Thus the general doctrine, that all kinds of government exercised over men were at first one government—that the political, the religious, and the ceremonial forms of control are divergent branches of a general and once indivisible control—begins to look tenable. When, with the above facts fresh in mind, we read that in Eastern traditions Nimrod, among others, figures in all the characters of hero, king, and divinity—when we turn to the sculptures exhumed by Mr. Layard, and contemplating in them the effigies of kings driving over enemies, and adored by prostrate slaves, then observe how their actions correspond to the primitive names for gods, “the strong,” “the destroyer,” “the powerful one”—and when, lastly, we discover that among races of men still living, there are current {23} superstitions analogous to those which old records and old buildings indicate; we begin to realize the probability of the hypothesis that has been set forth. Representing to ourselves the conquering chief as figured in ancient myths, and poems, and ruins; we may see that all rules of conduct spring from his will. Alike legislator and judge, quarrels among his subjects are decided by him; and his words become the Law. Awe of him is the incipient Religion; and his maxims furnish his first precepts. Submission is made to him in the forms he prescribes; and these give birth to Manners. From the first, time developes political allegiance and the administration of justice; from the second, the worship of a being whose personality becomes ever more vague, and the inculcation of precepts ever more abstract; from the third, forms and names of honour and the rules of etiquette. In conformity with the law of evolution of all organized bodies, that general functions are gradually separated into the special functions constituting them, there have grown up in the social organism for the better performance of the governmental office, an apparatus of law-courts, judges, and barristers; a national church, with its bishops and priests; and a system of caste, titles, and ceremonies, administered by society at large. By the first, overt aggressions are cognized and punished; by the second, the disposition to commit such aggressions is in some degree checked; by the third, those minor breaches of good conduct which the others do not notice, are denounced and chastised. Law and Religion control behaviour in its essentials; Manners control it in its details. For regulating those daily actions which are too numerous and too unimportant to be officially directed there comes into play this subtler set of restraints. And when we consider what these restraints are—when we analyze the words, and phrases, and movements employed, we see that in origin as in effect, the system is a setting up of temporary {24} governments between all men who come in contact, for the purpose of better managing the intercourse between them.
From the proposition, that these several kinds of government are essentially one, both in genesis and function, may be deduced several important corollaries, directly bearing on our special topic.
Let us first notice, that there is not only a common origin and office for all forms of rule, but a common necessity for them. The aboriginal man, coming fresh from the killing of bears and from lying in ambush for his enemy, has, by the necessities of his condition, a nature requiring to be curbed in its every impulse. Alike in war and in the chase, his daily discipline has been that of sacrificing other creatures to his own needs and passions. His character, bequeathed to him by ancestors who led similar lives, is moulded by this discipline—is fitted to this existence. The unlimited selfishness, the love of inflicting pain, the blood-thirstiness, thus kept active, he brings with him into the social state. These dispositions put him in constant danger of conflict with his equally savage neighbour. In small things as in great, in words as in deeds, he is aggressive; and is hourly liable to the aggressions of others like natured. Only, therefore, by rigorous control exercised over all actions, can the primitive unions of men be maintained. There must be a ruler strong, remorseless, and of indomitable will; there must be a creed terrible in its threats to the disobedient; there must be servile submission of inferiors to superiors. The law must be cruel; the religion must be stern; the ceremonies must be strict. The co-ordinate necessity for these several kinds of restraint might be largely illustrated from history were there space. Suffice it to point out that where the civil power has been weak, the multiplication of thieves, assassins, and banditti, has indicated the approach of social dissolution; that when, {25} from the corruptness of its ministry, religion has lost its influence, as it did just before the Flagellants appeared, the State has been endangered; and that the disregard of established social observances has ever been an accompaniment of political revolutions. Whoever doubts the necessity for a government of manners proportionate in strength to the co-existing political and religious governments, will be convinced on calling to mind that until recently even elaborate codes of behaviour failed to keep gentlemen from quarrelling in the streets and fighting duels in taverns; and on remembering that even now people exhibit at the doors of a theatre, where there is no ceremonial law to rule them, an aggressiveness which would produce confusion if carried into social intercourse.
As might be expected, we find that, having a common origin and like general functions, these several controlling agencies act during each era with similar degrees of vigour. Under the Chinese despotism, stringent and multitudinous in its edicts and harsh in the enforcement of them, and associated with which there is an equally stern domestic despotism exercised by the eldest surviving male of the family, there exists a system of observances alike complicated and rigid. There is a tribunal of ceremonies. Previous to presentation at court, ambassadors pass many days in practising the required forms. Social intercourse is cumbered by endless compliments and obeisances. Class distinctions are strongly marked by badges. And if there wants a definite measure of the respect paid to social ordinances, we have it in the torture to which ladies submit in having their feet crushed. In India, and indeed throughout the East, there exists a like connexion between the pitiless tyranny of rulers, the dread terrors of immemorial creeds, and the rigid restraint of unchangeable customs. Caste regulations continue still unalterable; the fashions of clothes and furniture have remained the same for ages; suttees are so ancient as to be mentioned by Strabo and {26} Diodorus Siculus; justice is still administered at the palace-gates as of old; in short, “every usage is a precept of religion and a maxim of jurisprudence.” A similar relationship of phenomena was exhibited in Europe during the Middle Ages. While its governments, general and local, were despotic, while the Church was unshorn of its power, while the criminal code was full of horrors and the hell of the popular creed full of terrors, the rules of behaviour were both more numerous and more carefully conformed to than now. Differences of dress marked divisions of rank. Men were limited by law to certain widths of shoe-toes; and no one below a specified degree might wear a cloak less than so many inches long. The symbols on banners and shields were carefully attended to. Heraldry was an important branch of knowledge. Precedence was strictly insisted on. And those various salutes of which we now use the abridgments, were gone through in full. Even during our own last century, with its corrupt House of Commons and little-curbed monarchs, we may mark a correspondence of social formalities. Gentlemen were still distinguished from lower classes by dress; and children addressed their parents as Sir and Madam.
A further corollary naturally following this last, and almost, indeed, forming part of it, is, that these several kinds of government decrease in stringency at the same rate. Simultaneously with the decline in the influence of priesthoods, and in the fear of eternal torments—simultaneously with the mitigation of political tyranny, the growth of popular power, and the amelioration of criminal codes; has taken place that diminution of formalities and that fading of distinctive marks, now so observable. Looking at home, we may note that there is less attention to precedence than there used to be. No one in our day ends an interview with the phrase “your humble servant.” The employment of the word Sir, once general in social intercourse, is at present considered bad breeding; and on the occasions {27} calling for them, it is held vulgar to use the words “Your Majesty,” or “Your Royal Highness,” more than once in a conversation. People no longer formally drink one another’s healths; and even the taking wine with one another at dinner has ceased to be fashionable. It is remarked of us by foreigners, that we take off our hats less than any other nation in Europe—a remark which should be coupled with the other, that we are the freest nation in Europe. As already implied, this association of facts is not accidental. These modes of address and titles and obeisances, bearing about them, as they all do, something of that servility which marks their origin, become distasteful in proportion as men become more independent themselves, and sympathize more with the independence of others. The feeling which makes the modern gentleman tell the labourer standing bareheaded before him to put on his hat—the feeling which gives us a dislike to those who cringe and fawn—the feeling which makes us alike assert our own dignity and respect that of others—the feeling which thus leads us more and more to discountenance forms and names which confess inferiority and submission; is the same feeling which resists despotic power and inaugurates popular government, denies the authority of the Church and establishes the right of private judgment.
A fourth fact, akin to the foregoing, is, that with decreasing coerciveness in these several kinds of government, their respective forms lose their meanings. The same process which has made our monarch put forth as his own acts what are the acts of ministers approved by the people, and has thus changed him from master into agent—the same process which, making attendance at church very much a matter of respectability, has done away with the telling of beads, the calling on saints, and the performance of penances; is a process by which titles and ceremonies that once had a meaning and a power have been reduced to empty forms. Coats of arms which served to distinguish {28} men in battle, now figure on the carriage panels of retired merchants. Once a badge of high military rank, the shoulder-knot has become, on the modern footman, a mark of servitude. The name Banneret, which originally marked a partially-created Baron—a Baron who had passed his military “little go”—is now, under the modification of Baronet, applicable to any one favoured by wealth or interest or party feeling. Knighthood has so far ceased to be an honour, that men honour themselves by declining it. The military dignity Escuyer has, in the modern Esquire, become a wholly unmilitary affix.
But perhaps it is in that class of social observances comprehended under the term Fashion (which we must here discuss parenthetically) that this process is seen with the greatest distinctness. As contrasted with Manners, which dictate our minor acts in relation to other persons, Fashion dictates our minor acts in relation to ourselves. While the one prescribes that part of our deportment which directly affects our neighbours; the other prescribes that part of our deportment which is primarily personal, and in which our neighbours are concerned only as spectators. Thus distinguished as they are, however, the two have a common source. For while, as we have shown, Manners originate by imitation of the behaviour pursued towards the great; Fashion originates by imitation of the behaviour of the great. While the one has its derivation in the titles, phrases, and salutes used to those in power; the other is derived from the habits and appearances exhibited by those in power. The Carrib mother who squeezes her child’s head into a shape like that of the chief; the young savage who makes marks on himself similar to the scars carried by the warriors of his tribe; the Highlander who adopts the plaid worn by the head of his clan; the courtiers who affect greyness, or limp, or cover their necks, in imitation of their king, and the people who ape the courtiers; are alike acting under a kind of government connate with that of Manners, {29} and, like it too, primarily beneficial. For notwithstanding the numberless absurdities into which this copying has led people, from nose-rings to ear-rings, from painted faces to beauty-spots, from shaven heads to powdered wigs, from filed teeth and stained nails to bell-girdles, peaked shoes, and breeches stuffed with bran, it must yet be concluded that as the men of will, intelligence, and originality, who have got to the top, are, on the average, more likely to show judgment in their habits and tastes than the mass, the imitation of such is advantageous. By and by, however, Fashion, decaying like these other forms of rule, almost wholly ceases to be an imitation of the best, and becomes an imitation of quite other than the best. As those who take orders are not those having a special fitness for the priestly office, but those who hope to get livings; as legislators and public functionaries do not become such by virtue of their political insight and power to rule, but by virtue of birth, acreage, and class influence; so, the self-elected clique who set the fashion, do this, not by force of nature, by intellect, by higher worth or better taste, but solely by unchecked assumption. Among the initiated are to be found neither the noblest in rank, the chief in power, the best cultured, the most refined, nor those of greatest genius, wit, or beauty; and their reunions, so far from being superior to others, are noted for their inanity. Yet, by the example of these sham great, and not by that of the truly great, does society at large now regulate its habits, its dress, its small usages. As a natural consequence, these have generally little of that suitableness which the theory of fashion implies they should have. Instead of a progress towards greater elegance and convenience, which might be expected to occur did people copy the ways of the really best, or follow their own ideas of propriety, we have a reign of mere whim, of unreason, of change for the sake of change, of wanton oscillations from either extreme to the other. And so life à la mode, instead of being life conducted in the {30} most rational manner, is life regulated by spendthrifts and idlers, milliners and tailors, dandies and silly women.
To these several corollaries—that the various orders of control exercised over men have a common origin and a common function, are called out by co-ordinate necessities and co-exist in like stringency, decline together and decay together—it now only remains to add that they simultaneously become less needful. The social discipline which has already wrought out great changes in men, must go on eventually to work out greater ones. That daily curbing of the lower nature and culture of the higher, which out of cannibals and devil-worshippers has evolved philanthropists, lovers of peace, and haters of superstition, may be expected to evolve out of these, men as much superior to them as they are to their progenitors. The causes that have produced past modifications are still in action; must continue in action as long as there exists any incongruity between men’s desires and the requirements of the social state; and must eventually make them organically fit for the social state. As it is now needless to forbid man-eating, so will it ultimately become needless to forbid murder, theft, and the minor offences of our criminal code. Along with growth of human nature into harmony with the moral law, there will go decreasing need for judges and statute-books; when the right course has become the course spontaneously chosen, prospects of future reward or punishment will not be wanted as incentives; and when due regard for others has become instinctive, there will need no code of ceremonies to say how behaviour shall be regulated.
Thus, then, may be recognized the meaning of those eccentricities of reformers which we set out by describing. They are not accidental; they are not mere personal caprices. They are inevitable results of the law of relationship above illustrated. That community of genesis, function, {31} and decay which all forms of restraint exhibit, is simply the obverse of the fact at first pointed out, that they have in two sentiments of human nature a common preserver and a common destroyer. Awe of power originates and cherishes them all; love of freedom undermines and weakens them all. The one defends despotism and asserts the supremacy of laws, adheres to old creeds and supports ecclesiastical authority, pays respect to titles and conserves forms; the other, putting rectitude above legality, achieves periodical instalments of political liberty, inaugurates Protestantism and works out its consequences, ignores the senseless dictates of Fashion and emancipates men from dead customs. To the true reformer no institution is sacred, no belief above criticism. Everything shall conform itself to equity and reason; nothing shall be saved by its prestige. Conceding to each man liberty to pursue his own ends and satisfy his own tastes, he demands for himself like liberty; and consents to no restrictions on this, save those which other men’s equal claims involve. No matter whether it be an ordinance of one man, or an ordinance of all men, if it trenches on his legitimate sphere of action, he denies its validity. The tyranny that would impose on him a particular style of dress and a set mode of behaviour, he resists equally with the tyranny that would limit his buyings and sellings, or dictate his creed. Whether the regulation be formally made by a legislature, or informally made by society at large—whether the penalty for disobedience be imprisonment, or frowns and social ostracism, he sees to be a question of no moment. He will utter his belief notwithstanding the threatened punishment; he will break conventions spite of the petty persecutions that will be visited on him. Show him that his actions are inimical to his fellow-men, and he will pause. Prove that he is disregarding their legitimate claims, and he will alter his course. But until you do this—until you demonstrate that his proceedings are essentially inconvenient or {32} inelegant, essentially irrational, unjust, or ungenerous, he will persevere.
Some, indeed, argue that his conduct is unjust and ungenerous. They say that he has no right to annoy other people by his whims; that the gentleman to whom his letter comes with no “Esq.” appended to the address, and the lady whose evening party he enters with gloveless hands, are vexed at what they consider his want of respect or want of breeding; that thus his eccentricities cannot be indulged save at the expense of his neighbours’ feelings; and that hence his nonconformity is in plain terms selfishness.