interests them but themselves. They always think of their own case
as soon as ever any remark is made, and their whole attention is
engrossed and absorbed by the merest chance reference to anything
which affects them personally, be it never so remote: with the result
that they have no power left for forming an objective view of things,
should the conversation take that turn; neither can they admit any
validity in arguments which tell against their interest or their
vanity. Hence their attention is easily distracted. They are so
readily offended, insulted or annoyed, that in discussing any
impersonal matter with them, no care is too great to avoid letting
your remarks bear the slightest possible reference to the very worthy
and sensitive individuals whom you have before you; for anything you
may say will perhaps hurt their feelings. People really care about
nothing that does not affect them personally. True and striking
observations, fine, subtle and witty things are lost upon them: they
cannot understand or feel them. But anything that disturbs their petty
vanity in the most remote and indirect way, or reflects prejudicially
upon their exceedingly precious selves--to that, they are most
tenderly sensitive. In this respect they are like the little dog whose
toes you are so apt to tread upon inadvertently--you know it by the
shrill bark it sets up: or, again, they resemble a sick man covered
with sores and boils, with whom the greatest care must be taken to
avoid unnecessary handling. And in some people this feeling reaches
such a pass that, if they are talking with anyone, and he exhibits, or
does not sufficiently conceal, his intelligence and discernment, they
look upon it as a downright insult; although for the moment they hide
their ill will, and the unsuspecting author of it afterwards ruminates
in vain upon their conduct, and racks his brain to discover what he
could possibly have done to excite their malice and hatred.
But it is just as easy to flatter and win them over; and this is why
their judgment is usually corrupt, and why their opinions are swayed,
not by what is really true and right, but by the favor of the party or
class to which they belong. And the ultimate reason of it all is, that
in such people force of will greatly predominates over knowledge; and
hence their meagre intellect is wholly given up to the service of the
will, and can never free itself from that service for a moment.
Astrology furnishes a magnificent proof of this miserable subjective
tendency in men, which leads them to see everything only as bearing
upon themselves, and to think of nothing that is not straightway made
into a personal matter. The aim of astrology is to bring the motions
of the celestial bodies into relation with the wretched _Ego_ and to
establish a connection between a comet in the sky and squabbles and
rascalities on earth.[1]
[Footnote 1: See, for instance, Stobasus, _Eclog. I_. xxii. 9.]