Backbiting which consists in saying evil of others deservedly, is not in itself an injustice: there is to be recognized the right and jurisdiction of public opinion. The honest man should be held in greater esteem than the rogue, even though the latter cannot be reached by the law. Nevertheless, backbiting becomes an injustice through the abuse that is made of it. It is not a question of severe judgments touching actions deserving blame and contempt. It is a question of thoughtless and unkind judgments, and which we are all too easily and readily inclined to pronounce upon others, forgetting that we deserve ourselves as many and severer ones. How shall we conciliate, however, the just severity which vice deserves, with the spirit of kindness which charity and brotherly love demand of us? On the one hand, an excess of kindness seems to weaken the horror of evil, to put on the same level the honest man and the rogue; on the other, the habit of speaking evil weakens the bonds of human society, sets men against each other, and is always, in a certain measure, a shortcoming of sincerity; for one hardly ever tells to people's faces the evil one says of them in their absence. It is not easy to find the just medium between these two extremes. It may be laid down as a principle that, except the case where notorious vices, contrary to honor, comes into question, it is better absolutely to abstain from speaking evil of others. For, either the question is of persons one does not know, or knows imperfectly, and then one is never sure not to be mistaken; and most of the time one judges people on the testimony of others only, or one speaks of persons whom one knows, and with whom one stands in more or less friendly relations; and then backbiting becomes a sort of treason. Even deserved blame should not be a favorite subject of conversation: it is an unwholesome and ungenerous pleasure to lay any stress upon the weakness of others. If, at least, one accepted with it the right of others to judge us with the same severity, such reciprocal liberty might prove of some utility; but the backbiter nowise admits that he may be himself the subject of backbiting; and at the very moment when he criticises others, he would himself be very much offended if he learned that the same persons had, on their side, been doing the same in regard to him.