“But that is the only way out. How else can a dispute between nations be decided?”
“How then are trials between civilised individuals decided?”
“By the tribunals. But nations have no such over them.”
“No more have savages,” said Dr. Bresser, coming to my help. “_Ergo_, nations in their intercourse with each other are still uncivilised, and it will take a good long time yet before we come to the point of establishing an international tribunal of arbitration.”
“We shall never get to that,” said my father. “There are things which can only be fought out, and cannot be settled by law. Even if one chose to try to establish such an arbitration court, the stronger governments would as little submit to it as two men of honour, one of whom has been insulted, would carry their difference into a court of law. They simply send their seconds and fight to set themselves right.”
“But the duel is a barbarous, uncivilised custom.”
“Still, your excellency, I would not defend it.”
“What say you, then, Frederick?” said my father, turning to his son-in-law. “Is it your opinion that a man who has received a slap on the face should take the matter before a court of law and get five florins’ damages?”
“You would challenge the man who insulted you?”
“Aha, doctor--aha, Martha,” said my father in triumph. “Do you hear? Even Tilling, who is no friend of war, submits to, and is a friend of, duelling.”
“A friend? I have never said so. I only said that in a given case I would, as a matter of course, have recourse to the duel, as indeed I have actually done once or twice: just as, equally as a matter of course, I have several times taken part in a war; and will do so again on the next occasion. I guide myself by the rules of honour; but I by no means imply thereby that those rules, as they now exist amongst us, correspond to my own moral ideal. By degrees, as this ideal gains the sovereignty, the conception of honour will also experience a change. Some day an insult one may have experienced, and which is unprovoked, will redound as a disgrace, not on the receiver, but on the savage inflicter; and when this is the case, self-revenge in matters of honour also will fall as much out of use as in civilised society it has become practically out of the question to right oneself in other matters. Till that time comes----”