Slander is the only weapon by which honor can be attacked from without; and the only way to repel the attack is to confute the slander with the proper amount of publicity, and a due unmasking of him who utters it.

The reason why respect is paid to age is that old people have necessarily shown in the course of their lives whether or not they have been able to maintain their honor unblemished; while that of young people has not been put to the proof, though they are credited with the possession of it.  For neither length of years,—­equalled, as it is, and even excelled, in the case of the lower animals,—­nor, again, experience, which is only a closer knowledge of the world’s ways, can be any sufficient reason for the respect which the young are everywhere required to show towards the old:  for if it were merely a matter of years, the weakness which attends on age would call rather for consideration than for respect.  It is, however, a remarkable fact that white hair always commands reverence—­a reverence really innate and instinctive.  Wrinkles—­a much surer sign of old age—­command no reverence at all; you never hear any one speak of venerable wrinkles; but venerable white hair is a common expression.

Honor has only an indirect value.  For, as I explained at the beginning of this chapter, what other people think of us, if it affects us at all, can affect us only in so far as it governs their behavior towards us, and only just so long as we live with, or have to do with, them.  But it is to society alone that we owe that safety which we and our possessions enjoy in a state of civilization; in all we do we need the help of others, and they, in their turn, must have confidence in us before they can have anything to do with us.  Accordingly, their opinion of us is, indirectly, a matter of great importance; though I cannot see how it can have a direct or immediate value.  This is an opinion also held by Cicero.  I quite agree, he writes, with what Chrysippus and Diogenes used to say, that a good reputation is not worth raising a finger to obtain, if it were not that it is so useful.[1] This truth has been insisted upon at great length by Helvetius in his chief work De l’Esprit,[2] the conclusion of which is that we love esteem not for its own sake, but solely for the advantages which it brings.  And as the means can never be more than the end, that saying, of which so much is made, Honor is dearer than life itself, is, as I have remarked, a very exaggerated statement.  So much then, for civic honor.

[Footnote 1:  De finilus iii., 17.]

[Footnote 2:  Disc:  iii. 17.]