redress the inequalities of mankind, starts forth to preach the dignity
of _all_ labour. The device is a self-contradiction. Make all labour
alike dignified, and nothing is dignified; you simply abolish dignity by
depriving it of the contrast that it subsists upon.

Pope's lines--

Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part; there all the honour lies--

cannot be exempted from the fallacy of self-contradiction. Differences
of condition are made by differences in the degree of honour thereto
attached. If every man that did his work well were put on a level, in
point of honour, with every other man that did the same; if the
gatekeeper of a mansion, by being unfailingly punctual in opening the
gate, were to be equally honoured with a great leader of the House of
Commons, then, indeed, equality of pay would be the only thing wanted to
abolish all differences of condition. There is, no doubt, in society, a
quantity of misplaced honour; but so long as there are employments
exceptionally arduous, and virtues signally beneficent in their
operation, honour is a legitimate spur and reward, and should be
graduated according to the desert in each case.

In spurring the ardour of youth to studious exertion, it is common to
repeat the Homeric maxim, "to supplant every one else, and stand out
first". The stimulating effect is undoubted; it is strong rhetorical
brandy. Yet only one man can be first, and the exhortation is given
simultaneously to a thousand.[5]

[JUSTICE ADMIRABLE ONLY IF RECIPROCATED.]