Still, as to this latter duty of expressing reverence, there seems to be great divergence of opinion. For the feeling seems to be naturally excited by all kinds of superiority,--not merely moral and intellectual excellences, but also superiorities of rank and position: and indeed in the common behaviour of men it is to the latter that it is more regularly and formally rendered. And yet, again, it is commonly said that Reverence is more properly due to the former, as being more real and intrinsic superiorities: and many think that to show any reverence to men of rank and position rather than to others is servile and degrading: and some even dislike the marks of respect which in most countries are exacted by official superiors from their subordinates, saying that obedience legally defined is all that is properly owed in this relation.
A more serious difficulty of a somewhat similar kind arises when we consider how far it is a duty to cultivate the affection of Loyalty: meaning by this term--which is used in various senses--the affection that is normally felt by a well-disposed servant or official subordinate towards a good master or official superior. On the one hand it is widely thought that the duties of obedience which belong to these relations will be better performed if affection enters into the motive, no less than the duties of the family relations: but in the former case it seems to be a tenable view that the habits of orderliness and good faith--ungrudging obedience to law and ungrudging fulfilment of contract--will ordinarily suffice, without personal affection; and, on the other hand, a disposition to obey superiors, beyond the limits of their legal or contractual rights to issue commands, may easily be mischievous in its effects, if the superiors are ill-disposed. In the case of a wise and good superior it is, indeed, clearly advantageous that inferiors should be disposed to obey beyond these limits; but it is not therefore clear that this disposition is one which it should be made a duty to cultivate beyond the degree in which it results spontaneously from a sense of the superior’s goodness and wisdom. Nor do I think that any decided enunciation of duty on this point can be extracted from Common Sense.