THE SKIN OF THE SOUL.--As the bones, flesh, entrails, and blood-vessels are enclosed within a skin, which makes the aspect of man endurable, so the emotions and passions of the soul are enwrapped with vanity,--it is the skin of the soul. 83. THE SLEEP OF VIRTUE.--When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher. 84. THE REFINEMENT OF SHAME.--People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them. 85. MALICE IS RARE.--Most people are far too much occupied with themselves to be malicious. 86. THE TONGUE IN THE BALANCE.--We praise or blame according as the one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgment. 87. ST. LUKE XVIII. 14, IMPROVED.--He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. 88. THE PREVENTION OF SUICIDE.--There is a certain right by which we may deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty. 89. VANITY.--We care for the good opinion of men, firstly because they are useful to us, and then because we wish to please them (children their parents, pupils their teachers, and well-meaning people generally their fellow-men). Only where the good opinion of men is of importance to some one, apart from the advantage thereof or his wish to please, can we speak of vanity. In this case the man wishes to please himself, but at the expense of his fellow-men, either by misleading them into holding a false opinion about him, or by aiming at a degree of "good opinion" which must be painful to every one else (by arousing envy). The individual usually wishes to corroborate the opinion he holds of himself by the opinion of others, and to strengthen it in his own eyes; but the strong habit of authority--a habit as old as man himself --induces many to support by authority their belief in themselves: that is to say, they accept it first from others; they trust the judgment of others more than their own. The interest in himself, the wish to please himself, attains to such a height in a vain man that he misleads others into having a false, all too elevated estimation of him, and yet nevertheless sets store by their authority,--thus causing an error and yet believing in it. It must be confessed, therefore, that vain people do not wish to please others so much as themselves, and that they go so far therein as to neglect their advantage, for they often endeavour to prejudice their fellow-men unfavourably, inimicably, enviously, consequently injuriously against themselves, merely in order to have pleasure in themselves, personal pleasure. 90. THE LIMITS OF HUMAN LOVE.--A man who has declared that another is an idiot and a bad companion, is angry when the latter eventually proves himself to be otherwise. 91.