he cannot perform his task unless his materials are ample,
and derived from sources of unquestioned credibility. But if his
facts are sufficiently numerous; if they are very diversified; if
they have been collected from such various quarters that they can
check and confront each other, so as to do away with all suspicion
of their testimony being garbled; and if he who uses them possesses
that faculty of generalization, without which nothing great can be
achieved, he will hardly fail in bringing some part of his labors
to a prosperous issue, provided he devotes all his strength to that
one enterprise, postponing to it every other object of ambition,
and sacrificing to it many interests which men hold dear. Some of
the most pleasurable incentives to action, he must disregard. Not
for him are those rewards which in other pursuits the same energy
would have earned; not for him, the sweets of popular applause; not
for him, the luxury of power; not for him, a share in the councils
of his country; not for him a conspicuous and honored place before
the public eye. Albeit, conscious of what he could do, he may not
compete in the great contest; he cannot hope to win the prize; he
cannot even enjoy the excitement of the struggle. To him the arena
is closed. His recompense lies within himself, and he must learn to
care little for the sympathy of his fellow creatures, or for such
honors as they are able to bestow. So far from looking for these
things, he should rather be prepared for that obloquy which always
awaits those, who, by opening up new veins of thought, disturb the
prejudices of their contemporaries. While ignorance, and worse than
ignorance, is imputed to him, while his motives are misrepresented
and his integrity impeached, while he is accused of denying the
value of moral principles, and of attacking the foundation of all
religion, as if he were some public enemy, who made it his business
to corrupt society, and whose delight it was to see what evil he
could do; while these charges are brought forward, and repeated
from mouth to mouth, he must be capable of pursuing in silence the
even tenor of his way, without swerving, without pausing, and
without stepping from his path to notice the angry outcries which
he cannot but hear, and which he is more than huma