examination of the heart 510 Moreover consider, according to the opinion of Hugo, that pride is an ignoble exaltation, which, despising the inferior in rank, strives after and desires to be placed before equals and superiors in rank.250 Indeed, it is so hidden that sometimes you do not perceive at all that you are afflicted by this vice. The daughters of pride are: vainglory; disgraceful and dishonest ambition; love of honor; vain, useless, and inordinate hunger for knowledge; the desire to outshine others by erudition; the wish to have a more dignified position, and to be prized, honored, and more important than the others; to not assent to other people’s very sensible and sound counsels; to be opposed to the more probable opinions, and to spurn, contradict, and reject with unyielding obstinacy those opinions that are probable: all of these are the most evident signs of no insignificant conceit. Also pertinent are the following: bragging of one’s learning, showing off one’s intelligence with witticisms and salty jokes, mocking others, and praising oneself. Omy swaggerer, Omy learned one! Omy intellectual! Let’s suppose that you can compete with Plato and Tullius (Cicero); let’s suppose that you are a brilliant and perceptive theologian; let’s suppose that you are very well trained in all sciences and fields of arts. Do you already cease to be dust and ashes for that reason, and before that, something smelly, horrible, and mud-like? “You are dust” (your Creator exhorts you), “and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19). 3. Consider how often you have lost the opportunity for practicing humility. How often and how forcefully you have attacked without urgent necessity the opinions of others and promoted your own instead just to show that you are important, although you could have kept silence with honor and docility. And it will be not without benefit if you recall the incidents of contempt that your Lord experienced while living in this world, and ponder what is your progress in humility or what are its flaws. 250 Cf. Hugo de S. Victore, Opera omnia — Tomus III: Miscellanea (Liber I), in: PL, vol. 177, Ateliers catholiques du Petit-Montrouge, Paris 1854, p. 548 (De duplici superbia (Tit. CXXVII)). Cf. IC crit. ed., p. 382 (footnote 40).
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