Bonaparte's dominant passion.--His lucid, calculating mind. --Source and power of the Will.--Early evidences of an active, absorbing egoism.--His education derived from the lessons of things.--In Corsica.--In France during the Revolution.--In Italy.--In Egypt.--His idea of Society and of Right.--Maturing after the 18th of Brumaire.--His idea of Man.--It conforms to his character It is egoism, not a passive, but an active and intrusive egoism, proportional to the energy and extension of his faculties developed by his education and circumstances, exaggerated by his success and his omnipotence to such a degree that a monstrous colossal I has been erected in society. It expands unceasingly the circle of a tenacious and rapacious grasp, which regards all resistance as offensive, which all independence annoys, and which, on the boundless domain it assigns to itself, is intolerant of anybody that does not become either an appendix or a tool.--The germ of this absorbing personality is already apparent in the youth and even in the infant. "Character: dominating, imperious, and stubborn," says the record at Brienne.[1224] And the notes of the Military Academy add;[1225] "Extremely inclined to egoism,"--"proud, ambitious, aspiring in all directions, fond of solitude," undoubtedly because he is not master in a group of equals and is ill at ease when he cannot rule. "I lived apart from my comrades," he says at a later date.[1226]--"I had selected a little corner in the playgrounds, where I used to go and sit down and indulge my fancies. When my comrades were disposed to drive me out of this corner I defended it with all my might. My instinct already told me that my will should prevail against other wills, and that whatever pleased me ought to belong to me." Referring to his early years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he depicts himself as a little mischievous savage, rebelling against every sort of restraint, and without any conscience.[1227] "I respected nothing and feared nobody; I beat one and scratched another; I made everybody afraid of me. I beat my brother Joseph; I bit him and complained of him almost before he knew what he was about." A clever trick, and one which he was not slow to repeat. His talent for improvising useful falsehoods is innate; later on, at maturity, he is proud of this; he makes it the index and measure of "political superiority," and "delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who, in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world because he was fond of lying."[1228]