CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



tween the more militant nations of Europe and the less mili 

 tant, kindred differences are traceable. On the Continent 

 obeisances are fuller, and more studiously attended to, than 

 they are here. Even from within our own society evidence 

 is forthcoming; for by the upper classes, forming that regu 

 lative part of the social structure which here, as everywhere, 

 has been developed by militancy, there is not only at Court, 

 but in private intercourse, greater attention paid to these 

 forms than by the classes forming the industrial structures. 

 And I may add the significant fact that, in the distinctively 

 militant parts of our society the army and navy not only 

 is there a more strict performance of prescribed obeisances 

 than in any other of its parts, but, further, that in one of 

 them, specially characterized by the absolutism of its chief 

 officers, there survives a usage analogous to usages in barbar 

 ous societies. In Burmah, it is requisite to make &quot; prostra 

 tions in advancing to the palace; &quot; the Dahomans prostrate 

 themselves in front of the palace gate; in Fiji, stooping is 

 enjoined as &quot; a mark of respect to a chief or his premises, 

 or a chief s settlement; &quot; and on going on board a British 

 man-of-war, it is the custom to take off the hat to the quar 

 ter-deck. 



Xor are we without kindred contrasts among the obei 

 sances made to the supernatural being, whether spirit or 

 deity. The wearing sackcloth to propitiate the ghost, as 

 now in China and as of old among the Hebrews, the partial 

 baring of the body and putting dust on the head, still 

 occurring in the East as funeral rites, are not found in ad 

 vanced societies having types of structure more profoundly 

 modified by industrialism. Among ourselves, most charac 

 terized by the extent of this change, obeisances to the dead 

 have wholly disappeared, save in the uncovering at the 

 grave. Similarly with the obeisances used in wor 



ship. The baring of the feet when approaching a temple, 

 as in ancient Peru, and the removal of the shoes on enter 

 ing it, as in the East, arc acts finding no parallels here on 



