I cannot conceive that he would ever have been able to rally all the
powers of his mind, as he did, for the better discovery of the most
hidden things of the Creator. When I see him, as it were, tear his soul
from the midst of all the cares of life to devote it wholly to these
researches, and, prematurely snapping the links which bind the frame to
life, die of old age before forty, I stand amazed, and I perceive that
no ordinary cause is at work to produce efforts so extra-ordinary.

The future will prove whether these passions, at once so rare and so
productive, come into being and into growth as easily in the midst of
democratic as in aristocratic communities. For myself, I confess that
I am slow to believe it. In aristocratic society, the class which gives
the tone to opinion, and has the supreme guidance of affairs, being
permanently and hereditarily placed above the multitude, naturally
conceives a lofty idea of itself and of man. It loves to invent for
him noble pleasures, to carve out splendid objects for his ambition.
Aristocracies often commit very tyrannical and very inhuman actions;
but they rarely entertain grovelling thoughts; and they show a kind of
haughty contempt of little pleasures, even whilst they indulge in
them. The effect is greatly to raise the general pitch of society. In
aristocratic ages vast ideas are commonly entertained of the dignity,
the power, and the greatness of man. These opinions exert their
influence on those who cultivate the sciences, as well as on the rest
of the community. They facilitate the natural impulse of the mind to the
highest regions of thought, and they naturally prepare it to conceive
a sublime--nay, almost a divine--love of truth. Men of science at such
periods are consequently carried away by theory; and it even happens
that they frequently conceive an inconsiderate contempt for the
practical part of learning. "Archimedes," says Plutarch, "was of so
lofty a spirit, that he never condescended to write any treatise on the