gives you pleasure to seethem enjoy themselves in any way. Such gratification to the individual is the pleasure of sympathy, one of the most acutepleasures possible for most people.According to your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own happiness or in the happiness of other people; but it is alwaysyour own happiness you seek. The most profound egoist may be the most complete altruist; but he knows that his altruism is, atthe bottom, nothing but self-indulgence.But egoism is more than this. It is the realization by the individual that he is above all institutions and all formulas; that they existonly so far as he chooses to make them his own by accepting them.When you see clearly that you are the measure of the universe, that everything that exists exists for you only so far as it isreflected in your own consciousness, you become a new man; you see everything by a new light: you stand on a height and feelthe fresh air blowing on your face; and find new strength and glory in it.Whatever gods you worship, you realize that they are your gods, the product of your own mind, terrible or amiable, as you maychoose to depict them. You hold them in your hand, and play with them, as a child with its paper dolls; for you have learned notto fear them, that they are but the "imaginations of your heart."All the ideals which men generally think are realities, you have learned to see through; you have learned that they are yourideals. Whether you have originated them, which is unlikely, or have accepted somebody else's ideals, makes no difference.They are your ideals just so far as you accept them. The priest is reverend only so far as you reverence him. If you cease toreverence him, he is no longer reverend for you. You have power to make and unmake priests as easily as you can make andunmake gods. You are the one of whom the poet tells, who stands unmoved, though the universe fall in fragments about you.And all the other ideals by which men are...
