BOOK I. CH. IV. § 68. type. whom they may have received greater injuries. The combination of the antipathetic emotions and their The irascible compounds, envy and jealousy, with that form of cowardice which is unveracity, simulation or dissimulation springing from fear, is the vice of insincerity or hypocrisy, the most generally hateful of all characters. This is perhaps meant by Achilles in $ 69. The ambitious type. the lines: ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Αΐδαο πύλησιν, ὃς χ ̓ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσὶν, ἄλλο δὲ βάζῃ. Some writers indeed think that there is no moral evil but insincerity. This however seems to me an overstatement. The grossness of it in some cases, the evil which it inflicts, the insecurity which it causes, its complex nature, being a compound of many bad feelings, and above all its subtilty and penetration into all domains, so that there is no evil but readily allies itself with this, have rendered it the most obvious and conspicuous mark for moralists. It is not the only moral evil, but the worst of them. A peculiar form of malice, which when found is usually allied with cowardice, is the love of cruelty and torturing, seemingly for the sole pleasure of inflicting suffering. It seems, in point of nature, to belong to the type of character founded on the antipathetic emotions, and to be a remnant of some savage or rather brutal state of humanity, a remnant of habits fostered by the circumstances of a desperate and unceasing struggle for existence with other animals or with men in a similar condition. § 69. 1. Another type of character seems to be founded on the two groups of emotions of comparison, the passions of which are envy and jealousy of the one group, and emulation of the other. Emu Book I. CH. IV. $ 69. type. lation, which belongs to the comparison of being, is a noble passion; but there are no good passions of the comparison of having. The type of character The ambitious seems to depend upon the tendency to compare oneself with others and the interest of the comparison itself, not upon the different emotions and differently combined representations which are their framework, which are the materials of the comparison. But whatever circumstances come forward in comparison of oneself with others, these are the objects which will compose the world of that person whose character is formed on this type. His tendency is to compare himself with others, in any or all circumstances, and to make the differences between the two his motives of action. Personal character, qualities, and powers, on the one hand, and external possessions and the opinion of mankind on the other, are the two general groups of objects which will occupy his attention. In one word his character may perhaps be best distinguished as ambitious. Ambition Ambition may be defined as any desire or passion which has a favourable comparison with other persons as its end or object. Intercourse with mankind at large, in business, sport, work, public affairs, scientific and literary pursuits, and so on, is the necessary and acceptable condition for gratifying ambition, and the field of activity for the ambitious character; in short, any kind of active public life is his field, in which he finds infinite opportunities open to him, whatever may be the direction in which his talents lie, or to which they may have been directed by minuter distinctions of organisation, or by education, or by other circumstances of life. 2. When we put the question, Whether ambition is BOOK I. an end in itself, and Whether it has a career opened to it by itself, it becomes requisite to distinguish it The ambitious again into the two kinds founded on the two kinds $ 69. type. of comparison, of having and of being. The direct and a BOOK I. $ 69. type. the provision for moral and mental requirements. The same almost may be said of the desire of reputation, since the good opinion of others is of such The ambitious enormous weight as a motive of action, witnessing thereby to the strength of the tendency to compare oneself with others, and fully justifying the view of Comte and others of the natural sociability of man; a sociability which is now found to have its roots in the original cerebral organisation, the organ of the character in the proper and strict sense of the term. 3. The emotions of the comparison of being with their passion, emulation, are not amenable in their own character to justice, as was shown in § 32, 2. They are, however, or contain a certain justice of their own, inasmuch as they endeavour to conform their estimate of their rival's character to truth, in order to compare themselves with him. Chivalrous, honourable, magnanimous, however, as these emotions and the ambition of excellence founded on them are, they do not contain their own ultimate end any more than the ambition founded on the other group. It is still the superiority, and not the interest of comparison itself, that is the purpose of the emotion. The ambitious man rejoices in the greatness of others only on condition that he knows himself superior, or has hopes of becoming so. Sometimes a man may appear to rejoice in the excellence of a person whom he has no hope of equalling; in this case he perhaps protects himself by secretly placing his pride or honour in another career; or perhaps he uses the superiority of one person to interpret to himself his own superiority to others; and it is a real pleasure to him to be convinced of the reality of superiority as BOOK I. a general fact, in order that he may ward off the subtil fear that he is deluding himself with a shadow The ambitious in ambitioning superiority at all. Yet this kind $ 69. type. of ambition is not destructive of its framework, as hatred is; nor is it the antagonist of the sympathetic emotions. It may have the sympathetic emotions. as the very objects of its comparison, as seen in § 67. 3. But it combines in this way with them, or with any other emotion, not antipathetic, only at the cost of a portion of its own intensity. The emulation is made mild, and the haughtiness and bitterness of rivalry are suppressed. In this way ambition is prepared for admission into the teleologic scheme of the moral sense. 4. Many of the characters which are most commonly met with in the daily intercourse of life must be referred to the special predominance of some one or more of the emotions which belong to the general type of ambition. Most of the "Characters" of Theophrastus may be referred to this head; for instance, those of the dissembler, the flatterer, the rude and the polished man, the chatterer, the scandal-monger, the boaster, the officious man, the shabby and mean man, the miser, the suspicious man, the presumptuous, the vain, the conceited. I will mention some of the subordinate types of character belonging here, which are most commonly prominent. Selfishness is a general term for the desire of having the best of everything for oneself, the particular direction being given by circumstances of bodily organisation, or of course of life and experience. Covetousness is one form of selfishness, fondness for money and tangible possessions carried up into the reflective emotions of comparison. Conceit and vanity again are often found |