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 o f 
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 into 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, 
either to engage in them personally, or at least 
