1 “SEE no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” say the three sacred monkeys carved over the gate of the Buddhist¹ temple of Iyeyasu at Nikko.
 
We all of us speak ill of one another:
 
“No one,” Pascal remarks, “speaks of us in our presence as he does in our absence. The union that exists among men is based solely² on this mutual³ deceit; and few friendships would survive if each knew what his friend says when he is not there, though he be speaking of him in all sincerity⁴ and without passion.
 
“I lay it down as a fact that, if all men knew what they say of one another, there would not be four friends in this world.”
 
If you do away with evil-speaking, you do away with three-fourths of our conversation;[124] and an unbearable⁵ silence will hover⁶ over every gathering⁷. Evil-speaking or calumny—for it is extremely difficult to separate the two sisters; and in reality any evil-speaking is likely to be calumnious⁸, inasmuch as we know others even less well than we know ourselves—evil-speaking, which feeds all that creates disunion between men and poisons their intercourse⁹, is nevertheless the chief motive¹⁰ that brings them together and enables them to enjoy the pleasures of society.
 
But the ravages¹¹ which it wreaks¹² all around us are too well-known and have too often been described to make it necessary for us to portray¹³ them once again. Let us here consider only the harm which it does to him who indulges in it. It accustoms¹⁵ him to see only the petty sides of men and things; little by little it conceals¹⁶ from him the bold outlines, the great unities¹⁷, the heights and depths containing the only truths that count and endure.
 
In reality, the evil which we find in others, the evil which we speak of them,[125] exists within ourselves: from ourselves we derive¹⁸ it; upon ourselves it recoils¹⁹. We perceive clearly only those defects which are ours, or which we are on the point of acquiring. Within ourselves is kindled²⁰ the evil flame whose reflection we perceive on others. Each of us diligently²¹ searches out, among those who surround him, the vice²² or the defect that reveals to the clear-sighted the vice or the defect to which he himself is thrall²³. There is no more ingenuous²⁴ or intimate confession²⁵, even as there is no better examination of conscience, than to ask one’s self:
 
“What is the fault which I most willingly impute²⁶ to my neighbour?”
 
You may be sure that this is the fault which you are most inclined to commit and that you most readily see what is happening in the shallows to which you yourself are descending²⁷. He who speaks ill of others is, in short, merely his own traducer²⁸; and evil-speaking is, in essence, but the story of our own falls, transposed or anticipated.
 
[126]
 
2
We surround ourselves with all the evil that we attribute to the victims of our gossip. It takes form at our own expense; it lives and feeds upon the best of our substance; it accumulates all about us, peopling and encumbering²⁹ our atmosphere with phantoms³⁰, at first grotesque³¹, inconsistent, docile³², timid and ephemeral, which gradually become persistent³³, add to ............