=The Soul's Skin.=--As the bones, flesh, entrails and blood vessels are enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable, so the impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity: it is the skin of the soul. 83 =Sleep of Virtue.=--If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous when it awakes. 84 =Subtlety of Shame.=--Men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts, but they are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to them. 85 =Naughtiness Is Rare.=--Most people are too much absorbed in themselves to be bad. 86 =The Mite in the Balance.=--We are praised or blamed, as the one or the other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of discernment. 87 =Luke 18:14 Improved.=--He that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted. 88 =Prevention of Suicide.=--There is a justice according to which we may deprive a man of life, but none that permits us to deprive him of death: this is merely cruelty. 89 =Vanity.=--We set store by the good opinion of men, first because it is of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure (children their parents, pupils their teacher, and well disposed persons all others generally). Only when the good opinion of men is important to somebody, apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure, do we speak of vanity. In this last case, a man wants to give himself pleasure, but at the expense of his fellow creatures, inasmuch as he inspires them with a false opinion of himself or else inspires "good opinion" in such a way that it is a source of pain to others (by arousing envy). The individual generally seeks, through the opinion of others, to attest and fortify the opinion he has of himself; but the potent influence of authority--an influence as old as man himself--leads many, also, to strengthen their own opinion of themselves by means of authority, that is, to borrow from others the expedient of relying more upon the judgment of their fellow men than upon their own.--Interest in oneself, the wish to please oneself attains, with the vain man, such proportions that he first misleads others into a false, unduly exalted estimate of himself and then relies upon the authority of others for his self estimate; he thus creates the delusion that he pins his faith to.--It must, however, be admitted that the vain man does not desire to please others so much as himself and he will often go so far, on this account, as to overlook his own interests: for he often inspires his fellow creatures with malicious envy and renders them ill disposed in order that he may thus increase his own delight in himself. 90 =Limits of the Love of Mankind.=--Every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous. 91