博取他人的好感。即便是高高在上的造物主,在预想和推进最伟大的事情上,也如此行事。获得别人的好感,就能获得别人的好评。有些人对自己的能力过分自信,就此忽略了魅力的作用。智者对此十分清楚,如果没有别人的帮助,跋涉之路将尤为漫长。人们的好感可以推进甚至提供一切:可以认为你有天分,甚至提供资质,比如勇气、真诚、知识,甚至审慎。它不会看到你有何缺点,因为它不去搜寻你的缺点。好感通常来自共性,要么是实质性的,如性格、种族、家庭、国家或职业;要么是非实质性的,如能力、职责、名声或品德。保持别人的好感很容易,但是赢得他人好感很难。但是,你必须寻求它,并在找到之后懂得怎样加以利用。
Gain good-will. For thus the first and highest cause foresees and furthers the greatest objects. By gaining their good-will you gain men's good opinion. Some trust so much to merit that they neglect grace, but wise men know that Service Road without a lift from favour is a long way indeed. Good-will facilitates and supplies everything: it supposes gifts or even supplies them, such as courage, zeal, knowledge, or even discretion; whereas defects it will not see because it does not search for them. It arises from some common interest, either material, as disposition, nationality, family, fatherland, occupation; or formal, which is of a higher kind of communion, in capacity, obligation, reputation, or merit. The whole difficulty is to gain good-will; to keep it is easy. It has, however, to be sought for, and, when found, to be utilized.