e, and the heart expands in the
boundlessness of its affection.

The social sentiment then takes on a new character, which varies with
different persons. In the strong, it becomes the pleasure of generosity;
among equals, frank and cordial friendship; in the weak, the pleasure of
admiration and gratitude.

The man who is superior in strength, skill, or courage, knows that he
owes all that he is to society, without which he could not exist. He
knows that, in treating him precisely as it does the lowest of its
members, society discharges its whole duty towards him. But he does
not underrate his faculties; he is no less conscious of his power and
greatness; and it is this voluntary reverence which he pays to humanity,
this avowal that he is but an instrument of Nature,--who is alone worthy
of glory and worship,--it is, I say, this simultaneous confession of
the heart and the mind, this genuine adoration of the Great Being, that
distinguishes and elevates man, and lifts him to a degree of social
morality to which the beast is powerless to attain. Hercules destroying
the monsters and punishing brigands for the safety of Greece, Orpheus
teaching the rough and wild Pelasgians,--neither of them putting a price
upon their services,--there we see the noblest creations of poetry, the
loftiest expression of justice and virtue.

The joys of self-sacrifice are ineffable.

If I were to compare human society to the old Greek tragedies, I should
say that the phalanx of noble minds and lofty souls dances the strophe,
and the humble multitude the antistrophe. Burdened with painful and
disagreeable tasks, but rendered omnipotent by their number and the
harmonic arrangement of their functions, the latter execute what the
others plan. Guided by them, they owe them nothing; they honor them,
however, and lavish upon them praise and approbation.

Gratitude fills people with adoration and enthusiasm.

But equality delights my heart. Benevolence degenerates into tyranny,
and admiration into servility. Friendship is the daughter of equality.
O my friends! may I live in your midst without emulation, and without
glory; let equality bring us together, and fate assign us our places.
May I die without knowing to whom among you I owe the most esteem!

Friendship is precious to the hearts of the children of men.

Generosity, gratitude (I mean here only that gratitude which is born
of admiration of a superior power), and friendship are three disti