n quia vexari
quenquam eat jucunda voluptas, Sed quibus ipse malls caress
qula cernere sauv' est. LUCRET.

(There is something pleasant in watching, from dry land, the
great difficulties another man is undergoing out on the high
sea, with the winds lashing the waters. This is not because
one derives delight from any man's distress, but because it
is pleasurable to perceive from what troubles one is oneself
free.)]

All this is easily applied to the present subject. We sink very much in
our own eyes, when in the presence of a great man, or one of a superior
genius; and this humility makes a considerable ingredient in that
respect, which we pay our superiors, according to our foregoing
reasonings on that passion [Book II. Part II. Sect. X.]. Sometimes even
envy and hatred arise from the comparison; but in the greatest part of
men, it rests at respect and esteem. As sympathy has such a powerful
influence on the human mind, it causes pride to have, in some measure,
the same effect as merit; and by making us enter into those elevated
sentiments, which the proud man entertains of himself, presents that
comparison, which is so mortifying and disagreeable. Our judgment
does not entirely accompany him in the flattering conceit, in which
he pleases himself; but still is so shaken as to receive the idea it
presents, and to give it an influence above the loose conceptions of
the imagination. A man, who, in an idle humour, would form a notion of a
person of a merit very much superior to his own, would not be mortified
by that fiction: But when a man, whom we are really persuaded to be
of inferior merit, is presented to us; if we observe in him any
extraordinary degree of pride and self-conceit; the firm persuasion he
has of his own merit, takes hold of the imagination, and diminishes us
in our own eyes, in the same manner, as if he were really possessed of
all the good qualities which he so liberally attributes to himself. Our
idea is here precisely in that medium, which is requisite to make it
operate on us by comparison. Were it accompanied with belief, and did
the person appear to have the same merit, which he assumes to himself,
it would have a contrary effect, and would operate on us by sympathy.
The influence of that principle would then be superior to that of
comparison, contrary to what happens where the person's merit seems
below his pretensions.

The necessary consequence of thes