e and to do all that the wit of man can feign is nothing.
To use means to ends; to set causes in motion; to wield the machine of
society; to subject the wills of others to your own; to manage abler
men than yourself by means of that which is stronger in them than their
wisdom, viz. their weakness and their folly; to calculate the resistance
of ignorance and prejudice to your designs, and by obviating, to turn
them to account; to foresee a long, obscure, and complicated train of
events, of chances and openings of success; to unwind the web of others'
policy and weave your own out of it; to judge of the effects of
things, not in the abstract, but with reference to all their bearings,
ramifications, and impediments; to understand character thoroughly; to
see latent talent or lurking treachery; to know mankind for what they
are, and use them as they deserve; to have a purpose steadily in view,
and to effect it after removing every obstacle; to master others and be
true to yourself,--asks power and knowledge, both nerves and brain.

Such is the sort of talent that that may be shown and that has been
possessed by the great leaders on the stage of the world. To accomplish
great things argues, I imagine, great resolution: to design great things
implies no common mind. Ambition is in some sort genius. Though I would
rather wear out my life in arguing a broad speculative question than in
caballing for the election to a wardmote, or canvassing for votes in
a rotten borough, yet I should think that the loftiest Epicurean
philosopher might descend from his punctilio to identify himself with
the support of a great principle, or to prop a falling state. This
is what the legislators and founders of empire did of old; and the
permanence of their institutions showed the depth of the principles from
which they emanated. A tragic poem is not the worse for acting well:
if it will not bear this test it savours of effeminacy. Well-digested
schemes will stand the touchstone of experience. Great thoughts reduced
to practice become great acts. Again, great acts grow out of great
occasions, and great occasions spring from great principles, working
changes in society, and tearing it up by the roots. But I still conceive
that a genius for actions depends essentially on the strength of the
will rather than on that of the understanding; that the long-headed
calculation of causes and consequences arises from the energy of the
first cause, which is the