3
Pride seems even from its name to be concerned with great things;
what sort of great things, is the first question we must try to answer.
It makes no difference whether we consider the state of character or the
man characterized by it. Now the man is thought to be proud who thinks
himself worthy of great things, being worthy of them; for he who does so
beyond his deserts is a fool, but no virtuous man is foolish or silly.
The proud man, then, is the man we have described. For he who is worthy
of little and thinks himself worthy of little is temperate, but not proud;
for pride implies greatness, as beauty implies a goodsized body, and little
people may be neat and well-proportioned but cannot be beautiful. On the
other hand, he who thinks himself worthy of great things, being unworthy
of them, is
vain; though not every one who thinks himself worthy of more than he
really is worthy of in vain. The man who thinks himself worthy of worthy
of less than he is really worthy of is unduly humble, whether his deserts
be great or moderate, or his deserts be small but his claims yet smaller.
And the man whose deserts are great would seem most unduly humble; for
what would he have done if they had been less? The proud man, then, is
an extreme in respect of the greatness of
his claims, but a mean in respect of the rightness of them; for he
claims what is accordance with his merits, while the others go to excess
or fall short.
If, then, he deserves and claims great things, and
above all the great things, he will be concerned with one thing in particular.
Desert is relative to external goods; and the greatest of these, we should
say, is that which we render to the gods, and which people of position
most aim at, and which is the prize appointed for the noblest deeds; and
this is honour; that is surely the greatest of external goods. Honours
and dishonours, therefore, are the objects with respect to which the proud
man is as he should be. And even apart from argument it is with honour
that proud men appear to be concerned; for it is honour that they chiefly
claim, but in accordance with their deserts. The unduly humble man falls
short both in comparison with his own merits and in comparison with the
proud man's claims. The vain man goes to excess in comparison with his
own merits, but does not exceed the proud man's claims.
Now the proud man, since he deserves most, must be good in the highest
degree; for the better man always deserves more, and the best man most.
Therefore the truly proud man must be good. And greatness in every virtue
would seem to be characteristic of a proud man. And it would be most unbecoming
for a proud man to fly from danger, swinging his arms by his sides, or
to wrong another; for to what end should he do disgraceful acts, he to
whom nothing is great? If we consider him point by point we shall see the
utter absurdity of a proud man who is not good. Nor, again, would he be
worthy of honour if he were bad; for honour is the prize of virtue, and
it is to the good that it is rendered. Pride, then, seems to be a sort
of crown of the virtues; for it makes them greater, and it is not found
without them. Therefore it is hard to be truly proud; for it is impossible
without nobility and goodness of character. It is chiefly with honours
and dishonours, then, that the proud man is concerned; and at honours that
are great and conferred by good men he will be moderately pleased, thinking
that he is coming by his own or even less than his own; for there can be
no honour that is worthy of perfect virtue, yet he will at any rate accept
it since they have nothing greater to bestow on him; but honour from casual
people and on trifling grounds he will utterly despise, since it is not
this that he deserves, and dishonour too, since in his case it cannot be
just. In the first place, then, as has been said, the proud man is concerned
with honours; yet he will also bear himself with moderation towards wealth
and power and all good or evil fortune, whatever may befall him, and will
be neither over-joyed by good fortune nor over-pained by evil. For not
even towards honour does he bear himself as if it were a very great thing.
Power and wealth are desirable for the sake of honour (at least those who
have them wish to get honour by means of
them); and for him to whom even honour is a little thing the others
must be so too. Hence proud men are thought to be disdainful.
The goods of fortune also are thought to contribute towards pride.
For men who are well-born are thought worthy of honour, and so are those
who enjoy power or wealth; for they are in a superior position, and everything
that has a superiority in something good is held in greater honour. Hence
even such things make men prouder; for they are honoured by some for having
them; but in truth the good man alone is to be honoured; he, however, who
has both advantages is thought the more worthy of honour. But those who
without virtue have such goods are neither justified in making great claims
nor entitled to the name of 'proud'; for these things imply perfect virtue.
Disdainful and insolent, however, even those who have such goods become.
For without virtue it is not easy to bear gracefully the goods of fortune;
and, being unable to bear them, and thinking themselves superior to others,
they despise others and themselves do what they please. They imitate the
proud man without being like him, and this they do where they can; so they
do not act virtuously, but they do despise others. For the proud man despises
justly (since he thinks truly), but the many do so at random.
He does not run into trifling dangers, nor is he fond of danger,
because he honours few things; but he will face great dangers, and when
he is in danger he is unsparing of his life, knowing that there are conditions
on which life is not worth having. And he is the sort of man to confer
benefits, but he is ashamed of receiving them; for the one is the mark
of a superior, the other of an inferior. And he is apt to confer greater
benefits in return; for thus the original benefactor besides being paid
will incur a debt to him, and will be the gainer by the transaction. They
seem also to remember any service they have done, but not those they have
received (for he who receives a service is inferior to him who has done
it, but the proud man wishes to be superior), and to hear of the former
with pleasure, of the latter with displeasure; this, it seems, is why Thetis
did not mention to Zeus the services she had done him, and why the Spartans
did not recount their services to the Athenians, but those they had received.
It is a mark of the proud man also to ask for nothing or scarcely anything,
but to give help readily, and to be dignified towards people who enjoy
high position and good fortune, but unassuming towards those of the middle
class; for it is a difficult and lofty thing to be superior to the former,
but easy to be so to the latter, and a lofty bearing over the former is
no mark of ill-breeding, but among humble people it is as vulgar as a display
of strength against the weak. Again, it is characteristic of the proud
man not to aim at the things commonly held in honour, or the things in
which others excel; to be sluggish and to hold back except where great
honour or a great work is at stake, and to be a man of few deeds, but of
great and notable ones. He must also be open in his hate and in his love
(for to conceal one's feelings, i.e. to care less for truth than for what
people will think, is a coward's part), and must speak and act openly;
for he is free of speech because he is contemptuous, and he is given to
telling the truth, except when he speaks in irony to the vulgar. He must
be unable to make his life revolve round another, unless it be a friend;
for this is slavish, and for this reason all flatterers are servile and
people lacking in self-respect are flatterers. Nor is he given to admiration;
for nothing to him is great. Nor is he mindful of wrongs; for it is not
the part of a proud man to have a long memory, especially for wrongs, but
rather to overlook them. Nor is he a gossip; for he will speak neither
about himself nor about another, since he cares not to be praised nor for
others to be blamed; nor again is he given to praise; and for the same
reason he is not an evil-speaker, even about his enemies, except from haughtiness.
With regard to necessary or small matters he is least of all me given to
lamentation or the asking of favours; for it is the part of one who takes
such matters seriously to behave so with respect to them. He is one who
will possess beautiful and profitless things rather than profitable and
useful ones; for this is more proper to a character that suffices to itself.
Further, a slow step is thought proper to the proud man, a deep voice,
and a level utterance; for the man who takes few things seriously is not
likely to be hurried, nor the man who thinks nothing great to be excited,
while a shrill voice and a rapid gait are the results of hurry and excitement.
Such, then, is the proud man; the man who falls short of him is unduly
humble, and the man who goes beyond him is vain. Now even these are not
thought to be bad (for they are not malicious), but only mistaken. For
the unduly humble man, being worthy of good things, robs himself of what
he deserves, and to have something bad about him from the fact that he
does not think himself worthy of good things, and seems also not to know
himself; else he would have desired the
things he was worthy of, since these were good. Yet such people are
not thought to be fools, but rather unduly retiring. Such a reputation,
however, seems actually to make them worse; for each class of people aims
at what corresponds to its worth, and these people stand back even from
noble actions and undertakings, deeming
themselves unworthy, and from external goods no less. Vain people,
on the other hand, are fools and ignorant of themselves, and that manifestly;
for, not being worthy of them, they attempt honourable undertakings, and
then are found out; and tetadorn themselves with clothing and outward show
and such things, and wish their strokes of good fortune to be made public,
and speak about them as if they would be honoured for them. But undue humility
is more opposed to pride than vanity is; for it is both commoner and worse.
Pride, then, is concerned with honour on the grand scale, as has
been said.