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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: in time that mysterious force known as prestige.
Whatever has been a ruling power in the world, whether it be
ideas or men, has in the main enforced its authority by means of
that irresistible force expressed by the word "prestige." The
term is one whose meaning is grasped by everybody, but the word
is employed in ways too different for it to be easy to define it.
Prestige may involve such sentiments as admiration or fear.
Occasionally even these sentiments are its basis, but it can
perfectly well exist without them. The greatest measure of
prestige is possessed by the dead, by beings, that is, of whom we
do not stand in fear--by Alexander, Caesar, Mahomet, and Buddha,
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