and it may easily happen that the head which contains the intelligent view has to be pitted against the noodle which is empty of everything but narrowness and stupidity.  If all this were done away with, intellectual superiority could take the leading place in society which is its due—­a place now occupied, though people do not like to confess it, by excellence of physique, mere fighting pluck, in fact; and the natural effect of such a change would be that the best kind of people would have one reason the less for withdrawing from society.  This would pave the way for the introduction of real courtesy and genuinely good society, such as undoubtedly existed in Athens, Corinth and Rome.  If anyone wants to see a good example of what I mean, I should like him to read Xenophon’s Banquet.

The last argument in defence of knightly honor no doubt is, that, but for its existence, the world—­awful thought!—­would be a regular bear-garden.  To which I may briefly reply that nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand who do not recognize the code, have often given and received a blow without any fatal consequences:  whereas amongst the adherents of the code a blow usually means death to one of the parties.  But let me examine this argument more closely.

I have often tried to find some tenable, or at any rate, plausible basis—­other than a merely conventional one—­some positive reasons, that is to say, for the rooted conviction which a portion of mankind entertains, that a blow is a very dreadful thing; but I have looked for it in vain, either in the animal or in the rational side of human nature.  A blow is, and always will be, a trivial physical injury which one man can do to another; proving, thereby, nothing more than his superiority in strength or skill, or that his enemy was off his guard.  Analysis will carry us no further.  The same knight who regards a blow from the human hand as the greatest of evils, if he gets a ten times harder blow from his horse, will give you the assurance, as he limps away in suppressed pain, that it is a matter of no consequence whatever.  So I have come to think that it is the human hand which is at the bottom of the mischief.  And yet in a battle the knight may get cuts and thrusts from the same hand, and still assure you that his wounds are not worth mentioning.  Now, I hear that a blow from the flat of a sword is not by any means so bad as a blow from a stick; and that, a short time ago, cadets were liable to be punished by the one but not the other, and that the very greatest honor of all is the accolade.  This is all the psychological or moral basis that I can find; and so there is nothing left me but to pronounce the whole thing an antiquated superstition that has taken deep root, and one more of the many examples which show the force of tradition.  My view is confirmed by the well-known fact that in China a beating with a bamboo is a very frequent punishment for the common people, and even for officials of every class; which shows that human nature, even in a highly civilized state, does not run in the same groove here and in China.