so high that we have not been able to read them
nearer, and age and comparison have not robbed
them of a ray. But at last we shall cease to look in
men for completeness, and shall content ourselves
with their social and delegated quality. All that
respects the individual is temporary and prospec-
tive, like the individual himself, who is ascending
out of his limits into a catholic existence. We
have never come at the true and best benefit of any
genius so long as we believe him an original force.
In the moment when he ceases to help us as a
cause, he begins to help us more as an effect. Then
he appears as an exponent of a vaster mind and
will. The opaque self becomes transparent with
the light of the First Cause.

Yet, within the limits of human education and
agency, we may say great men exist that there may
be greater men. The destiny of organized nature
is amelioration, and who can tell its limits? It is
for man to tame the chaos; on every side, whilst
he lives, to scatter the seeds of science and of song,
that climate, corn, animals, men, may be milder,
and the germs of love and benefit may be multi-
plied.

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