or improved, or destroyed; but will cannot be changed.  That is why I apprehend, I perceive, I see, is subject to alteration and uncertainty; I will, pronounced on a right apprehension of motive, is as firm as nature itself.  The difficulty, however, lies in getting at a right apprehension.  A man’s apprehension of motive may change, or be corrected or perverted; and on the other hand, his circumstances may undergo an alteration.

* * * * *

A man should exercise an almost boundless toleration and placability, because if he is capricious enough to refuse to forgive a single individual for the meanness or evil that lies at his door, it is doing the rest of the world a quite unmerited honour.

But at the same time the man who is every one’s friend is no one’s friend.  It is quite obvious what sort of friendship it is which we hold out to the human race, and to which it is open to almost every man to return, no matter what he may have done.

* * * * *

With the ancients friendship was one of the chief elements in morality.  But friendship is only limitation and partiality; it is the restriction to one individual of what is the due of all mankind, namely, the recognition that a man’s own nature and that of mankind are identical.  At most it is a compromise between this recognition and selfishness.

* * * * *

A lie always has its origin in the desire to extend the dominion of one’s own will over other individuals, and to deny their will in order the better to affirm one’s own.  Consequently a lie is in its very nature the product of injustice, malevolence and villainy.  That is why truth, sincerity, candour and rectitude are at once recognised and valued as praiseworthy and noble qualities; because we presume that the man who exhibits them entertains no sentiments of injustice or malice, and therefore stands in no need of concealing such sentiments.  He who is open cherishes nothing that is bad.

* * * * *

There is a certain kind of courage which springs from the same source as good-nature.  What I mean is that the good-natured man is almost as clearly conscious that he exists in other individuals as in himself.  I have often shown how this feeling gives rise to good-nature.  It also gives rise to courage, for the simple reason that the man who possesses this feeling cares less for his own individual existence, as he lives almost as much in the general existence of all creatures.  Accordingly he is little concerned for his own life and its belongings.  This is by no means the sole source of courage for it is a phenomenon due to various causes.  But it is the noblest kind of courage, as is shown by the fact that in its origin it is associated with great gentleness and patience.  Men of this kind are usually irresistible to women.

* * * * *