plainly are), but the men who themselves discover that which was unknown,
and are generally deemed useless, if not hurtful, to their race. They
will keep the sacred lamp burning unobserved in quiet studies, while all
the world is gazing only at the gaslights flaring in the street. They
will pass that lamp on from hand to hand, modestly, almost stealthily,
till the day comes round again, when the obscure student shall be
discovered once more to be, as he has always been, the strongest man on
earth. For they follow a mistress whose footsteps may often slip, yet
never fall; for she walks forward on the eternal facts of Nature, which
are the acted will of God. A giantess she is; young indeed, but humble
as yet: cautious and modest beyond her years. She is accused of trying
to scale Olympus, by some who fancy that they have already scaled it
themselves, and will, of course, brook no rival in their fancied monopoly
of wisdom.

The accusation, I believe, is unjust. And yet science may scale Olympus
after all. Without intending it, almost without knowing it, she may find
herself hereafter upon a summit of which she never dreamed; surveying the
universe of God in the light of Him who made it and her, and remakes them
both for ever and ever. On that summit she may stand hereafter, if only
she goes on, as she goes now, in humility and in patience; doing the duty
which lies nearest her; lured along the upward road, not by ambition,
vanity, or greed, but by reverent curiosity for every new pebble, and
flower, and child, and savage, around her feet.

FOOTNOTES

{1} Mr. H. Reeve's translation of De Tocqueville's "France before the
Revolution of 1789." p. 280.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANCIEN REGIME***

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