To what end does he use these great powers?  His creed—­for he is no sceptic, he has a definite creed—­is that absolute egoism is the only rational and proper attitude, and that conscience or honour or any kind of regard for others is an absurdity.  He does not deny that this absurdity exists.  He does not suppose that most people secretly share his creed, while pretending to hold and practise another.  On the contrary, he regards most people as honest fools.  He declares that he has never yet met a man who knew how to love himself; and his one expression of admiration in the play is for servants

     Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,
     Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves.

‘These fellows,’ he says, ‘have some soul.’  He professes to stand, and he, attempts to stand, wholly outside the world of morality.

The existence of Iago’s creed and of his corresponding practice is evidently connected with a characteristic in which he surpasses nearly all the other inhabitants of Shakespeare’s world.  Whatever he may once have been, he appears, when we meet him, to be almost destitute of humanity, of sympathetic or social feeling.  He shows no trace of affection, and in presence of the most terrible suffering he shows either pleasure or an indifference which, if not complete, is nearly so.  Here, however, we must be careful.  It is important to realise, and few readers are in danger of ignoring, this extraordinary deadness of feeling, but it is also important not to confuse it with a general positive ill-will.  When Iago has no dislike or hostility to a person he does not show pleasure in the suffering of that person:  he shows at most the absence of pain.  There is, for instance, not the least sign of his enjoying the distress of Desdemona.  But his sympathetic feelings are so abnormally feeble and cold that, when his dislike is roused, or when an indifferent person comes in the way of his purpose, there is scarcely anything within him to prevent his applying the torture.

What is it that provokes his dislike or hostility?  Here again we must look closely.  Iago has been represented as an incarnation of envy, as a man who, being determined to get on in the world, regards everyone else with enmity as his rival.  But this idea, though containing truth, seems much exaggerated.  Certainly he is devoted to himself; but if he were an eagerly ambitious man, surely we should see much more positive signs of this ambition; and surely too, with his great powers, he would already have risen high, instead of being a mere ensign, short of money, and playing Captain Rook to Roderigo’s Mr. Pigeon.  Taking all the facts, one must conclude that his desires were comparatively moderate and his ambition weak; that he probably enjoyed war keenly, but, if he had money enough, did not exert himself greatly to acquire reputation or position; and, therefore, that he was not habitually burning with envy and actively hostile to other men as possible competitors.