CEREMONIAL GOVERNMENT. 393 



These indications of a general truth, which will be abundantly ex- 

 emplified when treating of each kind of ceremonial observance, I 

 here give in brief, as further showing that the control of ceremony 

 precedes in order of evolution the civil and religious controls, and has 

 therefore to be first dealt with. 



On passing from the most general to the less general aspects of 

 ceremonial government, we are met by the question, " How do there 

 arise those modifications of behavior which constitute it ? " Common- 

 ly it is assumed that they are consciously fixed upon as symbolizing 

 reverence or respect. In pursuance of the usual method of speculat- 

 ing about primitive practices, developed ideas are read back into unde- 

 veloped minds. The supposition is of the same kind as that which 

 o-ave origin to the social-contract theory : a kind of conception that 

 has become familiar to the civilized man is supposed to have been 

 familiar to man in his earliest state. But, just as little basis as there 

 is for the belief that primitive men deliberately made social contracts, 

 is there for the belief that primitive men deliberately adopted symbols. 

 The current error is best seen on turning to the most developed kind 

 of symbolization that of language. The savage does not sit down 

 and knowingly coin a word ; but the words which he finds in use, and 

 the new ones which come into use during his life, grow up unawares 

 by onomatopoea, or by vocal suggestions of qualities, or by metaphor 

 which some observable likeness suggests. Among civilized peoples, 

 however, who have learned that words are symbolic, new words are 

 frequently chosen to symbolize new ideas. So, too, is it with written 

 language. The early Egyptian never thought of choosing a sign to 

 represent a sound, but his records began, as those of North American 

 Indians begin now, with rude pictures of the transactions to be kept 

 in memory; and, as the process of recording extended, the pictures, 

 abbreviated and generalized, lost more and more their likenesses to 

 objects and acts, until, under stress of the need for expressing proper 

 names, some of them were used phonetically, and signs of sounds 

 came unawares into existence. But, in our days, there has been 

 reached a stage at which, as short-haud shows us, special signs are 

 consciously chosen to symbolize special sounds. The lesson taught is 

 obvious. Just as it would be an error to conclude that, because we 

 knowingly choose sounds to symbolize ideas, and marks to symbolize 

 sounds, the like was originally done by savages and by barbarians ; 

 so is it an error to conclude that, because among the civilized, certain 

 ceremonies (say those of freemasons) are arbitrarily fixed upon, so 

 ceremonies were arbitrarily fixed upon by the uncivilized. Already, in 

 indicating the primitiveness of ceremonial control, I have named some 

 modes of behavior expressing subordination which have a natural 

 genesis ; and here the implication to which I would draw attention 

 is that, until we have found a natural genesis for a ceremony, we may 



