_Not the same with moral Emotion._--The emotions now under consideration must not be confounded with the satisfaction which arises in view of moral worthiness, and the regret and disapprobation with which we view our past conduct as morally wrong. The emotions of which we now speak, are not of the nature of moral emotion, however closely allied in some respects. It is not the verdict of an approving or condemning conscience that awakens them. They have no reference to the right as such. The object is viewed, not in the light of obligation or duty, but merely as a _good_, a thing agreeable and desirable. Thus viewed, its possession gives us pleasure, its absence, pain. _Not blame-worthy in itself._--In the simple emotion thus awakened, the satisfaction and pleasure with which we regard our own intellectual and moral attainments, or even our external circumstances, there is nothing blamable or unworthy of the true man. It is simply the working of nature. The susceptibility to such emotion is part of our constitution, implanted and inherent. As Dr. Brown has well remarked, it is impossible to desire excellence, and not to rejoice at its attainment; and if it is culpable to feel pleasure at attainments which have made us nobler than we were before, it must, of course, have been culpable to desire such excellence. _In what Cases the Emotion becomes culpable._--It is only when the emotion exists in an undue degree, or with regard to unworthy objects, when the supposed excellence upon which we congratulate ourselves really does not exist, or, when existing, we are disposed to set ourselves up above others on account of it, and perhaps to look down upon others for the lack of it, or even to make them feel by our manner and bearing what and how great the difference is between them and us; it is only under such forms and modifications, that the feeling becomes culpable and odious. These it not unfrequently assumes. They are the states of mind commonly denoted by the term _pride_, as the word is used in common speech; and the censure usually and very justly attached to the state of mind designated by that term, must be understood as applicable to the disposition and feelings now described, and not to the simple emotion of pleasure in view of our own real or supposed attainments. That which we condemn in the proud man is not that he excels others, or is conscious of thus excelling, or takes pleasure even in that consciousness, but that, comparing himself with others, and feeling his superiority, he is disposed to think more highly of himself than he ought, on account of it, and more contemptuously of others than he ought, and especially if he seeks to impress others with the sense of that superiority.