Honoris Causa

People, and peoples, will often act, and still more often claim to act, because, as they say, their honour demands it. If a war be engaged in, whatever be the immediate motive of economic interest, imperial ambition, or fears for national security, members of the nation are encouraged to believe that the national honour is at stake, and examples in plenty are not far to seek in our own and other countries of the strong appeal which this motive makes to the heart of man. History indeed is not wanting to show that the defence and preservation of honour can become, under the subtle habituation of artificial convention alone, a most powerful influence even in private life. Intermediate between that and the actions of the public person of the State, the military and in their own way other professional corps have, and have always had, what are known as their codes of honour, for which men who have been bred in them will risk their money, their social standing, their very lives. At times, undoubtedly, the keeping of his honour undimmed is the only motive present to a man's consciousness, so trained can one become to act in that light without hesitation, and as it were by instinct. But if we want to see the full power of attraction which it can exercise, we must look at the book where human aims are writ large, in the political sphere, in which the motions of desire are more striking, the risks run more easily appreciable, the effects more widespread, than in the lives of individuals

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