As not much reliance can be placed upon human integrity, the principle that it is more essential to arouse fear than to invite confidence would not, perhaps, be a false one, if we were living in a state of nature, where every man would have to protect himself and directly maintain his own rights.  But in civilized life, where the State undertakes the protection of our person and property, the principle is no longer applicable:  it stands, like the castles and watch-towers of the age when might was right, a useless and forlorn object, amidst well-tilled fields and frequented roads, or even railways.

Accordingly, the application of knightly honor, which still recognizes this principle, is confined to those small cases of personal assault which meet with but slight punishment at the hands of the law, or even none at all, for de minimis non,—­mere trivial wrongs, committed sometimes only in jest.  The consequence of this limited application of the principle is that it has forced itself into an exaggerated respect for the value of the person,—­a respect utterly alien to the nature, constitution or destiny of man—­which it has elated into a species of sanctity:  and as it considers that the State has imposed a very insufficient penalty on the commission of such trivial injuries, it takes upon itself to punish them by attacking the aggressor in life or limb.  The whole thing manifestly rests upon an excessive degree of arrogant pride, which, completely forgetting what man really is, claims that he shall be absolutely free from all attack or even censure.  Those who determine to carry out this principle by main force, and announce, as their rule of action, whoever insults or strikes me shall die! ought for their pains to be banished the country.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Knightly honor is the child of pride and folly, and it is needy not pride, which is the heritage of the human race.  It is a very remarkable fact that this extreme form of pride should be found exclusively amongst the adherents of the religion which teaches the deepest humility.  Still, this pride must not be put down to religion, but, rather, to the feudal system, which made every nobleman a petty sovereign who recognized no human judge, and learned to regard his person as sacred and inviolable, and any attack upon it, or any blow or insulting word, as an offence punishable with death.  The principle of knightly honor and of the duel were at first confined to the nobles, and, later on, also to officers in the army, who, enjoying a kind of off-and-on relationship with the upper classes, though they were never incorporated with them, were anxious not to be behind them.  It is true that duels were the product of the old ordeals; but the latter are not the foundation, but rather the consequence and application of the principle of honor:  the man who recognized no human judge appealed to the divine.  Ordeals, however, are not peculiar to Christendom:  they may be found in great force among the Hindoos, especially of ancient times; and there are traces of them even now.]