Odi profanum vulgus et arceo, is a sentiment that they neither avouch, nor act upon.That their works may be popular, men of the highest original genius bring it out cautiously, and in a diffused form.Their experiments are timid.Being, in their way, manufacturers, they cannot afford to make such as might deteriorate the value of their goods.They must not venture on a dish altogether new, they confine their powers to the discovery of something that may give piquancy to the old.If the practice be not prejudicial to the progress of invention itself, it is fatal to the lasting fame of the inventors.The mass keeps swelling, from generation to generation, but how, cannot well be noted.
This result has, however, little to do with our subject; there is another which has much.
It being conceived to be within the compass of talent, to procure, in this way, its own reward, genius of the highest order, if its productions are not of a sort to bring a price from a bookseller, receives now less recompense than even in ages not so able to appreciate the benefits conferred by it; and, from the same causes, the propensity to neglect it is greatest where the reading public is the most numerous.The promoters of the abstract sciences, and the arts, are no where less efficiently aided, than in Great Britain.There, the observations of Lord Bacon apply nearly as forcibly as ever."It is enough to restrain the increase of science, that energy and industry so bestowed, want recompense.The ability to cultivate science, and to reward it, lies not in the same hands.Science is advanced by men of great genius alone, while it can only be rewarded by the crowd, or by men high in fortune or authority, who have very rarely themselves any pretensions to it.Besides, success in these pursuits is not only unattended by reward or favor, but is destitute of popular praise.They are, for the most part, above the conceptions of the commonalty, and are easily overthrown, and swept away, by the wind of popular opinion." (65)Without speaking of the sciences, and, in the arts, confining our attention to those exertions of the inventive faculty, the benefits of which, obstructed by no unforeseen obstacle, have been very largely felt, how many, even of the most successful of these, have been adequately rewarded? How many of them have left their authors in poverty, or brought them to it! The personal history of most men, who, in modern times, have brought into being those arts by which human power has been so largely advanced, is little else than a narration of misfortunes, and ingratitude.
Nor are the sweets of success itself, in any department of invention, even if tasted, uncontaminated by much of bitterness.It is chiefly felt at the time, as superiority, on which wait envy and flattery.Malice, and insincerity, the great separators of man from man, and poisoners of the pleasures of existence, follow close after.He who gains it, attains an elevation commanding, but joyless, and unsafe.
"Though high above the sun of glory glow, And far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 'Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow, Contending tempests on his naked head, And thus reward the toils, which to those summits led." (66)It is death alone that can give him to the full sympathies of his fellows.
When the earth wraps her noblest, none any longer envy him, all lament the benefactor, no one sees the rival, or the master.
These are circumstances disturbing the course of genius, coming mainly from misapprehensions from without; there are others flowing from weaknesses, and imperfections, within.
There are, in every society, rules of conduct, and practices of life, which the progress of events has gradually marked out, and general observance hallowed.Of these, some are founded on the principles of morality and religion, some on caprice, some on prejudice.The breaking of any of them is always esteemed a crime against society, and in reality is so; the observance of them constitutes a character, in public estimation, perfect.The mere man of society, that is, the man of merely imitative action, learns them all uninquiringly, and diligently: they make up indeed, almost all he knows, and all the interests of himself and family requires he should know, of right and wrong.If he transgress them, it is secretly, and cautiously.
He makes amends by unscrupulously, and unsparingly gratifying, whatever is not forbid by the letter of his code, or by his own convenience.The inquirer into principles, again, takes a wider range, it is not the morality or religion of Italy, of France, of Britain, of North America, after which he seeks, but religion and morality in general.He attempts to learn, not what is delivered, but what is.The consequence is, that, while the mere man of the world is never at a loss, but proceeds securely in the direct path to general approbation, the man of speculation very frequently wanders from it.To say nevertheless, either that he knows not what is good or fit, or that he is not desirous of observing it were untrue.The eye of the rider glances over hill and dale, marks the streams, the woods, the hamlets, that diversify the prospect, and the whole configuration of the country he traverses, and so he knows the road.The animal he rides knows it too; he knows it as giving exercise to his limbs, and bringing him, by every step he makes, forward, or right, or left, nearer to some stable-door.
Ten to one, that, practically, the latter has a more accurate knowledge of it than the former, and that, while the irrational shall sagaciously and unhesitatingly follow it out, without missing a single turning, or making one blunder, the rational, especially if the fancy take him to preserve something of a straight line, shall have to pass from track, to track, to leap many a hedge and many a ditch, and having been obliged after all, to make detours in abundance, come out at last weary, jaded, and bemired.
