81: MANNERS AND FASHION. 



Going buck, in imagination, to the remote era when 

 men s theories of things were yet unformed ; and conceiv 

 ing to ourselves the conquering chief as dimly figured in 

 ancient myths, and poems, and ruins ; we may see that alt 

 rules of conduct whatever spring from his will. Alike 

 legislator and judge, all quarrels among his subjects arc 



decided bv him ; and his words become the Law. Awe of 



... . . * 



him is the incipient Religion ; and his maxims furnish its 



first precepts. Submission is made to him in the forms 

 he prescribes ; and these give birth to Manners. From 

 the first, time developes political allegiance and the ad 

 ministration of justice ; from the second, the worship 

 of a being whoso personality becomes ever more vague, 

 and the inculcation of precepts ever more abstract ; 

 from the third, forms of honour and the rules of eti 

 quette. 



In conformity with the la\v of evolution of all organ 

 ized bodies, that general functions are gradually separated 

 into the special functions constituting them, there have 

 grown up in the social organism for the better performance 

 of the governmental office, an apparatus of law-courts, 

 judges, and barristers; a national church, with its bishops 

 and priests ; and a system of caste, titles, and ceremonies, 

 administered by society at large. ]*&amp;gt;y the first, overt 

 aggressions arc cogni/.ed and punished ; by the second, 

 the disposition to commit such aggressions is in some 

 degree checked ; by the third, those minor breaches of 

 good conduct, which the others do not notice, are de 

 nounced and chastised. Law and Religion control be 

 haviour in its essentials : Manners control it in its details. 

 For regulating those daily actions which arc too nu 

 merous and too unimportant to be officially directed, 

 there comes into play this subtler set of restraints. And 

 when we consider what these restraints are when wo 

 analyze the words, and phrases, and salutes employed 



