To measure its power, it does not suffice to note its fascinations; to enumerate the millions of souls it captivates, to estimate the vastness of the obstacles it overcomes: we must again, and especially, represent to ourselves the energy and depth of the passions it keeps in check and urges on like a team of prancing, rearing horses--it is the driver who, bracing his arms, constantly restrains the almost ungovernable steeds, who controls their excitement, who regulates their bounds, who takes advantage even of their viciousness to guide his noisy vehicle over precipices as it rushes on with thundering speed.
If the pure ideas of the reasoning brain thus maintain their daily supremacy it is due to the vital flow which nourishes them; their roots are deep in his heart and temperament, and those roots which give them their vigorous sap constitute a primordial instinct more powerful than intellect, more powerful even than his will, the instinct which leads him to center everything on himself, in other words egoism.[1223] II.

Will and Egoism.
Bonaparte's dominant passion .-- His lucid, calculating mind.
-- Source and power of the Will .-- Early evidences of an active, absorbing egoism .-- His education derived from the lessons of things .-- In Corsica .-- In France during the Revolution .-- In Italy .-- In Egypt .-- His idea of Society and of Right .-- Maturing after the 18th of Brumaire .-- His idea of Man .-- It conforms to his character It is egoism, not a passive, but an active and intrusive egoism, proportional to the energy and extension of his faculties developed by his education and circumstances, exaggerated by his success and his omnipotence to such a degree that a monstrous colossal I has been erected in society.

It expands unceasingly the circle of a tenacious and rapacious grasp, which regards all resistance as offensive, which all independence annoys, and which, on the boundless domain it assigns to itself, is intolerant of anybody that does not become either an appendix or a tool .-- The germ of this absorbing personality is already apparent in the youth and even in the infant.
"Character: dominating, imperious, and stubborn," says the record at Brienne.[1224] And the notes of the Military Academy add;[1225] "Extremely inclined to egoism,"-- "proud, ambitious, aspiring in all directions, fond of solitude," undoubtedly because he is not master in a group of equals and is ill at ease when he cannot rule.
"I lived apart from my comrades," he says at a later date.[1226]--"I had selected a little corner in the playgrounds, where I used to go and sit down and indulge my fancies.

When my comrades were disposed to drive me out of this corner I defended it with all my might.

My instinct already told me that my will should prevail against other wills, and that whatever pleased me ought to belong to me." Referring to his early years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he depicts himself as a little mischievous savage, rebelling against every sort of restraint, and without any conscience.[1227] "I respected nothing and feared nobody; I beat one and scratched another; I made everybody afraid of me.