EVIDENCE AND EXAMPLES. 63 



marvellously rapid and clear view of a field in which 

 he himself was the central figure ; in a marvellously 

 rapid conception of methods and results as far as they 

 affected his position ; in an unrivalled rapidity of con- ^ 

 verting conception into action, as far as action tended 

 to put, and keep, himself at the summit of human 

 affairs. 



It is well known to anatomists that the bodily giant 

 is simply an over-grown but under-developed infant 

 (the dwarf being under-grown and over-developed) ; 

 the huge bones, which determine his size, retain to the 

 last an infantile unformed immaturity. Intellectually, 

 though not morally, Napoleon was a sort of giant an 

 over-grown infant, immense in dimensions, but raw in 

 development. Fortunately in not a few self-confident 

 individuals, self importance seems to have been a de- 

 tachable quality and to have been thrown from the man 

 into his cause or his movement or his ideal. Cassar 

 and Cromwell thought more of their countries than of 

 themselves. Bunyan and Wesley and Newman trans- 

 ferred their importance from themselves to their 

 religious ideals. The importance of Napoleon's person- 

 ality was to him the one absorbing. importance. 



Of the few impassioned natures who, from whatever 

 cause, have been called to the field of action, Nelson and 

 Washington stand most clearly out they both had in 

 very marked degree the anatomy of the impassioned. 

 These had little thought for themselves ; their whole 

 thought was of duty and of an object outside them- 

 selves. At any moment in their career they would, 

 as far as matters of self were concerned, have gladly 

 returned to private life. It was extremely interesting to 

 me, to learn from Jefferson's estimate of him, that 

 Washington's judgment, wonderfully sound as it was, 



