Or, to put it another way, he may have a strong conviction that he stands high in the scale of morally deserving persons, and yet be unable to define his position more nearly.

Commonly, the conviction seems to be only definable as an assurance of a superlative of which the positive and comparative are suppressed.

At most, his idea of his moral altitude resolves itself into the proposition, "I am a good deal better than Mr.A.or Mr.B." Now, it is plain that in these intuitive judgments on his own excellence, the man is making an assertion with respect, not only to inner subjective feelings which he only can be supposed to know immediately, but also to external objective facts which are patent to others, namely, to certain active tendencies and capabilities, to the direction of external conduct in certain lines.[143] Hence, if the assertion is erroneous, it will be in plain contradiction to others' perceptions of his powers or moral endowments.

And this is what we actually find.

A man's self-esteem, in a large preponderance of cases, is plainly in excess of others' esteem of him.