lways 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.]

_Official honor_ is the general opinion of other people that a man who
fills any office really has the necessary qualities for the proper
discharge of all the duties which appertain to it. The greater and
more important the duties a man has to discharge in the State, and the
higher and more influential the office which he fills, the stronger
must be the opinion which people have of the moral and intellectual
qualities which render him fit for his post. Therefore, the higher
his position, the greater must be the degree of honor paid to him,
expressed, as it is, in titles, orders and the generally subservient
behavior of others towards him. As a rule, a man's official rank
implies the particular degree of honor which ought to be paid to him,
however much this degree may be modified by the capacity of the masses