The last of the present group of duties which we shall discuss relates to the feelings of vanity, pride, humility. Vanity is a feeling of self-complacency based on external advantages. A person is vain of his dress or of his real or supposed personal charms. The peacock is the type of vanity. Though the admiration of others ministers to vanity, yet it is possible to be vain by one's self--before a mirror, for instance. The feeling of pride, on the other hand, depends upon a comparison between self and others. Pride implies a sense of one's own superiority and of the inferiority of others. Both feelings are anti-moral. They spring, like moral cowardice and anger, from the false belief that this little self of ours is of very great importance. There is no such thing as proper pride or honest pride. The word pride used in this connection is a misnomer. Vanity is spurious self-esteem based on external advantages. Pride is spurious self-esteem based on comparison with others. Genuine self-esteem is based on the consciousness of a distinction which we share with all humanity--namely, the capacity and the duty of rational development. This genuine self-esteem has two aspects--the one positive, the other negative. The positive aspect is called dignity, the negative humility. True dignity and true humility always go together. The sense of dignity arises within us when we remember the aims to which as human beings we are pledged; the sense of humility can not fail to arise when we consider how infinitely in practice we all fall below those aims. Thus while pride depends on a comparison of ourselves with others, the genuinely moral feeling is excited when we consider our relation to the common ends of mankind. On the one hand, we are indeed privileged to pursue those ends, and are thereby exalted above all created things and above the whole of the natural world with all its stars and suns. Upon this consideration is founded the sense of dignity. On the other hand, we can not but own how great is the distance which separates even the best of us from the goal, and this gives rise to a deep sense of humility. The rule of conduct which we are considering is a rule of proper self-estimation. Estimate thy worth not by external advantages nor by thy pre-eminence above others, but by the degree of energy with which thou pursuest the moral aims. To mark off the distinction between vanity and pride on the one hand and dignity on the other, the teacher may contrast in detail the lives of Alcibiades and Socrates.