e idea of personal honor once so generally held by the
upper class, and still existent where the military spirit prevails,
that we ought to study the dueling code with reference to the
psychology of war. There are psychological features that appear to be
identical. The idea of personal honor is associated with a feeling of
superiority that must be defended. Any offense or affront to the
individual was a mortal offense. The superiority in question was first
of all superiority of ancestry; it was this that constituted the value
of the individual and set the standards that he must maintain. This
superiority was to be judged not so much by conduct as by an assertion
of it represented by certain external forms. The individual by his
manners declared himself a gentleman, and laid claim to forms and
considerations that must not be omitted in relations with him. The
virtues he defended so rigorously did not exist as a rule in
calculable or practical form, since they did nothing objective. They
might be ornamental or purely fictitious. They existed in the form of
claims, and the values assigned to them were arbitrary. The man
declared himself possessed of superiority, and was ready uniformly to
prove this claim by acts purporting to indicate willingness to die.

This code and belief belonged to a day when relations among
individuals were simple and, so to speak, external. They were
relations that were readily codified and made invariable, since they
had no essential practical content or function. Manners were
significant as substitutes for friendly relations, since the system
was lacking in moral and social sentiments. Manners were a means of
fitting together individuals who really belonged to no functioning
whole, except when, for example, they might be united in military
exploits. Everything was unitary and independent of everything else in
this society.

Now this code and this philosophy of life have declined precisely to
the extent that the conception of ideal human life has changed, from
that of something ornamental and personal to that of something useful
and moral. Life has become organized, and relations have become more
practical, so that the values of conduct may now be estimated, and one
no longer may maintain a claim to virtue based upon forms expressing
intangible or subjective or unreal virtues. The virtues of a man in a
democratic society are, indeed, more or less obvious and open. Pride
of family, an ornamental