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 834 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

removed, those multitudes fall into confusion." 1 "For securing the repose of superiors and the good order of the people, there is nothing better than the Rules of Propriety. The Rules of Propriety are simply the development of the principle of rever- ence." a " The sages knew that the rules of ceremony could not be dispensed with, while the ruin of states, the destruction of families, and the perishing of individuals are always preceded by the abandonment of the Rules of Propriety." 3

"Therefore the sage kings cultivated and fashioned the lever of righteousness and the ordering of ceremonial usages, in order to regulate the feelings of men. These feelings were the field to be cultivated by the sage kings. They fashioned the rules of ceremony to plow it. They set forth the principles of righteous- ness with which to plant it." 4

We find men beginning with no ceremonious forms in per- sonal intercourse, then developing them into a luxuriance so great as almost to smother social life, and finally allowing them to lapse almost to disappearance. Is this but the shadow of that personal ascendency, which, starting at zero, rose to its zenith in the military state, and now sinks again towards zero? Or does this crescendo and diminuendo not indicate rather that society finding cermony efficacious used it in controlling men in their dealings .with one another until the coming to hand of new and finer modes of control enabled it increasingly to dispense with an instrument so clumsy ? Even Mr. Spencer confesses that "established observances have the function of educating, in respect of its' minor actions, the anti-social nature into a form fitted for social life." 5

This interpretation accords with numerous facts. Prescribed forms are not used in the family or between intimates, where affection insures self-restraint. But as distance increases the sway of formality grows, till it reaches its climax in the inter-

1 Sacred Books of the East, Li Ki, bk. viii, i.

2 Hsaio King, chap, xii in Vol. Ill, Sacred Books of the East.

3 Li Ki, bk. vii, iv, par. 6. * Ibid., par. 8.

5 Ceremonial Institutions, 431.