secure you against being contaminated or even
outraged by it.[1] Society is in this respect like a fire--the wise
man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too
close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers
in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.

[Footnote 1: This restricted, or, as it were, entrenched kind of
sociability has been dramatically illustrated in a play--well worth
reading--of Moratin's, entitled _El Cafe o sea la Comedia Nuova_ (The
Cafe or the New Comedy), chiefly by one of the characters, Don Pedro
and especially in the second and third scenes of the first act.]

SECTION 10. _Envy_ is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice
and a source of misery.[1] We should treat it as the enemy of our
happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought. This is the advice
given by Seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we
have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with
some other and happier one--_nostra nos sine comparatione delectent;
nunquam erit felix quem torquebit felicior.[2]_ And again, _quum
adspexeris quot te antecedent, cogita quot sequantur_[3]--if a great
many people appear to be better off than yourself, think how many
there are in a worse position. It is a fact that if real calamity
comes upon us, the most effective consolation--though it springs from
the same source as envy--is just the thought of greater misfortunes
than ours; and the next best is the society of those who are in the
same luck as we--the partners of our sorrows.

[Footnote 1: Envy shows how unhappy people are; and their constant
attention to what others do and leave undone, how much they are
bored.]

[Footnote 2: _De Ira_: iii., 30.]

[Footnote 3: Epist. xv.]

So much for the envy which we may feel towards others. As regards the
envy which we may excite in them, it should always be remembered that
no form of hatred is so implacable as the hatred that comes from envy;
and therefore we should always carefully refrain from doing anything
to rouse it; nay, as with many another form of vice, it is better
altogether to renounce any pleasure there may be in it, because of the
serious nature of its consequences.

Aristocracies are of three kinds: (1) of birth and rank; (2)
of wealth; and (3) of intellect. The last is really the most
distinguished of the three, and its claim to occupy the first position
comes to be recognized, if it is only