If the worship of incompetence reverberates with a jarring note through our domestic morals, it has an effect hardly less harmful on the social relations of men in the wider theatre of public life. We often ask why politeness is out of date, and everyone replies with a smile: "This is democratic." So it is, but why should it be? Montesquieu remarks that "to cast off the conventions of civility is to seek a method for putting our faults at their ease." He adds the rather subtle distinction that "politeness flatters the vices of others, and civility prevents us from displaying our own. It is a barrier raised by men to prevent them from corrupting each other." That which flatters vice can hardly be called politeness, but is rather adulation. Civility and politeness are only slightly different in degree; civility is cold and very respectful, politeness has a suggestion of flattery. It graciously draws into evidence the good qualities of our neighbour, not his failings, much less his vices. There is no doubt that civility and politeness are a delicate means of showing respect to our fellow-men, and of communicating a wish to be respected in turn. These things then are barriers, but barriers from which we derive support, which separate and strengthen us, but which, though holding us apart, do not keep us estranged from our neighbours. It is also very true that if we release ourselves from these rules, whether they are civility or politeness, we set our faults at liberty. The basis of civility and politeness is respect for others and respect for ourselves. As Abbe Barthelemy has very justly remarked: "In the first class of citizens is to be found a spirit of decorum which makes it evident that men respect themselves, and a spirit of politeness which makes it evident that they also respect others." This is what Pascal meant by saying that respect is our own inconvenience, and he explains it thus, that to stand when our neighbour is seated, to remove our hat when he is covered, though trifling acts of courtesy, are tokens of the efforts we would willingly make on his behalf if an opportunity of being really serviceable to him presented itself. Politeness is a mark of respect and a promise of devotion. All this is anti-democratic, because democracy does not recognise any superiority, and therefore has no sympathy with respect and personal devotion. Respect to others involves a recognition from us that we are of less importance than they, and politeness to an equal requires from us a courteous affectation that we consider him as our superior. This is entirely contrary to the democratic ideal, which asserts that there is no superiority anywhere. As for pretending to treat your equal as though he were your superior, that involves a double hypocrisy, because it requires a reciprocal hypocrisy on the part of your neighbour. You praise his wit, only in order that he may return the compliment.