Even the noble souls, never wanting in history, who follow not a bait,
but belief, see only in imperfect survey the connections and relations
of their deeds. Each is faithfully obeying his own inward vocation, a
voice unheard by other soul than his own, and the inability to
calculate consequences makes the preëminent grandeur of his position;
or he is urged by the high inevitable impulse to publish or verify an
idea: the Divine Destiny _works_ in their hearts, and _plans_ over
their heads.

Socrates felt a sacred impulse to test his neighbors, what they knew
and were: this is such account of his life as he himself can give at
its close. His contemporaries generally saw in him an imperturbable and
troublesome questioner, fatally sure to come at the secret of every
man's character and credence, whom no subterfuge could elude, no
compliments flatter, no menaces appall,--suspected also of some
emancipation from the popular superstitions: this is the account of him
which _they_ are able to give. At twenty-three centuries' distance _we_
see in him the source of a river of spiritual influence, that yet
streams on, more than a Missouri, in the minds of men,--more than a
Missouri, for it not only flows as an open current, but, percolating
beneath the surface, and coming up in distinct and distant fountains,
it becomes the hidden source of many a constant tide in the faiths and
philosophies of nations.

The veil covers the eyes of spectators and agents alike. Columbus
returns, freighted with wondrous tidings, to the Spanish shore; the
nation rises and claps its hands; the nation kneels to bless its gods
at all its shrines, and chants its delight in many a choral Te Deum.
What, then, do they think is gained? Why, El Dorado! Have they not
gained a whole world of gold and silver mines to buy jewelled cloaks