t up
wider political rule with its peremptory commands; but there is
habitually this more general and vague regulation of conduct preceding
the more special and definite. So within a community acts of relatively
stringent control coming from ruling agencies, civil and religious,
begin with and are qualified by this ceremonial control which not only
initiates but in a sense envelops all other. Functionaries,
ecclesiastical and political, coercive as their proceedings may be,
conform them in large measure to the requirements of courtesy. The
priest, however arrogant his assumption, makes a civil salute; and the
officer of the law performs his duty subject to certain propitiatory
words and movements.

Yet another indication of primordialism may be named. This species of
control establishes itself anew with every fresh relation among
individuals. Even between intimates greetings signifying continuance of
respect begin each renewal of intercourse. And in the presence of a
stranger, say in a railway carriage, a certain self-restraint, joined
with some small act like the offer of a newspaper, shows the spontaneous
rise of a propitiatory behavior such as even the rudest of mankind are
not without. So that the modified forms of action caused in men by the
presence of their fellows constitute that comparatively vague control
out of which other more definite controls are evolved--the primitive
undifferentiated kind of government from which the political and
religious governments are differentiated, and in which they ever
continue immersed.

3. Prestige[263]

Originally _prestige_--here, too, etymology proves to be an _enfant
terrible_--means delusion. It is derived from the Latin _praestigiae_
(_-arum_)--though it is found in the forms _praestigia_ (_-ae_) and
_praestigium_ (_-ii_) too: the juggler himself (dice-player,
rope-walker, "strong man," etc.) was called _praestigiator_ (_-oris_).
Latin authors and mediaeval writers of glossaries took the word to mean
"deceptive juggling tricks," and, as far as we know, did not use it in
its present signification. The _praestigiator_ threw dice or put coins
on a table, then passed them into a small vessel or box, moved the
latter about quickly and adroitly, till finally, when you thought they
were in a certain place, the coins turned up somewhere else: "The
looker-on is deceived by such innocent tricks, being often inclined to
presume the sleight of hand to be nothing more or less t