[4] And thus it is only what we should expect when we find that States having no _damnosa hereditas_ of a craving for personal honours are hardly acquainted with the bestowal of rewards by the public power. [1] “Speech of Pericles,” Thucyd., ii. 46: “Where there are the greatest rewards of merit, there will be the best men to do the work of the State.” Contrast Plato’s principle that there can be no sound government while public service is done with a view to reward. [2] The precise theory of the grants in money made to soldiers or sailors, for distinguished service, is not easy to state. But it seems clear that they are not intended to act as motives. They are essentially a recognition after the act, not an inducement held out before it. [3] It is perhaps permissible to observe in general, what is very well known to all who have much experience of what is called philanthropy, that the tendency to distinguish it by public honours is exceedingly dangerous to its quality, which depends entirely on that energy and purity of intelligence which can only accompany the deepest and highest motives. Mere vulgar self-seeking is not the danger (though it does occur) so much as obfuscation of intelligence through a mixture of aims and ideas. [4] P. 199. It will be sufficient, then, to complete the account of State action in maintenance of rights by some account of the nature and principles of punishment. And we may profitably begin by recalling M. Durkheim’s suggestion, which was mentioned in a former chapter. [1] Punishment, he observes, from the simplest and most actual point of view, includes in itself all those sides which theory has tended to regard as incompatible. It is, in essence, simply the reaction of a strong and determinate collective sentiment against an act which offends it. It is idle to include such a reaction entirely under the head either of reformation, or of retaliation, or of prevention. An aggression is _ipso facto_ a sign of character, an injury, and a menace; and the reaction against it is equally _ipso facto_ an attempt {221} to affect character, a retaliation against an injury, and a deterrent or preventive against a menace. When we fire up at aggression it is pretty much a chance whether we say “I am going to teach him better manners,” or “I am going to serve him out,” or “I am going to see that he doesn’t do that again.” A consideration of each of these aspects is necessary to do justice both to the theories and to the facts. [1] P. 37.