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no longer applicable: it stands, like the castles and watch-towers of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