y, or reverence is
obtained. Thus we say that a man has always strictly obeyed the laws
of honor; or a man has violated his honor. In this chapter the word is
always used in the latter sense.]

I think these peculiarities may be otherwise explained than by the mere
caprices of certain individuals and nations, as has hitherto been
the customary mode of reasoning on the subject. Mankind is subject
to general and lasting wants that have engendered moral laws, to the
neglect of which men have ever and in all places attached the notion of
censure and shame: to infringe them was "to do ill"--"to do well" was to
conform to them. Within the bosom of this vast association of the human
race, lesser associations have been formed which are called nations;
and amidst these nations further subdivisions have assumed the names
of classes or castes. Each of these associations forms, as it were,
a separate species of the human race; and though it has no essential
difference from the mass of mankind, to a certain extent it stands apart
and has certain wants peculiar to itself. To these special wants must
be attributed the modifications which affect in various degrees and
in different countries the mode of considering human actions, and
the estimate which ought to be formed of them. It is the general and
permanent interest of mankind that men should not kill each other: but
it may happen to be the peculiar and temporary interest of a people or a
class to justify, or even to honor, homicide.

Honor is simply that peculiar rule, founded upon a peculiar state of
society, by the application of which a people or a class allot praise or
blame. Nothing is more unproductive to the mind than an abstract idea; I
therefore hasten to call in the aid of facts and examples to illustrate
my meaning.

I select the most extraordinary kind of honor which was ever known
in the world, and that which we are best acquainted with, viz.,
aristocratic honor springing out of feudal society. I shall explain it
by means of the principle already laid down, and I shall explain the
principle by means of the illustration. I am not here led to inquire
when and how the aristocracy of the Middle Ages came into existence,
why it was so deeply severed from the remainder of the nation, or
what founded and consolidated its power. I take its existence as an
established fact, and I am endeavoring to account for the peculiar view
which it took of the greater part of human actio