Fourthly, men who excel others in trifling instances frequently cast a supercilious eye on their superiors in the highest. Thus the least pretensions to preeminence in title, birth, riches, equipages, dress, &c., constantly overlook the most noble endowments of virtue, honour, wisdom, sense, wit, and every other quality which can truly dignify and adorn a man.
Lastly, the lowest and meanest of our species are the most strongly addicted to this vice—men who are a scandal to their sex, and women who disgrace human nature; for the basest mechanic is so far from being exempt that he is generally the most guilty of it. It visits ale-houses and gin-shops, and whistles in the empty heads of fidlers, mountebanks, and dancing-masters.
To conclude a character on which we have already dwelt longer than is consistent with the intended measure of this essay, this contempt of others is the truest symptom of a base and a bad heart. While it suggests itself to the mean and the vile, and tickles their little fancy on every occasion, it never enters the great and good mind but on the strongest motives; nor is it then a welcome guest, affording only an uneasy sensation, and brings always with it a mixture of concern and compassion.
We will now proceed to inferior criminals in society. Theoretus, conceiving that the assembly is only met to see and admire him, is uneasy unless he engrosses the eyes of the whole company. The giant doth not take more pains to be viewed; and, as he is unfortunately not so tall, he carefully deposits himself in the most conspicuous place; nor will that suffice—he must walk about the room, though to the great disturbance of the company; and, if he can purchase general observation at no less rate, will condescend to be ridiculous; for he prefers being laughed at to being taken little notice of.
On the other side, Dusopius is so bashful that he hides himself in a corner; he hardly bears being looked at, and never quits the first chair he lights upon, lest he should expose himself to public view. He trembles when you bowe to him at a distance, is shocked at hearing his own voice, and would almost swoon at the repetition of his name.
The audacious Anedes, who is extremely amorous in his inclinations, never likes a woman but his eyes ask her the question, without considering the confusion he often occasions to the object; he ogles and languishes at every pretty woman in the room. As there is no law of morality which he would not break to satisfy his desires, so is there no form of civility which he doth not violate to communicate them. When he gets possession of a woman's hand, which those of stricter decency never give him but with reluctance, he considers himself as its master. Indeed, there is scarce a familiarity which he will abstain from on the slightest acquaintance, and in the most public place. Seraphina herself can make no impression on the rough temper of Agroicus; neither her quality nor her beauty can exact the least complacence from him; and he would let her lovely limbs ach rather than offer her his chair: while the gentle Lyperus tumbles over benches and overthrows tea-tables to take up a fan or a glove; he forces you, as a good parent doth his child, for your own good; he is absolute master of a lady's will, nor will allow her the election of standing or sitting in his company. In short, the impertinent civility of Lyperus is as troublesome, though perhaps not so offensive, as the brutish rudeness of Agroicus.
Thus we have hinted at most of the common enormities committed in public assemblies to our equals; for it would be tedious and difficult to enumerate all: nor is it needful; since from this sketch we may trace all others, most of which, I believe, will be found to branch out from some of the particulars here specified.
I am now, in the last place, to consider our behaviour to our inferiors, in which condescension can never be too strongly recommended; for, as a deviation on this side is much more innocent than on the other, so the pride of man renders us much less liable to it. For, besides that we are apt to overrate our own perfections, and undervalue the qualifications of our neighbours, we likewise set too high an esteem on the things themselves, and consider them as constituting a more essential difference between us than they really do. The qualities of the mind do, in reality, establish the truest superiority over one another: yet should not these so far elevate our pride as to inflate us with contempt, and make us look down on our fellow-creatures as on animals of an inferior order; but that the fortuitous accident of birth, the acquisition of wealth, with some outward ornaments of dress, should inspire men with an insolence capable of treating the rest of mankind with disdain, is so preposterous that nothing less than daily experience could give it credit. If men were to be rightly estimated, and divided into subordinate classes according to the superior excellence of their several natures, perhaps the lowest class of either sex would be properly assigned to those two disgraces of the human species, commonly called a beau and a fine lady; for, if we rate men by the faculties of the mind, in what degree must these stand? nay, admitting the qualities of the body were to give the pre-eminence, how many of those whom fortune hath placed in the lowest station must be ranked above them? If dress is their only title, sure even the monkey, if as well dressed, is on as high a footing as the beau. But perhaps I shall be told they challenge their dignity from birth; that is a poor and mean pretence to honour when supported with no other. Persons who have no better claim to superiority should be ashamed of this; they are really a disgrace to those very ancestors from whom they would derive their pride, and are chiefly happy in this, that they want the very moderate portion of understanding which would enable them to despise themselves.
And yet who so prone to a contemptuous carriage as these? I have myself seen a little female thing which they have called "my lady," of no greater dignity in the order of beings than a cat, and of no more use in society than a butterfly; whose mien would not give even the idea of a gentlewoman, and whose face would cool the loosest libertine; with a mind as empty of ideas as an opera, and a body fuller of diseases than an hospital—I have seen this thing express contempt to a woman who was an honour to her sex and an ornament to the creation.
To confess the truth, there is little danger of the possessor's ever undervaluing this titular excellence. Not that I would withdraw from it that deference which the policy of government hath assigned it. On the contrary, I have laid down the most exact compliance with this respect, as a fundamental in good-breeding; nay, I insist only that we may be admitted to pay it, and not treated with a disdain even beyond what the eastern monarchs shew to their slaves. Surely it is too high an elevation when, instead of treating the lowest human creature, in a Christian sense, as our brethren, we look down on such as are but one rank in the civil order removed from us as unworthy to breathe even the same air, and regard the most distant communication with them as an indignity and disgrace offered to ourselves. This is considering the difference not in the individual, but in the very species; a height of insolence impious in a Christian society, and most absurd and ridiculous in a trading nation.