One objection I ought to obviate: it may be said, perhaps, that the influence of honour in the army, seems to be a proof that reputation, without the aid of any other impulse, would have sufficient influence to direct the mind to the end which we propose to ourselves. This objection does not appear to me decisive: honour in armies preserves a great ascendency, because amongst men thus assembled, it is impossible to escape shame, and the punishment incurred by cowardice; it is in war that the power of authority and that of fame unite all their forces, because that they exercise their influence on men engaged in one action, actuated by the same spirit, by that singular subordination, termed discipline. Thus, when in the commencement of the Roman republic, the army participated more of the air of the city, and was not yet familiarized to the military yoke, it was then only through the sanction of an oath, supported by religious sentiments, that the general contrived to prevent the inconstancy and defection of those who followed him to the camp. Whatever then may be at present, the power of honour in armies, whatever at present may be its influence in the field of battle, where the actors, spectators, and judges, are on the same stage, and have nothing else to do but to practise, remark, and praise a particular virtue, we should not be able to draw any deduction from it, applicable to the social relations, whose extent is immense, and to whose diversity there is no bound. Besides, military honour is very far from being foreign to the general principles of morality, and consequently to religious opinions, the most solid support of those principles; for sentiments which contain, in some manner, the idea of a noble sacrifice, would lose great part of their force, if the great basis of our duty was ever shaken. A perfect model is necessary to fix the admiration of men; and it is only by an intercourse more or less constant with that first model, that several opinions which seem, in appearance, to arise merely from convenience have consistency. However, there has resulted from our warlike customs an opinion purely social, which is very powerful: it is that of the point of honour, when we consider it in its singular and simple acceptation, when a man is ready to sacrifice his life to guard himself from the slightest humiliation. This opinion, it is true, only dictates its rules among equals, and the exercise of its authority extends to an inconsiderable part of a nation, which, wholly given up to worldly concerns, are occupied entirely with comparisons and distinctions; it is one of the ancient appendages of military honour, and in uniting all its force towards a single idea it is become a simple principle, which has been blindly transmitted and as blindly respected.