Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/423

Rh political and religious governments do little more than maintain systems of ceremony, directed toward particular persons living and dead: the codes of law enforced by the one, and the moral codes enunciated by the other, come later. There is, again, the evidence derived from the possession of certain elements in common by the three controls, social, political, and religious; for the forms observable in social intercourse occur also in the political and religious intercourse as forms of homage and forms of worship. More significant still is the circumstance that ceremonies may mostly be traced back to certain spontaneous acts which manifestly precede legislation, civil and ecclesiastical. Instead of arising by dictation or by agreement, which would imply the preestablished organization required for making and enforcing rules, they arise by modifications of acts performed for personal ends; and so prove themselves to grow out of individual conduct before social arrangements exist to control it. Lastly, we note that when there arises a political head, who, demanding subordination, is at first his own master of the ceremonies, and who presently collects round him subservient attendants performing propitiatory acts, which by repetition are made definite and fixed, there arise ceremonial officials. Though, along with the growth of organizations which enforce civil laws and enunciate moral precepts, there has been such a decay of the ceremonial organization as to render it among ourselves inconspicuous; yet in early stages the body of officials who conduct propitiation of living rulers, supreme and subordinate, homologous with the body of officials who conduct propitiation of dead apotheosized rulers, major and minor, is a considerable element of the social structure; and it dwindles only as fast as the structures, political and ecclesiastical, which exercise controls more definite and detailed, usurp its functions.

Carrying with us these general conceptions, let us now pass to the several components of ceremonial rule. We will deal with them under the heads—Trophies, Mutilations, Presents, Obeisances, Forms of Address, Titles, Badges and Costumes, Further Class Distinctions, Fashion, Past and Future of Ceremony.



GEYSER may be defined as a periodically eruptive spring. They are found only in Iceland, in the Yellowstone Park, United States, and in New Zealand. The so-called geysers of California are rather fumaroles. Those of Iceland have been long studied; we will, therefore, describe these first.