CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 395 



love-birds indicate an affection which is gratified by the gustatory 

 sensation, cannot well be questioned. No act of this kind on the 

 part of an inferior creature, as of a cow licking her calf, can have any 

 other origin than the direct prompting of a desire which gains by the 

 act satisfaction ; and in such a case the satisfaction is obviously that 

 which vivid perception of offspring gives to the maternal yearning. 

 In some animals like acts arise from other forms of affection. Lick- 

 ing the hand, or, where it is accessible, the face, is a common display 

 of attachment on a dog's part ; and when we remember how keen 

 must be the olfactory sense by which a dog traces his master, we can- 

 not doubt that to his gustatory sense, too, there is yielded some im- 

 pression an impression associated with those pleasures of affection 

 which his master's pi-esence gives. The inference that kissing as a 

 mark of affection in the human race has a kindred origin, is sufficient- 

 ly probable. Though kissing is not universal though the negro 

 races do not appear to understand it, and though, as we have seen, 

 there are cases in which sniffing replaces it yet, being common to 

 unlike and widely-dispersed races, we may conclude that it originated 

 in the same manner as the analogous action among lower creatures. 

 Here, however, we are chiefly concerned to observe the indirect result. 

 From kissing as a natural sign of affection, there is derived the kiss- 

 ing which, as a means of simulating affection, gratifies those who are 

 kissed, and, by gratifying them, propitiates them. Hence an obvious 

 root for the kissing of feet, hands, garments, as a part of ceremonial. 



Feeling, sensational or emotional, causes muscular contractions, 

 which are strong in proportion as it is intense ; and, among other 

 feelings, those of love and liking have an effect of this kind, which 

 takes on its appropriate form. The most significant of the actions 

 hence originating is not mucli displayed by inferior creatures, because 

 their limbs are unfitted for prehension ; but in the human race its 

 natural genesis is sufficiently manifest. Mentioning a mother's em- 

 brace of her child will remind all that the strength of the embrace 

 (unless restrained to prevent mischief) measures the strength of the 

 feeling ; and while reminded that the feeling thus naturally vents 

 itself in muscular actions, they may further see that these actions are 

 directed in such a way as to give satisfaction to the feeling by yield- 

 ing a vivid consciousness of possession. That among adults the allied 

 feelings originate like acts, scarcely needs adding. It is not so much 

 these facts, however, as the derived facts, which we have to take note 

 of. Here is another root for a ceremony : an embrace, too, serving to 

 express liking, serves to propitiate in cases where it is not negatived 

 by those other observances which subjection entails. "We find it 

 where governmental subordination is but little developed. Of some 

 Snake Indians they met, we read in Lewis and Clarke, that "the 

 three men immediately leaped from their horses, came up to Captain 

 Lewis, and embraced him with great cordiality." Marcy tells of 



