Nulla fides regni sociis, omnisque potestas
Impatiens consortis erit. LUCAN, Lib. i. 92.
No faith of partnership dominion owns;
Still discord hovers o'er divided thrones.
THE hostility perpetually exercised between
one man and another, is caused by the desire
of many for that which only few can possess.
Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous;
yet fame, power, and riches are only the names of
relative conditions, which imply the obscurity,
dependance, and poverty of greater numbers.
This universal and incessant competition
produces injury and malice by two motives, interest
and envy; the prospect of adding to our possessions
what we can take from others, and the hope of
alleviating the sense of our disparity by lessening
others, though we gain nothing to ourselves.
Of these two malignant and destructive powers,
it seems probable at the first view, that interest has
the strongest and most extensive influence. It is
easy to conceive that opportunities to seize what
has been long wanted, may excite desires almost
irresistible; but surely the same eagerness cannot
be kindled by an accidental power of destroying
that which gives happiness to another. It must be
more natural to rob for gain, than to ravage only
for mischief.
Yet I am inclined to believe, that the great law
of mutual benevolence is oftener violated by envy
than by interest, and that most of the misery which
the defamation of blameless actions, or the obstruction
of honest endeavours, brings upon the world,
is inflicted by men that propose no advantage to
themselves but the satisfaction of poisoning the
banquet which they cannot taste, and blasting the
harvest which they have no right to reap.
Interest can diffuse itself but to a narrow
compass. The number is never large of those who can
hope to fill the posts of degraded power, catch the
fragments of shattered fortune, or succeed to the
honours of depreciated beauty. But the empire of
envy has no limits, as it requires to its influence
very little help from external circumstances. Envy
may always be produced by idleness and pride, and
in what place will they not be found?
Interest requires some qualities not universally
bestowed. The ruin of another will produce no
profit to him who has not discernment to mark his
advantage, courage to seize, and activity to pursue
it; but the cold malignity of envy may be exerted
in a torpid and quiescent state, amidst the gloom
of stupidity, in the coverts of cowardice. He that
falls by the attacks of interest, is torn by hungry
tigers; he may discover and resist his enemies. He
that perishes in the ambushes of envy, is destroyed
by unknown and invisible assailants, and dies like
a man suffocated by a poisonous vapour, without
knowledge of his danger, or possibility of
contest.
Interest is seldom pursued but at some hazard.
He that hopes to gain much, has commonly something
to lose, and when he ventures to attack superiority,
if he fails to conquer, is irrecoverably
crushed. But envy may act without expense or
danger. To spread suspicion, to invent calumnies,
to propagate scandal, requires neither labour nor
courage. It is easy for the author of a lie, however
malignant, to escape detection, and infamy needs
very little industry to assist its circulation.
Envy is almost the only vice which is practicable
at all times, and in every place; the only passion
which can never lie quiet for want of irritation: its
effects therefore are every where discoverable, and
its attempts always to be dreaded.
It is impossible to mention a name which any
advantageous distinction has made eminent, but
some latent animosity will burst out. The wealthy
trader, however he may abstract himself from
publick affairs, will never want those who hint, with
Shylock, that ships are but boards. The beauty,
adorned only with the unambitious graces of innocence
and modesty, provokes, whenever she appears,
a thousand murmurs of detraction. The genius,
even when he endeavours only to entertain or
instruct, yet suffers persecution from innumerable
criticks, whose acrimony is excited merely by the
pain of seeing others pleased, and of hearing
applauses which another enjoys.
The frequency of envy makes it so familiar, that
it escapes our notice; nor do we often reflect upon
its turpitude or malignity, till we happen to feel its
influence. When he that has given no provocation
to malice, but by attempting to excel, finds himself
pursued by multitudes whom he never saw, with
all the implacability of personal resentment; when
he perceives clamour and malice let loose upon him
as a publick enemy, and incited by every stratagem
of defamation; when he hears the misfortunes of
his family, or the follies of his youth, exposed to
the world; and every failure of conduct, or defect
of nature, aggravated and ridiculed; he then learns
to abhor those artifices at which he only laughed
before, and discovers how much the happiness of
life would be advanced by the eradication of envy
from the human heart.
Envy is, indeed, a stubborn weed of the mind,
and seldom yields to the culture of philosophy. There
are, however, considerations, which, if carefully
implanted and diligently propagated, might in time
overpower and repress it, since no one can nurse it
for the sake of pleasure, as its effects are only shame,
anguish, and perturbation.
It is above all other vices inconsistent with the
character of a social being, because it sacrifices truth
and kindness to very weak temptations. He that
plunders a wealthy neighbour gains as much as he
takes away, and may improve his own condition in
the same proportion as he impairs another's; but he
that blasts a flourishing reputation, must be content
with a small dividend of additional fame, so small
as can afford very little consolation to balance the
guilt by which it is obtained.
I have hitherto avoided that dangerous and
empirical morality, which cures one vice by means of
another. But envy is so base and detestable, so vile
in its original, and so pernicious in its effects, that
the predominance of almost any other quality is to
be preferred. It is one of those lawless enemies of
society, against which poisoned arrows may honestly
be used. Let it therefore be constantly remembered,
that whoever envies another, confesses his superiority,
and let those be reformed by their pride who
have lost their virtue.
It is no slight aggravation of the injuries which
envy incites, that they are committed against those
who have given no intentional provocation; and that
the sufferer is often marked out for ruin, not because
he has failed in any duty, but because he has dared
to do more than was required.
Almost every other crime is practised by the help
of some quality which might have produced esteem
or love, if it had been well employed; but envy is
mere unmixed and genuine evil; it pursues a hateful
end by despicable means, and desires not so much
its own happiness as another's misery. To avoid
depravity like this, it is not necessary that any one
should aspire to heroism or sanctity, but only that
he should resolve not to quit the rank which nature
assigns him, and wish to maintain the dignity of a
human being.