though to none of them less than to love and pity.
I cannot, however, pass over in silence the fact, that a man may
be called proud from his underestimation of other people; and,
therefore, pride in this sense may be defined as pleasure arising
from the false opinion, whereby a man may consider himself
superior to his fellows. The dejection, which is the opposite
quality to this sort of pride, may be defined as pain arising
from the false opinion, whereby a man may think himself inferior
to his fellows. Such being the ease, we can easily see that a
proud man is necessarily envious (III. xli. note), and only takes
pleasure in the company, who fool his weak mind to the top of his
bent, and make him insane instead of merely foolish.

Though dejection is the emotion contrary to pride, yet is the
dejected man very near akin to the proud man. For, inasmuch as
his pain arises from a comparison between his own infirmity and
other men's power or virtue, it will be removed, or, in other
words, he will feel pleasure, if his imagination be occupied in
contemplating other men's faults; whence arises the proverb,
"The unhappy are comforted by finding fellow--sufferers."
Contrariwise, he will be the more pained in proportion as he
thinks himself inferior to others; hence none are so prone to
envy as the dejected, they are specially keen in observing men's
actions, with a view to fault--finding rather than correction, in
order to reserve their praises for dejection, and to glory
therein, though all the time with a dejected air. These effects
follow as necessarily from the said emotion, as it follows from
the nature of a triangle, that the three angles are equal to two
right angles. I have already said that I call these and similar
emotions bad, solely in respect to what is useful to man. The
laws of nature have regard to nature's general order, whereof man
is but a part. I mention this, in passing, lest any should think
that I have wished to set forth the faults and irrational deeds
of men rather than the nature and properties of things. For, as
I said in the preface to the third Part, I regard human emotions
and their properties as on the same footing with other natural
phenomena. Assuredly human emotions indicate the power and
ingenuity, of nature, if not of human nature, quite as fully as
other things which we admire, and which we delight to
contemplate. But I pass on to note those qualities in the
emotions, which brin