“Man, considered as an animal, is a being of but mediocre importance, and is not worth any more than other animals. His utility and worth is that of any marketable thing.—But, considered as a personality, he is priceless; he is possessed of a dignity which can claim the respect of all other reasonable creatures, and which allows him to measure himself with each of them, and consider himself their equal.
“But this respect, which he has a right to exact of every other man, he should not despoil himself of. He can, and should, therefore, estimate himself both in ratio to his greatness and littleness, according as he considers himself a sensuous being (in his animal nature), or an intelligent being (in his moral nature). But as he should not only consider himself as a person in general, but also as an individual man, his lesser worth as animal-man should not impair the consciousness he has of his dignity as reasonable man, and he must hold on to the moral estimate he makes of himself as such. In other words, he should not pursue his aims in a lowly and servile manner, as if he solicited favors: this would be abdicating his dignity; he should always uphold within himself the consciousness of the nobility of his moral faculties, for it is this estimate of one’s self which constitutes the duty of man toward himself.
“The consciousness and conviction of our little moral worth, compared with what the law requires of us, is moral humility. The contrary consciousness and conviction, namely, the persuading ourselves, for want of this comparison, that we are of very great worth, may be called the pride of virtue.—To reject all claim to any moral worth whatsoever, in the hope of acquiring thereby a hidden worth, is a false moral humility and an abasement of the mind. To undervalue one’s own moral worth for the purpose of obtaining thereby the favor of another (through hypocrisy or flattery, namely), is also a false humility, and, moreover, an abasement of one’s personality. True humility should of necessity be the result of an exact and sincere comparison of one’s self with the moral law (with its sanctity and severity). This duty relative to the human dignity in our personality may be more or less clearly stated in the following precepts: Be no man’s slave; let not your rights be trampled under foot; contract no debts for which you cannot give full security; accept no gifts which you can do without; be neither a parasite, nor a flatterer, nor a beggar; complaints and lamentations, even a single cry wrung from us by bodily pain, are things unworthy of us (still more unworthy if the pain is deserved). Therefore is a criminal’s death ennobled by the firmness with which he meets it. Can he who makes himself a worm complain if he be crushed?”[136]
164. True and false pride.—We should, however, not confound a true and noble pride, without which man is but a thing and a slave, with a passion which looks like it, but which is but its phantom; I mean false pride. True pride is the just feeling man has of his moral dignity, and which interdicts him to humble the human personality in others, or to allow it to be humbled in himself. False pride is the exaggerated feeling we entertain in regard to our own advantages and superiority over other men. True pride is related to what there is sacred and divine in us; false pride, on the contrary, feeds and grows fat on the trifling and petty concerns of our mere individuality. There is in man, the stoics said, an inner god: the human essence, namely, of which the individual is but the depository, and which he ought to keep sacred and holy as a divine host. This respect for the human personality, religious morality calls holiness; worldly morality calls it honor; it is one and the same principle under different forms; it is the idea of something sacred in us which we must neither stain nor debase. True pride rests then on what there is common among all men, on what makes them equals. False pride, on the contrary, regards chiefly our peculiarities, and what we call more especially our own. True pride asks for nothing more than to be free from oppression; false pride wants to oppress others. True pride is noble; false pride, brutal and insolent. Of course it has its degrees according to the nature of the advantages of which it boasts. The pride, for example, which boasts of material advantages, is the grossest of all; pride of birth and ancestry is more pardonable, but if he who is proud of them shows it too much he becomes disgusting, and true pride will have a right to protect itself against that kind of false pride. He, again, who is proud of his intellectual advantages is less blameworthy than the former, for these advantages belong, at least, to his personality; but as they are not due to the man, and as, however great they may be, they have still their weak sides, this also is an inexcusable pride. The pride which might appear to be the most pardonable is the pride of virtue, if there were not in some respects a sort of contradiction of terms in drawing advantage and honor from a good the essentiality of which consists in self-forgetfulness and the pure and simple observance of the law.
The diminutive of false pride is vanity. False pride looks to great things, at least to such as appear great to men; vanity boasts of the smallest. False pride is insulting; vanity wounding. The one is odious, the other ridiculous. The lowest order of vanity is foppishness, or the vanity of external advantages—the person, the toilet, superficial accomplishments. This diminutive of false pride is one of the most pitiable of passions, and should be combated by manly efforts.
165. Modesty.—The virtue opposed to false pride, and which, besides, is nowise irreconcilable with true pride, is modesty, a correct feeling, namely, of one’s just worth. Morality does not forbid us a proper estimate of our merits; these merits, besides, having but a relative value, and representing but faintly the high ideal we should always keep before our eyes. To fail to appreciate the advantages we owe to nature, is often indicative only of laziness and apathy. He who depreciates himself is not disposed to turn what there is in him to account. This self-depreciation, in order to avoid the responsibility of using his faculties, is often but a subterfuge and the sophistry of indolence. There is nothing contrary to duty in the acknowledgment of our worth, so long as we do not boast of it, but thank Providence for it, and put to use the gifts it has conferred on us. If, on the contrary, the question is of virtues we have acquired by our own efforts, the satisfaction we experience from it is but the just recompense of these efforts; and such a feeling could not be condemned; for such condemnation would be a virtual protest against the moral conscience, which consists as much in the satisfaction we derive from good actions as in the regrets which accompany the bad.
Unquestionably, “the left hand should not know what the right hand doeth;” which means that we should not everywhere proclaim aloud our good actions, and that we should as much as possible forget them. But this forgetting should not go so far as indifference; for our morality depends upon our consciousness.
But if it is lawful for man to rejoice over his natural or acquired gifts, it is on the condition that he do not exaggerate their import: this is easy enough if we compare ourselves to those who are still better gifted than we are, or think of what we should and could do with greater efforts, more courage, better will; or in recognizing the narrow scope, limits, and defects of these gifts, or in keeping, above all, our eyes more open to our faults than our good qualities. Beware of the beam of the Gospel.
Modesty should not only be external, but internal also; externally, it is above all a duty we owe others, whom we should not humble by our superior advantages; internally, it is a duty to ourselves, for we should not deceive ourselves about our own worth. One is sometimes modest externally without being so internally, and conversely. I may pretend before men to have no great opinion of myself, whilst internally I am full of conceit: this is sheer hypocrisy. I may, on the other hand, externally attribute to myself advantages which my conscience altogether denies: this is bragging. One should be modest both inwardly and outwardly, in words and actions. But how, in what manner, and to what degree must we be modest? It is impossible in matters so delicate to establish definite rules, and the decision must be left to our own judgment.
There is another virtue to be distinguished from modesty, namely, humility. Humility should not be an abasement; for it is never a virtue in man to lower himself. But, even as dignity and true pride are virtues which spring from a proper sense of human greatness, so humility is a virtue which springs from a proper sense of human weakness. Remember that thou art a man and do not degrade thyself: this is self-respect. Remember that thou art but a man and do not allow thyself to indulge in vain pride; this is humility. Modesty relates to the individual; humility to human nature in general. As to that false humility which consists in lowering one’s self before men unnecessarily, and without any occasion for it (like Tartufe, for example: