ethical code of conduct arising from 

 what we here term the social, or, better, the ceremonial root. 



Casual consideration might lead one to suppose that cere- 

 monial factors have played a relatively unimportant part in the 

 history of civilization. Such a supposition, however, as further 

 investigation could soon prove, would involve an entire misap- 

 prehension of the facts of human development. Indeed, strictly 

 speaking, it is with the ceremonial code that such a discussion as 

 this ought to begin, since out of it, in the consolidation of social 

 life, both the regulations that we call religious and the regula- 

 tions that we call political have been gradually evolved. Cere- 

 monial government, as Mr. Spencer has shown, is not only the 

 earliest and most general kind of government, but is also a gov- 

 ernment which "is ever spontaneously recommencing." More- 

 over, it has ever had and continues to have, as the facts of daily 

 existence show us, the largest share in regulating men's lives. 



It thus happens that distinctions of right and wrong con- 

 stantly refer to a standard of convention, all questions of the 

 tendencies of actions and of their wider relations to life being 

 consciously or unconsciously left out of account. Like the theo- 

 logical code, therefore, the ceremonial code habitually passes over 

 the inherent qualities of actions. Its sanctions are generally ex- 

 traneous, not essential, and its inevitable trend is to confuse the 

 really important with the relatively unimportant in conduct, 

 often with the most unfortunate results. How far the ceremonial 

 code demands respect, to what point it is mainly useful, and under 

 what conditions it passes into a tyranny, crushing individuality 

 and repressing the vital forces of life, are questions which, though 

 to the last degree important, can not here be considered. What 

 we have now to do is to notice the wide area over which the 

 social code operates ; the imperative character of its enactments ; 

 and the confusion to which it frequently gives rise a confusion 

 resulting from the fact that in the conflict of influences by which 

 we are daily met, the morally right is again and again sacrificed 

 to the socially correct. The " proper and therefore wrong " of 



