xliv 
FIFTH REPORT— 1835. 
God, we may remember that it is written—“ Great are the works of 
the Lord, sought out of all those who have pleasure therein.' - ’ But 
recognising in the fullest manner the necessity for private exertion, and 
the ultimate connexion of every human act and human thought with 
the personal being of man, we must never forget that the social feel¬ 
ings make up a large and powerful part of that complex and multiform 
being. The affections act upon the intellect, the heart upon the head. 
In the very silence and solitude of its meditations, still genius is essen¬ 
tially sympathetic ; is sensitive to influences from without, and fain 
would spread itself abroad, and embrace the whole circle of humanity, 
with the strength of a world-grasping love. For fame, it has been truly 
said, is love disguised. The desire of fame is a form of the yearning 
after love ; and the admiration which rewards that desire, is a glorified 
form of that familiar and every-day love which joins us in common life 
to the friends whom we esteem. And if we can imagine a desire of 
excellence for its own sake, and can so raise ourselves above (Well if 
we do not in the effort sink ourselves below ) the common level of hu¬ 
manity, as to account the aspiration after fame only “ the last infirmity 
of noble minds,” it will still be true that in the greatest number of 
cases, and of the highest quality, 
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise, 
To scorn delights, and live laborious days. 
That mysterious joy—incomprehensible if man were wholly mortal— 
■which accompanies the hope of influencing unborn generations ; that 
rapture, solemn and sublime, with which a human mind, possessing or 
possessed by some great truth, sees in prophetic vision that truth ac¬ 
knowledged by mankind, and itself long ages afterward remembered 
and associated therewith, as its interpreter and minister, and sharing 
in the offering duly paid of honour and of love, till it becomes a power 
upon the earth, and fills the world with felt or hidden influence ; that 
joy which thrills most deeply the minds the most contemptuous of 
mere ephemeral reputation, and men who care the least for common 
marks of popular applause or outward dignity—does it not show, by 
the revival, in another form, of an instinct seemingly extinguished, how 
deeply man desires, in intellectual things themselves, the sympathy of 
man? If then the ascetics of science—if those who seem to shut them¬ 
selves up in their own separate cells, and to disdain or to deny them¬ 
selves the ordinary commerce of humanity—are found, after all, to be 
thus influenced by the social spirit, we can have little hesitation in 
pronouncing that to the operation of this spirit must largely be ascribed 
the labours of ordinary minds ; of those who do not even affect or seem 
