n observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an expedient
as waiting six months, and then repeating his observation, contrived
to put the diameter of the earth's orbit, say two hundred millions of
miles, between his first observation and his second, and this line
afforded him a respectable base for his triangle.

All our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly
powers to us, but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in
which they travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure.
It is a peremptory rule with them, that _they never go out of their
road_. We are dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that
way superserviceably; but they swerve never from their fore-ordained
paths,--neither the sun, nor the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote
of dust.

And as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and
political action leans on principles. To accomplish anything excellent,
the will must work for catholic and universal ends. A puny creature
walled in on every side, as Donne wrote,--

------"unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!"

but when his will leans on a principle, when he is the vehicle of ideas,
he borrows their omnipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas are
impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. "It was a great
instruction," said a saint in Cromwell's war, "that the best courages
are but beams of the Almighty." Hitch your wagon to a star. Let us not
fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let us not lie
and steal. No god will help. We shall find all their teams going the
other way,--Charles's Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules:--every
god will leave us. Work rather for those interests which the divinities
honor and promote,--justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.

If we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the
path of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the
powers of darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends
of wisdom and virtue. Thus, a wise Government puts fines and penalties
on pleasant vices. What a benefit would the American Government, now
in the hour of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city,
village, and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum
almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he
found vices very good patriots?--"he got five millions