absurdity, offered to a man of his deserts. He is too conscious of his
real worth to be much affected by the expression of his neighbour's
view of him. For a man is most elated, when complimented on an
excellence which he was not very sure of possessing: and most sensibly
grieved at an insult, where he half suspects himself of really making
a poor figure, whereas he would like to make a good one. It is
doubtless the serene and settled conviction that Englishmen generally
entertain of the greatness of their country, that enables them to
listen with equanimity to abase of England, such as no other people in
Europe would endure levelled at themselves.

7. _Proud_ is an epithet pretty freely applied to Englishmen abroad,
and it seems to fit the character of the Magnanimous Man. He seems a
Pharisee, and worse than a Pharisee. The Pharisee's pride was to some
extent mitigated by breaking out into that disease of children and
silly persons, vanity: he "did all his works to be seen of men." But
here the disease is all driven inwards, and therefore more malignant.
The Magnanimous Man is so much in conceit with himself as to have
become a scorner of his fellows. He is self-sufficient, a deity to
himself, the very type of Satanic pride. These are the charges brought
against him.

8. To purify and rectify the character of the Magnanimous Man, we need
to take a leaf out of the book of Christianity. Not that there is
anything essentially Christian and supernatural in what we are about
to allege: otherwise it would not belong to philosophy: it is a truth
of reason, but a truth generally overlooked, till it found its
exponent in the Christian preacher, and its development in the
articles of the Christian faith. The truth is this. There is in every
human being what theologians have called _man and man_: man as he is