Will you tell me that one must show courage, and that courage suffices to efface the shame and reproach of all other vices? In this case a rogue would have but to fight a duel to cease to be a rogue; the words of a liar would become true if maintained at the point of a sword; and if you were charged with having killed a man, you would go and kill a second one to prove that the charge is not true. Thus, virtue, vice, honor, infamy, truth, falsehood, all derive their being from the event of a fight; a fencing-hall becomes the seat of all justice; might makes right. 3. Antiquity, so rich in heroes and great characters, knew nothing of the duel. There may then exist societies civilized and refined where a man may defend his honor without having to resort to the duel. This is a remarkably striking argument:[19] Did ever the valiant men of antiquity think of avenging their personal insults by single combats? Did Cæsar send a challenge to Cato, or Pompey to Cæsar? "Other times, other manners," you'll say, I know, but true honor does not vary; it does not depend on times or places or prejudices; it can neither pass away nor be born again; it has its eternal source in the heart of the just man and in the unalterable rule of his duties. If the most enlightened, the bravest, the most virtuous nations of the earth knew nothing of the duel, I say that it is not an institution of honor, but rather a frightful and barbarous fashion worthy of its savage origin. 4. It is not true that a man of honor incurs contempt by refusing a duel: The righteous man whose whole life is pure, who never gave any sign of cowardice, will refuse to stain his hand by a homicide, and will be only the more honored for it. Always ready to serve his country, to protect the feeble, to fulfil the most dangerous duties, and defend in all just and honest encounters, and at the price of his blood, what he holds dear, he will reveal in all his transactions that resolute firmness which always accompanies true courage. In the security of his conscience he walks with head erect; he neither flies from nor seeks his enemy; one can easily see that he fears less to die than to do wrong, and that it is not danger he shuns, but crime. =30. War.=--War is the most serious and the most solemn exception to the law which forbids homicide. Not only does it permit homicide, but it commands it. The means thereto are prepared in public; the art of practicing them is a branch of education, and it is glorious to destroy as many enemies as possible.