as the chief evil in the world, and my
benefit the soul of good in that evil. May there not be at least a
partial release from the imprisoning verdict that a man's philosophy is
the formula of his personality? In certain branches of science we can
ascertain our personal equation, the measure of difference between our
own judgments and an average standard: may there not be some
corresponding correction of our personal partialities in moral
theorising? If a squint or other ocular defect disturbs my vision, I can
get instructed in the fact, be made aware that my condition is abnormal,
and either through spectacles or diligent imagination I can learn the
average appearance of things: is there no remedy or corrective for that
inward squint which consists in a dissatisfied egoism or other want of
mental balance? In my conscience I saw that the bias of personal
discontent was just as misleading and odious as the bias of
self-satisfaction. Whether we look through the rose-coloured glass or
the indigo, we are equally far from the hues which the healthy human eye
beholds in heaven above and earth below. I began to dread ways of
consoling which were really a flattering of native illusions, a
feeding-up into monstrosity of an inward growth already
disproportionate; to get an especial scorn for that scorn of mankind
which is a transmuted disappointment of preposterous claims; to watch
with peculiar alarm lest what I called my philosophic estimate of the
human lot in general, should be a mere prose lyric expressing my own
pain and consequent bad temper. The standing-ground worth striving after
seemed to be some Delectable Mountain, whence I could see things in
proportions as little as possible determined by that self-partiality
which certainly plays a necessary part in our bodily sustenance, but has
a starving effect on the mind.

Thus I finally gave up any attempt to make out that I preferred cutting
a bad figure, and that I liked to be despised, because in this way I was
getting more virtuous than my successful rivals; and I have long looked
with suspicion on all views which are recommended as peculiarly
consolatory to wounded vanity or other personal disappointment. The
consolations of egoism are simply a change of attitude or a resort to a
new kind of diet which soothes and fattens it. Fed in this way it is apt
to become a monstrous spiritual pride, or a chuckling satisfaction that
the final balance will not be against us but aga