CHAPTEE X. 



FUKTHER CLASS-DISTINCTIONS. 



41 G. Foregoing chapters have shown how, from 

 primitive usages of the ceremonial kind, there are derived 

 usages which, in course of time, lose the more obvious traces 

 of their origin. There remain to be pointed out groups of 

 secondarily-derived usages still more divergent. 



In battle, it is important to get the force of gravity to 

 fight on your side; and hence the anxiety to seize a position 

 above that of the foe. Conversely, the combatant who is 

 thrown down, cannot further resist without struggling 

 against his own weight, as well as against his antagonist s 

 strength. Hence, being below is so habitually associated 

 with defeat, as to have made maintenance of this relation 

 (literally expressed by the words superior and inferior) a 

 leading element in ceremony at large. The idea of relative 

 elevation as distinguishing the positions of rulers from those 

 of ruled, runs through our language; as when we speak of 

 higher and lower classes, upper and under servants, and call 

 officers of minor rank subordinates or subalterns. Every 

 where this idea enters into social observances. That ten 

 dency to connect the higher level with honour ableness, 

 which among ourselves in old times was shown by reserving 

 the dais for those of rank and leaving the body of the hall 

 for common people, produces in the East, where ceremonial 

 is so greatly developed, various rigid regulations. Writing 

 of Lombock, Wallace says 



198 



