CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 387 



So within a community, acts of relatively stringent control coming 

 from ruling agencies, civil and religious, begin with and are qualified 

 by this ceremonial control, which not only initiates but in a sense 

 envelops all other. Functionaries, ecclesiastical and political, coer- 

 cive as their proceedings may be, conform them in large measure to 

 the requirements of courtesy. The priest, however arrogant, fulfills 

 the usages of civility ; and the officer of the law performs his duty 

 subject to certain propitiatory words and movements. 



Yet another indication of primordialism may be named. This 

 species of control establishes itself anew with every fresh relation 

 among individuals. Even between intimates those greetings which 

 are requisite to signify continuance of respect, precede each renewal 

 of intercourse. Though their particular form may be settled by 

 custom, such greetings are in substance direct results of the desire 

 not to offend. And in presence of a stranger, say in a railway-car- 

 riage, a certain self-restraint, joined with some such act as the offer 

 of a newspaper, shows the spontaneous' rise of a propitiatory behavior 

 such as even the rudest of mankind are not without. 



So that the modified forms of action produced in men by the 

 presence of their fellows, and which are seen alike in the otherwise- 

 uncontrolled members of the lowest social groups and in the other- 

 wise-controlled members of the highest social groups, constitute that 

 comparatively vague control out of which other more definite controls 

 are evolved the primitive undifferentiated kind of government from 

 which the political and religious governments are differentiated, and 

 within which they ever continue immersed. 



This proposition looks strange mainly because, when studying 

 less-advanced societies, we carry with us our developed conceptions of 

 law and religion. Swayed by them, we fail to perceive that what we 

 think the essential parts of sacred and secular regulations were ori- 

 ginally subordinate parts, and that the essential parts consisted of 

 ceremonial observances. 



It is clear, a priori, that this must be so if social phenomena are 

 evolved. A political organization or a settled cult cannot suddenly 

 come into existence, but implies preestablished subordination. Before 

 there are laws, there must be submission to some potentate enacting 

 and enforcing them. Before religious obligations are recognized, 

 there must be acknowledged one or more supernatural powers. Evi- 

 dently, then, the behavior expressing obedience to a ruler, visible or 

 invisible, must precede in time the civil or religious restraints he im- 

 poses. And this inferable precedence of ceremonial government is a 

 precedence we everywhere find. 



How in the political sphere fulfillment of forms signifying subor- 

 dination is the primary thing, early European history shows us. Dur- 

 ing times when the question, who should be master, was in course of 



