214 CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



sistance to the adoption by them of usages originally forbid 

 den to all but the high born. The restraints in earlier times 

 enacted and re-enacted by sumptuary laws, have been grad 

 ually relaxed; until the imitation of superiors by inferiors, 

 spreading continually downwards, has ceased to be checked 

 by anything more than sarcasm and ridicule. 



426. Entangled and confused with one another as 

 Ceremonial and Fashion are, they have thus different ori 

 gins and meanings: the first being proper to the regime of 

 compulsory co-operation, and the last being proper to the 

 regime of voluntary co-operation. Clearly there is an es 

 sential distinction, and, indeed, an opposition in nature, 

 between behaviour required by subordination to the great 

 and behaviour resulting from imitation of the great. 



It is true that the regulations of conduct here distin 

 guished, are ordinarily fused into one aggregate of social 

 regulations. It is true that certain ceremonial forms come 

 to be fulfilled as parts of the prevailing fashion; and that 

 certain elements of fashion, as for instance the order of 

 courses at a dinner, come to be thought of as elements of 

 ceremonial. And it is true that both are now enforced by 

 an unembodied opinion which appears to be the same for 

 each. But, as we have seen above, this is an illusion. 

 Though when, in our day, a wealthy quaker, refusing to 

 wear the dress Avorn by those of like means, refuses also to 

 take off his hat to a superior, we commonly regard these 

 nonconformities as the same in nature; we are shown that 

 they are not, if we go back to the days when the salute to the 

 superior w r as insisted on under penalty, while the imitation 

 of the superior s dress, so far from being insisted on, was 

 forbidden. Two different authorities are defied by his 

 acts the authority of class-rule, which once dictated such 

 obeisances; and the authority of social opinion, which 

 thinks nonconformities in dress imply inferior status. 



So that, strange to say, Fashion, as distinguished from 



