Men let go their enmity and hatred, when either they are persuaded they
were not injured at all, or if they now believe them to be good whom
before they hated as evil, or, lastly, when they are appeased by the
insinuations of a benefit received. For as Thucydides saith, A later
service or good turn, if it be done at the right moment, will take away
the ill resenting of a former fault, though this was greater than the
recompense.[96]
Yet the first of these removes not envy, for men will persist in
this vice, though they know they are not wronged; and the two latter
(the esteem or credit of a person, and the bestowing a favor) do
exasperate it more. For they most envy the virtuous, as those who are
in possession of the chiefest good; and when they receive a kindness
from any in prosperity, it is with reluctance, as though they grudged
them not only the power but the will of conferring it; the one of which
comes from their happy fortune, the other from their virtue. Both are
good. Therefore envy is an entirely distinct affection from hatred,
since, as we see, the very things that appease the one only rouse and
exasperate the other.
8. Now let us consider a little the inclination and bent of either
passion.
The design of hatred is to endamage; and hence they define it, an
insidious desire and purpose of doing hurt. But envy aims not at this.
Many envy their familiars and kinsfolk, but have no thoughts of their
ruin nor of so much as bringing any troubles upon them; only their
felicity is a burden. Though they will perhaps diminish their glory and
splendor what they can, yet they endeavor not their utter subversion;
being, as it were, content to pull down so much only of an high stately
house as hindered the light and obscured them with too great a shade.