"Take rightness as the substance and carry it out through ritual" comes from the Weilinggong chapter of the Analects and is a saying of Confucius, treating ritual as the form in which the right way is put into practice. Rightness is the root, and ritual is the means of carrying it out.
The rites are said to have taken shape much earlier. In the early Western Zhou, the Duke of Zhou is said to have framed ritual and music, and the rites of lineage, sacrifice and court audience took shape.
The books of the rites were put in order in the Western Han. Dai De and Dai Sheng arranged the Book of Rites, which together with the Etiquette and Ceremonial became the classics of later study of the rites.
On this view, ritual comes down into everyday conduct, and through self-restraint and return to the rites it brings the order of elders above juniors into ordinary life.
Rituals is the class in the chapter on Values on how inner virtue is carried into outward norms and ceremony. The phrase comes from the Analects, "take rightness as the substance and carry it out through ritual", meaning that rightness is the root and ritual the way to practise it. The class concerns how the rites took shape, and how through everyday conduct they brought the order of elders above juniors into ordinary life.
