134 MEMOIR OF 



There are, no doubt, many brilliant instances on 

 record of genius contending with difficulties, and 

 emerging from amid them ; and these instances 

 sometimes command the admiration of mankind, 

 just as they admire the splendours of the sun 

 when, having gained the meridian, his beams gild 

 with effulgence the clouds which enveloped his 

 rising ; but it is to be questioned whether their 

 admiration of these instances does not largely 

 partake of the quality of mere surprise, or of 

 beholding a difficulty overcome ; and whether the 

 objects of it, having attained that given point they 

 appear to have proposed to themselves, have not 

 afterwards sunk iuto a comparative lethargy, 

 consisting at best in the satisfaction of having 

 gained a purpose, and quite as often at least in the 

 exhaustion of the energy their attempt required. 

 It must be confessed, that of two competitors in 

 the pursuit of science, under equal circumstances, 

 in other respects, he has infinitely the advantage 

 who is free from the paralyzing effect of worldly 

 cares ; and that, though the weight of early difficul- 

 ties on the principle of genius, creates a reaction of 

 its powers favourable to success, yet, unless it be 

 speedily relieved by gaining some vantage ground 

 upon which it may recruit its powers, that very 

 reaction may merely result in disheartening and 

 disabling from farther enterprise. The cause of 

 science seems to have peculiar claims upon those 

 who are possessed of the requisite worldly advan- 

 tages, and have imbibed a taste for its pursuits, 

 cither to engage in them personally, or at least 



