66 
Proceedings oj. the Royal Irish Academy. 
unsubstantial phantom. You know not — but let your imagination paint 
for you such a picture, and you will not be impatient. 
To those who are themselves engaged in the struggle I would 
hold a somewhat different language. If it be the duty of the 
looker-on to aid you with his trust, his sympathy, his applause, it is 
your duty to see that these indirect assistances be, as far as possible, 
unnecessary to you. You must hold before your eyes a loftier ideal : 
your deyotion to Truth cannot be too pure from the admixture of any 
other motiye. Above all, you must not be a worshipper of success. 
That which is unjust in the looker-on would be treason in you. If 
you would be faithful to the great cause to which you are engaged, 
you must not require success — at least, that success which can be 
made apparent to the world — as the necessary price of your labour. 
Tor it is a price which Truth cannot undertake to pay. If, indeed, we 
could assign to each investigator his share in any great discovery — if 
we accustomed ourselves to remember how one man collected the facts 
from which the discoverer, as the world calls him, drew the conclu- 
sion — how another contributed to it by what the world would call his 
failures, by following delusive paths far enough to prove that they are 
delusive — if we accustomed ourselves to do all this, we should probably 
learn that success, in this sense, is within the reach of all. But we 
do not judge thus, nor does the world call this success. The garland 
of victory is destined to him who has overleaped the last barrier and 
reached the goal ; while the man who, by patiently removing obstacles 
from his path, has rendered the achievement possible, may pass un- 
honoured, perhaps unknown. 
I have said that your devotion to Truth should be, as far as possible, 
pure from the admixture of other motives. Yet even to that principle 
there is an exception. There is a thought which may mingle most 
worthily with the purest devotion to Truth— a thought which many 
would call irrelevant — which some perhaps might think selfish — yet 
of which we may truly say — Grod forbid that it should ever be 
absent from our minds. God forbid that we should ever forget that the 
place which our country holds among nations must be fixed by the 
labours of her children ; that their success is her glory ; that their 
defeat or dishonour must fall darkly upon her. If this thought be 
irrelevant, it has in itself that which must command our attention, 
whatever else may engage it. If it be selfish, it is selfishness so 
enlarged, so purified — may I not say, so noble — that it cannot fail to exalt 
the mind where it is found. And Truth herself will not condemn us, if, 
with our devotion to her, a thought of Patriotism should mingle. It 
will not degrade her worship, nor will it render us unfaithful. "We 
shall not love Truth less because we love our country too. 
Let none suppose that we are powerless to affect the place which 
Ireland is to hold in the world, because we are removed from the noisy 
bitterness of politics or of warfare. Less brilliant for the moment, 
paling in the glare of military or political success, the pure triumphs 
of the intellect have a far more enduring brightness. I am sure that 
