The virtue of =loving-kindness=, on the other hand, is rather to be matched with =ill-will=, or =spitefulness=, the origin and successive stages of which we will now consider. Ill-will, in its lower degrees, is very frequent, indeed, almost a common thing; and it easily rises in the scale. Goethe is assuredly right when he says that in this world indifference and aversion are quite at home.--(_Wahlverwandtschaften,_ Part I., chap. 3.) It is very fortunate for us that the cloak, which prudence and politeness throw over this vice, prevents us from seeing how general it is, and how the _bellum omnium contra omnes_ is constantly waged, at least in thought. Yet ever and anon there is some appearance of it: for instance, in the relentless backbiting so frequently observed; while its clearest manifestation is found in all out-breaks of anger, which, for the most part, are quite disproportional to their cause, and which could hardly be so violent, had they not been compressed--like gunpowder--into the explosive compound formed of long cherished brooding hatred. Ill-will usually arises from the unavoidable collisions of Egoism which occur at every step. It is, moreover, objectively excited by the view of the weakness, the folly, the vices, failings, shortcomings, and imperfections of all kinds, which every one more or less, at least occasionally, affords to others. Indeed, the spectacle is such, that many a man, especially in moments of melancholy and depression, may be tempted to regard the world, from the aesthetic standpoint, as a cabinet of caricatures; from the intellectual, as a madhouse; and from the moral, as a nest of sharpers. If such a mental attitude be indulged, misanthropy is the result. Lastly, one of the chief sources of ill-will is envy; or rather, the latter is itself ill-will, kindled by the happiness, possessions, or advantages of others. No one is absolutely free from envy; and Herodotus (III. 80) said long ago: _ϕθόνος ἀρχῆθεν ἐμϕύεται ἀνθρώπῳ_ (envy is a natural growth in man from the beginning). But its degrees vary considerably. It is most poisonous and implacable when directed against personal qualities, because then the envious have nothing to hope for. And precisely in such cases its vilest form also appears, because men are made to hate what they ought to love and honour. Yet so "the world wags," even as Petrarca complained: _Di lor par più, che d'altri, invidia s'abbia,_ _Che per se stessi son levati a volo,_ _Uscendo fuor della commune gabbia._ (For envy fastens most of all on those, Who, rising on their own strong wings, escape The bars wherein the vulgar crowd is cag'd.) The reader is referred to the Parerga, vol. ii., § 114, for a more complete examination of envy.