i S o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Here we come incidentally upon a further abridgment of the origi- 

 nal prostration ; whence results one of the most widely-spread obei- 

 sances. As from the entirely prone posture we pass to the posture of 

 the Mohammedan worshiper wdth forehead on the ground, so from 

 this we pass to the posture on all-fours, and from this, by raising the 

 body, to simple kneeling. That kneeling is, and has been in countless 

 places and times, a form of political homage, a form of domestic hom- 

 age, and a form of religious homage, needs no showing. We will note 

 only that it is, and has been everywhere, associated with coercive gov- 

 ernment ; as in Africa, where " by thus constantly practising genu- 

 flection upon the hard ground, their " (the Dahomas') " knees in time 

 become almost as hard as their heels ; " as in Japan, where "on leaving 

 the presence of the emperor, officers walk backward on their knees ; " 

 as in China, where " the viceroy's children .... as they passed by 

 their father's tent, fell on their knees and bowed three times, with 

 their faces toward the ground;" and as in mediaeval Europe, where 

 serfs knelt to their masters, feudal vassals to their suzerains, and, in 

 1444, the Duchess Isabella de Bourbon, visiting the queen, went on her 

 knees thrice during her approach. 



Not dwelling on the transition from daecent on both knees to de- 

 scent on one knee, which, less abject, comes a stage nearer the erect 

 attitude, it will suffice to note the transition from kneeling on one knee 

 to bending the knee. That this form of obeisance is an abridgment 

 is well shown us by the Japanese : 



" On meeting, they show respect by bending the knee ; and when they wish 

 to do unusual honor to an individual they place themselves on tbe knee and 

 bow down to the ground. But this is never done in the streets, where they 

 merely make a motion as if they were going to kneel. When they salute a 

 person of rank, they bend the knee in such a manner as to touch the ground 

 witb their fingers." 



We are shown the same thing equally well, or better, in China, where, 

 among the specified gradations of obeisance, the third is defined as 

 bending the knee, and the fourth as actually kneeling. Without accu- 

 mulating evidence it will be manifest that what still survives among 

 ourselves as the courtesy with the one sex, and what until recently sur- 

 vived with the other sex as the scrape (made by a backward sweep of 

 the right foot), are both of them vanishing forms of the going down on 

 one knee. 



There remains only the accompanying bend of the body. This, 

 while on the one hand the first motion passed through in making a 

 complete prostration, is, on the other hand, the last motion that sur- 

 vives as the prostration becomes stage by stage abridged. In various 

 places we meet indications of this transition. " Among the Soosoos, 

 even the wives of a great man, when speaking to him, bend their bod- 

 ies, and place one hand upon each knee ; this is done also when pass- 



