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Pride may, I think, be properly defined, the pleasure we feel in contemplating our own superior merit, on comparing it with that of others. That it arises from this supposed superiority is evident; for, however great you admit a man’s merit to be, if all men were equal to him, there would be no room for pride. Now if it stop here, perhaps there is no enormous harm in it, or at least no more than is common to all other folly; every species of which is always liable to produce every species of mischief: folly I fear it is; for, should the man estimate rightly on this occasion, and the ballance should fairly turn on his side in this particular instance; should he be indeed a greater orator, poet, general; should he be more wise, witty, learned, young, rich, healthy, or in whatever instance he may excel one, or many, or all; yet, if he examine himself thoroughly, will he find no reason to abate his pride? is the quality in which he is so eminent, so generally or justly esteemed? is it so entirely his own? doth he not rather owe his superiority to the defects of others than to his own perfection? or, lastly, can he find in no part of his character a weakness which may counterpoise this merit, and which as justly at least, threatens him with shame as this entices him to pride? I fancy, if such a scrutiny was made (and nothing so ready as good sense to make it), a proud man would be as rare as in reality he is a ridiculous monster. But suppose a man, on this comparison, is, as may sometimes happen, a little partial to himself, the harm is to himself, and he becomes only ridiculous from it. If I prefer my excellence in poetry to Pope or Young; if an inferior actor should, in his opinion, exceed Quin or Garrick; or a sign-post painter set himself above the inimitable Hogarth, we become only ridiculous by our vanity: and the persons themselves who are thus humbled in the comparison, would laugh with more reason than any other. Pride, therefore, hitherto seems an inoffensive weakness only, and entitles a man to no worse an appellation than that of a fool; but it will not stop here: though fool be perhaps no desirable term, the proud man will deserve worse; he is not contented with the admiration he pays himself, he now becomes arrogant, and requires the same respect and preference from the world; for pride, though the greatest of flatterers, is by no means a profitable servant to itself; it resembles the parson of the parish more than the squire, and lives rather on the tithes, oblations, and contributions it collects from others than on its own demesne. As pride therefore is seldom without arrogance, so is this never to be found without insolence. The arrogant man must be insolent in order to attain his own ends; and, to convince and remind men of the superiority he affects, will naturally, by ill-words, actions, and gestures, endeavour to throw the despised person at as much distance as possible from him.

Hence proceeds that supercilious look and all those visible indignities with which men behave in public to those whom they fancy their inferiors. Hence the very notable custom of deriding and often denying the nearest relations, friends, and acquaintance, in poverty and distress, lest we should anywise be levelled with the wretches we despise, either in their own imagination or in the conceit of any who should behold familiarities pass between us.

But besides pride, folly, arrogance, and insolence, there is another simple, which vice never willingly leaves out of any composition–and this is ill-nature. A good-natured man may indeed (provided he is a fool) be proud, but arrogant and insolent he cannot be, unless we will allow to such a still greater degree of folly and ignorance of human nature; which may indeed entitle them to forgiveness in the benign language of scripture, because they know not what they do.