and leave him as
impregnable; and therefore he resolves never to omit the least
opportunity of pressing his affairs, for fear of being baffled and
affronted; for if he can at any rate render himself master of his
purposes, he would not wish an easier nor a cheaper way, as he knows how
to repay himself and make others receive those insolences of him for
good and current payment which he was glad to take before, and he
esteems it no mean glory to show his temper of such a compass as is able
to reach from the highest arrogance to the meanest and most dejected
submissions. A man that has endured all sorts of affronts may be
allowed, like an apprentice that has served out his time, to set up for
himself and put them off upon others; and if the most common and
approved way of growing rich is to gain by the ruin and loss of those
who are in necessity, why should not a man be allowed as well to make
himself appear great by debasing those that are below him? For insolence
is no inconsiderable way of improving greatness and authority in the
opinion of the world. If all men are born equally fit to govern, as some
late philosophers affirm, he only has the advantage of all others who
has the best opinion of his own abilities, how mean soever they really
are; and, therefore, he steadfastly believes that pride is the only
great, wise, and happy virtue that a man is capable of, and the most
compendious and easy way to felicity; for he that is able to persuade
himself impregnably that he is some great and excellent person, how far
short soever he falls of it, finds more delight in that dream than if he
were really so; and the less he is of what he fancies himself to be the
better he is pleased, as men covet those things that are forbidden and
denied them more greedily than those that are in their power to obtain;
and he that can enjoy all the best rewards of worth and merit without
the pains and trouble that attend it has a better bargain than he who
pays as much for it as it is worth. This he performs by an obstinate,
implicit believing as well as he can of himself, and as meanly of all
other men, for he holds it a kind of self-preservation to maintain a
good estimation of himself; and as no man is bound to love his neighbour
better than himself, so he ought not to think better of him than he does
of himself, and he that will not afford himself a very high esteem will
never spare another man any at all. He who has made so absolute a
co