3 5 6 ARISTO CRA CY AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv honour is conferred as the choicest prize of life, 

 chapter 4 an( j a jj Q f w j lom fa G exceptional and the ordinary 



enjoy it to the same degree. The essence of 

 honour is distinction or differentiation ; and it forms 

 a motive for the exceptional actions of the few only 

 because it is withheld from the many whose action 

 is not exceptional. Either, then, in the socialistic 

 State the honour that is to form the reward of 

 exceptionally able men will fail to stimulate their 

 abilities and attract them into the ranks of the 

 bureaucracy because it is not of itself so keenly 

 desired as wealth is ; or if, as the socialists say, it is 

 desired even more keenly, and if it consequently 

 does stimulate exceptional men to struggle for it, 

 the socialistic bureaucracy, with its honours, will excite 

 amongst the mass of the citizens incalculably more 

 envy than the rich excite amongst the poor ; and 

 the millions of average men will be rendered by 

 the want of honour incalculably more miserable 

 than they could be by want of wealth. If, therefore, 

 inequality in the possession of external goods, for 

 which many men struggle, and which only a minority 

 can secure, necessarily means unhappiness for the 

 larger part of the community, this evil at all events 

 is not due to the existing structure of society, but is, 

 on the contrary, so rooted in the constitution of 

 human nature, that even the wildest and completest 

 schemes of social reform are unable to offer us so 

 much as a mitigation of it. 



The second answer to the objection, however, is 

 of quite a different, and of a far more reassuring 



