Egotism blights the germ of all virtue individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public life but, in the long run, it attacks and destroys all others, and is at length absorbed in downright egotism. Egotism originates in blind instinct: individualism proceeds from erroneous judgment more than from depraved feelings it originates as much in the deficiencies of the mind as in the perversity of the heart. Individualism is a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellow-creatures and to draw apart with his family and his friends so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself. Egotism is a passionate and exaggerated love of self, which leads a man to connect everything with his own person, and to prefer himself to everything in the world. Our fathers were only acquainted with egotism. Individualism 3 is a novel expression, to which a novel idea has given birth. I have shown how it is that in ages of equality every man seeks for his opinions within himself: I am now about to show how it is that, in the same ages, all his feelings are turned towards himself alone. Chapter II: Of Individualism In Democratic Countries
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