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.