Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/849

 SOCIAL CONTROL 833

ting them, and the effort of the self-respecting to control others by impressing them. These, if successful, inspire graciousness in the one case and deference in the other.

Undoubtedly the forms that become stereotyped are those originally used to propitiate. But it would be rash to conclude that ceremony is an endeavor at mutual propitiation. Nothing is more certain than that manners, far from growing up spon- taneously, early get the social sanction behind them and are forced into vogue. Propriety gets codified as soon as morality. Society, far from letting alone, actively interferes in order to get certain forms observed by men in their intercourse. Chil- dren are taught them, art lauds them, religion endorses them, and in every way society behaves as if its interests were bound up with them.

Would it be safe to infer that society is concerned in prop- agating a system of mutual propitiation tending to develop graciousness? Manifestly not, for such a sentiment is of little use to it. On the other hand, nothing could more conduce to social order, with its equilibrium of interests and balance of activities, than a respect of each for others. And forms of inter- course that exert a mutual restrain};, and cause each to set a value upon the personality of another, will very likely win the support of society. Of the stiff manners of the Colonials Dr. Eggleston says: "Perhaps it was the partial default of refined feeling that made stately and ceremonious manners seem so proper to the upper class of that day; such usages were a fence by which society protected itself against itself." 1 How well this tallies with the saying of Confucius: "The ceremonial usages serve as dykes to the people against bad excesses to which they are prone."

The society that has relied most on ceremony to preserve order and harmonize men in their dealings is China. Let us see what virtue is found in it by the sages who helped to frame tint wonderful and enduring fabric. "They [ceremonies] arc the bond that holds the multitude together; and if the bond be

' Social Life in the Coloniei," Cfmfury. ;,i.