Essays of Benjamin Franklin

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1752429486

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-127700

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Franklin, Benjamin http://d-nb.info/gnd/118534912

Title:: Essays of Benjamin Franklin

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: xi, 273 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

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Title:: XXVIII. To Mrs. Sarah Bache

Collection:: Economics Books

17° | Essays 7 I suppose those who disapprove of it have not hitherto given it much opposition, from a principle somewhat like that of your good mother, relating to punctilious persons, who are always exacting little observances of respect: that, “if people can be pleased with small matters, it is a pity but they should have them.” In this view, perhaps, I should not myself, if my advice had been asked, have objected to their wear- ing their ribands and badges themselves according to their fancy, though I certainly should to the entailing it asan honor on their posterity. For honor, worthily obtained (as that, for example, of our officers), is in its nature a personal thing, and incommunicable to any but those who had some share in obtaining it. Thus among the Chinese, the most ancient, and from long experience the wisest of nations, honor does not descend, but ascends. If a man, from his learning, his wisdom, or his valor, is promoted by the em- peror to the rank of Mandarin, his parents are im- mediately entitled to all the same ceremonies of respect from the people that are established as due to the Mandarin himself; on the supposition that it must have been owing to the education, instruction, and good example afforded him by his parents, that he was rendered capable of serving the public. This ascending honor is therefore useful to the state, as it encourages parents to give their children a good and virtuous education. But the descending honor, to a posterity who could have no share in ob- taining it, is not only groundless and absurd, but ‘64, 23"

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