8. The case of _Cæcus_ is a common case: many people live in all the instances of pride, and yet never suspect themselves, because they dislike proud people, and are pleased with humility and modesty, wherever they find them. All their speeches in favour of humility, and all their railings against pride, are looked upon as effects of their own humble spirit. Whereas in truth, these are so far from being proofs of humility, that they are great arguments of the want of it. *For the fuller of pride any one is himself, the more impatient will he be at the smallest instances of it in other people. And the less humility any one has in his own mind, the more will he demand it in other people. *You must therefore act by a quite contrary measure, and reckon yourself only so far humble, as you impose _every instance_ of humility upon yourself, and _never_ call for it in other people. So far an enemy to pride, as you never _spare_ it in yourself, nor ever _censure_ it in other persons. The loving humility is of no benefit to you, but so far as all your own thoughts, words, and actions are governed by it. And the hating of pride does you no good, but so far as you hate to harbour any degree of it in your own heart. Now in order to set out in the practice of humility, you must take it for granted, that you are _proud_, that you have been so all your life. You should believe also, that it is your _greatest_ weakness, that your heart is most _subject_ to it; that it is so _constantly_ stealing upon you, you have reason to suspect its approaches in all your actions. For there is no one vice that is more deeply rooted in our nature, or that receives such constant nourishment from almost every thing that we think or do; there being hardly any thing in the world that we _want_ or _use_, or any _action_ or _duty_ of life, but pride finds some means or other to take hold of it. So that at what time soever we begin to offer ourselves to God, we can hardly be surer of any thing, than that we have a great deal of pride to repent of. If therefore you find it disagreeable to entertain this opinion of yourself, and that you cannot put yourself amongst those that want to be cured of pride, you may be as sure, as if an _angel_ from heaven had told you, that you have not only much, but all your humility to seek. *For you can have no greater sign of a confirmed pride, than when you think that you are humble enough. He that thinks he loves God enough, shews himself to be an entire stranger to that holy passion; so he that thinks he has humility enough, shews that he is not so much as a beginner in the practice of true humility. 9. Every person, therefore, when he first applies himself to the exercise of humility, must consider himself as a _learner_, who is, to learn something that is contrary to all his former tempers and habits of mind.