man. It
is prolific of disguises. It is not merely under the mask which we may
put on before other people, but it glides through various
transformations of self-deceit; like the evil genius in the fairy tale,
now dwindling to a mere seed, now bursting into a devouring fire. When,
with an honest purpose, we probe it and pluck at it, still we may
detect it in the lowest socket of the heart. Often it is most vital when
we feel most sure that it is vanquished. It delights in the garb of
humility, and finds its food in the profession of self-renunciation. See
its grossest expression in the desire for physical superiority--the
glory of the victor in the Grecian games, or the modern pugilist with
the champion's belt. This is the reason why men, priding themselves upon
qualities in which they are equalled by any mastiff and excelled by any
horse, will stand up and batter one another into a mass of blood and
bruises. And if we analyze the merit of some conqueror upon a hundred
battle-fields, we shall find ingredients almost as coarse. Only there
was a larger impulse, and more genius to light the way; so that _his_
combat in the ring became _achievement_, and his success _fame_. The
outside difference was in the value of the stakes; but the huzzas did
not rise much nearer to heaven in the one instance than in the other.
And when we get at the real centre of all those plaudits, we find only a
little throbbing atom, a little human heart, all on fire with the lust
for supremacy.

But these are the more palpable shapes of this desire for Precedence. It
works more covertly, but with no less energy. I need not--for I
cannot--specify all the instances in which it acts. It would constitute
a more concise statement to affirm where it does _not_ act. It is
sufficiently apparent in the scramble of the market and the parade of
the street; at the toilette of beauty; in the etiquette of the
drawing-room, where people sit as if in a cavern of icicles; in the
spurious patriotism of politics; and too often, it is to be feared, in
the highest seats of the synagogue, and where men lift holy hands of
prayer. It is the scholar's inspiration. When he comes to the steep and
rugged way, it helps him to make a foot-hold, and the thorns blossom
into roses as he climbs. Sometimes, even, it saturates the plan of the
philanthropist, and peppers the milk of his charity with an inconsistent
wrath.

It seems an unhappy, as it must often be an unjust method,