s it rushes on with thundering speed.
If the pure ideas of the reasoning brain thus maintain their daily
supremacy it is due to the vital flow which nourishes them; their roots
are deep in his heart and temperament, and those roots which give them
their vigorous sap constitute a primordial instinct more powerful than
intellect, more powerful even than his will, the instinct which leads
him to center everything on himself, in other words egoism.[1223]

II. Will and Egoism.

Bonaparte's dominant passion.--His lucid, calculating mind.
--Source and power of the Will.--Early evidences of an
active, absorbing egoism.--His education derived from the
lessons of things.--In Corsica.--In France during the
Revolution.--In Italy.--In Egypt.--His idea of Society and
of Right.--Maturing after the 18th of Brumaire.--His idea of
Man.--It conforms to his character

It is egoism, not a passive, but an active and intrusive egoism,
proportional to the energy and extension of his faculties developed
by his education and circumstances, exaggerated by his success and
his omnipotence to such a degree that a monstrous colossal I has been
erected in society. It expands unceasingly the circle of a tenacious and
rapacious grasp, which regards all resistance as offensive, which all
independence annoys, and which, on the boundless domain it assigns to
itself, is intolerant of anybody that does not become either an appendix
or a tool.--The germ of this absorbing personality is already apparent
in the youth and even in the infant.

"Character: dominating, imperious, and stubborn,"

says the record at Brienne.[1224] And the notes of the Military Academy
add;[1225]

"Extremely inclined to egoism,"--"proud, ambitious, aspiring in all
directions, fond of solitude,"

undoubtedly because he is not master in a group of equals and is ill at
ease when he cannot rule.

"I lived apart from my comrades," he says at a later date.[1226]--"I had
selected a little corner in the playgrounds, where I used to go and sit
down and indulge my fancies. When my comrades were disposed to drive me
out of this corner I defended it with all my might. My instinct already
told me that my will should prevail against other wills, and that
whatever pleased me ought to belong to me."

Referring to his early years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he
depicts himself as a little mischievous savage, rebelling against
every sort of re