DUELS.
From this necessity of the favour of other people arose private duels,
which sprang up precisely in an anarchical state of the laws. It is said
they were unknown to antiquity, perhaps because the ancients did not
meet suspiciously armed in the temples, the theatres, or with friends;
perhaps because the duel was an ordinary and common sight, presented to
the people by gladiators, who were slaves or low people, and freemen
disdained to be thought and called private gladiators. In vain has it
been sought to extirpate the custom by edicts of death against any man
accepting a challenge, for it is founded on that which some men fear
more than death; since without the favour of his fellows the man of
honour foresees himself exposed either to become a merely solitary being,
a condition insufferable to a sociable man, or to become the butt of
insults and disgrace which, from their constant operation, prevail over
the fear of punishment. Why is it that the lower orders do not for the
most part fight duels like the great? Not only because they are disarmed,
but because the need of the favour of others is less general among the
people than among those who, in higher ranks, regard themselves with
greater suspicion and jealousy.
It is not useless to repeat what others have written, namely, that the
best method of preventing this crime is to punish the aggressor—in other
words, the man who gives rise to the duel—declaring him to be innocent
who without his own fault has been constrained to defend that which
existing laws do not assure to him, that is, opinion.