master of arts in the monkey tribe. The first lesson he gave was as
follows:--

"Great King, in order to govern wisely a prince should always consider
the good of the country before yielding to that feeling which is
commonly known as self-love, for that fault is the father of all the
vices one sees in animals. To rid oneself of this sentiment is not an
easy thing to do, and is not to be done in a day. Indeed, merely to
moderate it is to achieve a good deal, and if you succeed so far you
will never tolerate in yourself anything ridiculous or unjust."

"Give me," commanded the king, "an example of each of those faults."

"Every species of creature," continued the philosopher, "esteems itself
in its heart above all the others. These others it regards as
ignoramuses, calling them by many hard names which, after all, hurt
nobody. At the same time this self-love, which sneers at other tribes
and other kinds of beasts, induces the individual to heap praise upon
other individuals of his own species, because that is a very good way of
praising oneself too. From this it is easy to see that many talents here
below are in reality but empty pretence, assumption, and pose, and a
certain gift of making the most of oneself, better understood by
ignorant people than by learned.

"The other day I followed two asses who were offering the incense of
flattery to each other by turns, and heard one say, 'My Lord, do you not
think that man, that perfect animal, is both unjust and stupid? He
profanes our august name by calling every one of his own kind an ass who
is ignorant, or dull, or idiotic; and he calls our laughter and our
discourse by the term "braying." It is very amusing that these human