PHILOSOPHY, MORAL. 



that kind, but does not necessarily imply 

 more than an eager desire of it. 



45. Pride and vanity may exist almost 

 singly in the mind : there may be those 

 to whom their own good opinion, inde- 

 pendently of the approbation of God, 

 shall be every tiling ; and who find the 

 sympathy of others totally unnecessary 

 for the nurture of their own pride. In 

 the present state of society this is not 

 common ; the good opinion of others is 

 productive of too many important conse- 

 quences ever to permit pride to be thus 

 fostered, except where it is the effort of 

 a strong, but ill-directed mind, to coun- 

 terbalance the disappointments of vanity. 

 He who has made the good opinion of 

 others the primary object of pursuit, hav- 

 ing met with its sure consequence, dis- 

 appointment in his wishes, if he have not 

 lost all his strength of mind by the wea- 

 kening effects of vanity, will endeavour 

 to rise above it; and if he'have no religious 

 principles, or but little religious culture, 

 will dwell with gratification upon all the 

 fancied excellencies of his own character, 

 till they have acquired in his mind an im- 

 portance to which they are little entitled: 

 thenmoroseness must be the predominant 

 feature in his temper, for he cannot bear 

 that others should treat him with less re- 

 spect than he thinks he has a right to 

 claim ; till at last an almost total uncon- 

 cern for the opinion of others is forced 

 upon his mind, and having no higher 

 principle of action, he becomes a misan- 

 thrope. It is probably doing no injustice 

 to the character of Swift, when we men- 

 tion him as having gone this round. But 

 this is an extreme case : pride leads a 

 man to set too high a value upon himself; 

 but it is only that strength of mind which, 

 when well directed, would have led to 

 the highest attainments in moral worth, 

 that will permit him to rest satisfied 

 without the sympathy from others which 

 he supposes is his due. Hence his pride 

 must meet with constant mortification ; 

 for where will be found those who are 

 willing to restrain their conduct con- 

 tinually by the rules to which he would 

 bind them ? where even are those who 

 can enter into his views and feelings ? 

 pride then, even in a less extreme state, 

 cannot be productive of happiness. But 

 its ill effects are not thus limited. Blind 

 to his own deficiencies, keen-sighted to 

 observe the marks of merit in his own 

 mind, the proud man throws continual 

 impediments in his own progress towards 

 worth of character. He sees not his de- 

 ficiencies ; how then can he supply them ? 



He imagines his excellencies have mount- 

 ed high in the scale of worth ; how shall 

 he purify them, when that which pre- 

 vents their eminence is fostered by every 

 comparison which he draws ? 



46. It has been said by one who ap- 

 pears to have possessed some knowledge 

 of the world, that pride has at least this 

 valuable effect, it tends to exclude all 

 other failings ; for the proud man places 

 his standard so high, that he never feels 

 his regard to his own dignity satisfied, 

 till all inferior feelings are extirpated. 

 This, we apprehend, is erroneous. It is 

 supposing a mixture of pride and humi- 

 lity which will never appear in that mind 

 in which pride is the ruling feature. The 

 man who is proud of his own excellen- 

 cies seldom sees that they arc defective : 

 besides, a desire of self-approbation is 

 not pride, though too strong and unchas- 

 tened a desire may tend to produce 

 pride, because self-approbation is easily 

 gained when made independent of higher 

 sources. There may be anomalies here, 

 as in every other case of the operation of 

 moral causes ; but they are not sufficient 

 to lead to the conclusion, that pride has 

 the tendency to raise the mind above all 

 other failings. Pride will operate diffe- 

 rently in different minds, and the desire 

 of self-approbation is, and ought to be, a 

 primary motive in all the earlier stages of 

 the moral progress: but if the mind rests 

 satisfied with this approbation, that pro- 

 gress will soon be impeded ; the standard 

 will be lowered, rather than the conduct 

 exalted; comparison with others will 

 suggest numerous sources of self-gratifi- 

 cation ; and the mind, unable to rise to 

 the heights which once appeared in view, 

 now rather looks down upon the ad- 

 vances she has made, than upon the cliffs, 

 which still tower very far above her. 

 Here then is a stop to improvement ; the 

 desire which stimulated to improvement 

 is gratified : and he, who, had he looked 

 beyond himself, might have risen to the 

 summit of excellence, now rests content- 

 ed on the little pinnacle which his ima- 

 gination has raised, looks with contempt 

 on the crowds below, but, wrapt in the 

 veil of conscious superiority, sees not 

 that numbers whom he once saw below 

 him have risen, and are rising, while he 

 is lost to all improvement. 



47. In minds possessed of some strength, 

 pride may exist with little or no tenden- 

 cy to vanity. Firmly convinced of their 

 own worth, they need not the sympathy 

 of others ; and if that respect which they 

 deem theiv due is not given, it is the last 



