o
sceptic, he has a definite creed--is that absolute egoism is the only
rational and proper attitude, and that conscience or honour or any kind
of regard for others is an absurdity. He does not deny that this
absurdity exists. He does not suppose that most people secretly share
his creed, while pretending to hold and practise another. On the
contrary, he regards most people as honest fools. He declares that he
has never yet met a man who knew how to love himself; and his one
expression of admiration in the play is for servants

Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves.

'These fellows,' he says, 'have some soul.' He professes to stand, and
he, attempts to stand, wholly outside the world of morality.

The existence of Iago's creed and of his corresponding practice is
evidently connected with a characteristic in which he surpasses nearly
all the other inhabitants of Shakespeare's world. Whatever he may once
have been, he appears, when we meet him, to be almost destitute of
humanity, of sympathetic or social feeling. He shows no trace of
affection, and in presence of the most terrible suffering he shows
either pleasure or an indifference which, if not complete, is nearly so.
Here, however, we must be careful. It is important to realise, and few
readers are in danger of ignoring, this extraordinary deadness of
feeling, but it is also important not to confuse it with a general
positive ill-will. When Iago has no dislike or hostility to a person he
does _not_ show pleasure in the suffering of that person: he shows at
most the absence of pain. There is, for instance, not the least sign of
his enjoying the distress of Desdemona. But his sympathetic feelings are
so abnormally feeble and cold that, when his dislike is roused, or when
an indifferent person comes in the way of his purpose, there is scarcely
anything within him to prevent his applying the torture.

What is it that provokes his dislike or hostility? Here again we must
look closely. Iago has been represented as an incarnation of envy, as a
man who, being determined to get on in the world, regards everyone else
with enmity as his rival. But this idea, though containing truth, seems
much exaggerated. Certainly he is devoted to himself; but if he were an
eagerly ambitious man, surely we should see much more positive signs of
this ambition; and surely too, with his great powers, he would already
have risen high