it is also true that every defect is allied to a
perfection. Hence it is that if, as often happens, we make a mistake
about a man, it is because at the beginning of our acquaintance with
him we confound his defects with the kinds of perfection to which they
are allied. The cautious man seems to us a coward; the economical man,
a miser; the spendthrift seems liberal; the rude fellow, downright and
sincere; the foolhardy person looks as if he were going to work with a
noble self-confidence; and so on in many other cases.

* * * * *

No one can live among men without feeling drawn again and again to the
tempting supposition that moral baseness and intellectual incapacity
are closely connected, as though they both sprang direct from one
source. That that, however, is not so, I have shown in detail.[1] That
it seems to be so is merely due to the fact that both are so often
found together; and the circumstance is to be explained by the very
frequent occurrence of each of them, so that it may easily happen for
both to be compelled to live under one roof. At the same time it is
not to be denied that they play into each other's hands to their
mutual benefit; and it is this that produces the very unedifying
spectacle which only too many men exhibit, and that makes the world to
go as it goes. A man who is unintelligent is very likely to show his
perfidy, villainy and malice; whereas a clever man understands how
to conceal these qualities. And how often, on the other hand, does
a perversity of heart prevent a man from seeing truths which his
intelligence is quite capable of grasping!

[Footnote 1: In my chief work, vol. ii., ch. xix,]

Nevertheless, let no one boast. Just as every man, though he be the
greatest genius, has very definite limitations in some one sphere of
knowledge, and thus attests his common origin with the essentially
perverse and stupid mass of mankind, so also has every man something
in his nature which is positively evil. Even the best, nay the
noblest, character will sometimes surprise us by isolated traits of
depravity; as though it were to acknowledge his kinship with the human
race, in which villainy--nay, cruelty--is to be found in that degree.
For it was just in virtue of this evil in him, this bad principle,
that of necessity he became a man. And for the same reason the world
in general is what my clear mirror of it has shown it to be.

But in spite of all this the dif