form, and is a proper object of desire. "The fortune," said Rachel, "is
the measure of intelligence." That is a good text to waken people out
of a fool's paradise. But, as Hegel says, "It is in the end not the
appetite, but the opinion, which has to be satisfied." To an imagination
of any scope the most far-reaching form of power is not money, it is the
command of ideas. If you want great examples, read Mr. Leslie Stephen's
History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, and see how a
hundred years after his death the abstract speculations of Descartes had
become a practical force controlling the conduct of men. Read the works
of the great German jurists, and see how much more the world is governed
today by Kant than by Bonaparte. We cannot all be Descartes or Kant, but
we all want happiness. And happiness, I am sure from having known
many successful men, cannot be won simply by being counsel for great
corporations and having an income of fifty thousand dollars. An
intellect great enough to win the prize needs other food besides
success. The remoter and more general aspects of the law are those which
give it universal interest. It is through them that you not only become
a great master in your calling, but connect your subject with
the universe and catch an echo of the infinite, a glimpse of its
unfathomable process, a hint of the universal law.