By examining everything which has been done in this respect in Holland, Switzerland, England, and elsewhere, we should become possessed of an assortment of remuneratory expedients, applicable to almost every class in society.Everything depends, however upon the mode of application.For this duty governments are entirely unfit: it is local inspection alone which can gain a knowledge of circumstances and superintend the details.
After all, just and discriminating public esteem---that is to say, public esteem founded upon the principle of utility---is the most potent, the most universally applicable, of all the species of reward.
If virtue be held in public estimation, virtue will flourish: let it cease to be held in such estimation, it will decline in the same proportion.
The character of a people is the moral climate which kills or vivifies the seeds of excellence.
An inquiry into the causes of the high respect in which, under certain governments, particular virtues were held---why the virtues of a Curtius , of a Fabricius , of a Scipio were nourished and developed at Rome---why other countries and other times have produced only courtiers, parasites, fine gentlemen and wits, men without energy and without patriotism,---would require a moral and historical analysis, only to be completed by means of a profound study of the political constitutions and particular circumstances of each people.The result would, however, prove, that the qualities most successfully cultivated, were those held in most general esteem.
But public esteem, it may be said, is free, essentially free, independent of the authority of governments.This copious fund of rewards is therefore withdrawn from the hands of the supreme authority.
This however is not the case: governments may easily obtain the disposal of this treasure.Public esteem cannot be compelled, but it may he conducted.
It requires but little skill on the part of a virtuous sovereign to enable him to apply the high reward of public esteem to any service which his occasions may require.
There already exists a degree of respect for riches, honour, and power: if the dispenser of these gifts bestow them only upon useful qualities---if he unite what is already esteemed to what ought to be estimable, his success is certain.Reward would serve as a proclamation of his opinion, and would mark out a particular line of conduct as meritorious in his eyes.Its first effect would be that of a lesson in morality.
Unrewarded, the same service would not acquire the same degree of notoriety.It would be lost among the multitude of objects soliciting public attention; and remain undistinguished from the pretensions, well or ill founded, respecting which public opinion is undecided.Furnished with the patent from the sovereign, it becomes authentic and manifest:
those who were ignorant are instructed, those who were doubtful become decided: the inimical and the envious are rendered lest bold: reputation is acquired, and becomes permanent.The second effect of the reward consists in the increase of intensity and duration given to public esteem.
Immediately, all those who are governed by views of interest, who aspire to honour or fortune---those who seek the public good but who seek it like ordinary men, not as heroes or martyrs---eagerly press into that career in which the sovereign has united private and public interest.In this manner, proper dispensation of favours directs the passions of individuals to the promotion of the public welfare, and induces even those who were indifferent to virtue or vice, to rank themselves upon that side which promises them the greatest advantage.
Such being the power of sovereigns, he must be extremely inexpert in the distribution of honours, who separates them from that public esteem which has so decided a tendency to unite with them.
Nothing, however, is more common.Instances may be found, in most courts, of splendid decorations of stars and garters in double and triple range, which do not even give a favourable turn to public opinion.They are considered as proofs of favour, but not as signs of merit.
``Honours in the hands of princes resemble those talismans with which the fairies, according to the fables, were wont to present their favourites: they lose their virtue whenever they are improperly employed.'' (Helvetius.)
