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Iago stands supreme among Shakespeare’s evil characters because the greatest intensity and subtlety of imagination have gone to his making, and because he illustrates in the most perfect combination the two facts concerning evil which seem to have impressed Shakespeare most.  The first of these is the fact that perfectly sane people exist in whom fellow-feeling of any kind is so weak that an almost absolute egoism becomes possible to them, and with it those hard vices—­such as ingratitude and cruelty—­which to Shakespeare were far the worst.  The second is that such evil is compatible, and even appears to ally itself easily, with exceptional powers of will and intellect.  In the latter respect Iago is nearly or quite the equal of Richard, in egoism he is the superior, and his inferiority in passion and massive force only makes him more repulsive.  How is it then that we can bear to contemplate him; nay, that, if we really imagine him, we feel admiration and some kind of sympathy?  Henry the Fifth tells us: 

     There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
     Would men observingly distil it out;

but here, it may be said, we are shown a thing absolutely evil, and—­what is more dreadful still—­this absolute evil is united with supreme intellectual power.  Why is the representation tolerable, and why do we not accuse its author either of untruth or of a desperate pessimism?

To these questions it might at once be replied:  Iago does not stand alone; he is a factor in a whole; and we perceive him there and not in isolation, acted upon as well as acting, destroyed as well as destroying.[117] But, although this is true and important, I pass it by and, continuing to regard him by himself, I would make three remarks in answer to the questions.

In the first place, Iago is not merely negative or evil—­far from it.  Those very forces that moved him and made his fate—­sense of power, delight in performing a difficult and dangerous action, delight in the exercise of artistic skill—­are not at all evil things.  We sympathise with one or other of them almost every day of our lives.  And, accordingly, though in Iago they are combined with something detestable and so contribute to evil, our perception of them is accompanied with sympathy.  In the same way, Iago’s insight, dexterity, quickness, address, and the like, are in themselves admirable things; the perfect man would possess them.  And certainly he would possess also Iago’s courage and self-control, and, like Iago, would stand above the impulses of mere feeling, lord of his inner world.  All this goes to evil ends in Iago, but in itself it has a great worth; and, although in reading, of course, we do not sift it out and regard it separately, it inevitably affects us and mingles admiration with our hatred or horror.