possession of that range of intellect, that grasp of mind, from which
the discoveries of Newton sprang? It is mental power that I look for:
if you can demonstrate the increase of that, I will give up the field.
Energy--independence--individuality--disinterested virtue--active
benevolence--self-oblivion--universal philanthropy--these are the
qualities I desire to find, and of which I contend that every
succeeding age produces fewer examples. I repeat it; there is scarcely
such a thing to be found as a single individual man; a few classes
compose the whole frame of society, and when you know one of a class
you know the whole of it. Give me the wild man of the woods; the
original, unthinking, unscientific, unlogical savage: in him there is
at least some good; but, in a civilised, sophisticated, cold-blooded,
mechanical, calculating slave of Mammon and the world, there is
none--absolutely none. Sir, if I fall into a river, an unsophisticated
man will jump in and bring me out; but a philosopher will look on with
the utmost calmness, and consider me in the light of a projectile,
and, making a calculation of the degree of force with which I have
impinged the surface, the resistance of the fluid, the velocity of the
current, and the depth of the water in that particular place, he will
ascertain with the greatest nicety in what part of the mud at the
bottom I may probably be found, at any given distance of time from the
moment of my first immersion."

Mr Foster was preparing to reply, when the first dinner-bell rang, and
he immediately commenced a precipitate return towards the house;
followed by his two companions, who both admitted that he was now
leading the way to at least a temporary period of physical
amelioration: "but, alas!" added Mr Escot, after a moment's
reflection, "Epulae NOCUERE repostae![4.3]"