Intellectual achievement

“ I am not able to find such a term;—talent, ability, genius, belong distinctly to the raw material, which is the subject-matter, not to that excellence which is the result of exercise and training. When we turn, indeed, to the particular kinds of intellectual perfection, words are forthcoming for our purpose, as, for instance, judgment, taste, and skill; yet even these belong, for the most part, to powers or habits bearing upon practice or upon art, and not to any perfect condition of the intellect, considered in itself. ”

“ As our attention is most commonly attracted by those departments of knowledge which are striking and remarkable, rather than by those which are really useful, so, in estimating the character of an individual, we are prone to admire extraordinary intellectual powers and uncommon energies of thought, and to overlook that excellence which is, in truth, the most precious—his moral value. Was the subject of biography distinguished by a vast erudition? Was he conspicuous for an original genius? ”

“ The one, which is not inherently necessary, but is certainly true at the present day, is hopefulness as to the future of human achievement, and in particular as to the useful work that may be accomplished by any intelligent student. This merit and the cheerful outlook which it engenders prevent what might otherwise be the depressing effect of another aspect of science, to my mind also a merit, and perhaps its greatest merit—I mean the irrelevance of human passions and of the whole subjective apparatus where scientific truth is concerned. ”

“ EDUCATION COMPLETE. Thus have we sketched, on a small scale, a complete scheme of education. How to live?—that is the question. How to use all your powers to the glory of God and the greatest advantage to yourselves and others—how to live completely? The intellectual part of your nature is superior to the physical; the moral higher than the intellectual ”

“ And does the intelligence consist, in degree or in kind, in nothing but a repetition of the same experiences as those through which his progenitors were carried, or is there a something in him to which his individual experiences contribute the mental food by which the mind is nourished and by the assimilation of which its individual intellectual growth becomes possible? ”

“ The sum total of all intellectual excellence is good sense and method. When these have passed into the instinctive readiness of habit, when the wheel revolves so rapidly that we cannot see it revolve at all, then we call the combination genius. But in all modes alike, and in all professions, the two sole component parts, even of genius, are good sense and method.—Coleridge, June, 1814, Mem. ”

“ To whatever part of the vision of modern times you cast your eyes you will find marks of superiority and improvement, and I wish to impress upon you the conviction that the results of intellectual labour or of scientific genius are permanent and incapable of being lost. ”

“ But, in the name of my countrymen, I do repeat these accusations, and tax them with an utter want of intellectual courage—of that higher quality, which is never found without one or other of the three accompaniments, talents, genius, or principle;—talents matured by experience, without which it cannot exist at all; or the rapid insight of peculiar genius, by which the fitness of an act may be instantly determined, and which will supply higher motives than mere talents can furnish for encountering difficulty and danger, and will suggest better resources for diminishing or overcoming them. ”

“ Nevertheless, the native energy of his mind, the clearness of his perceptions, the accuracy with which he employed his reasoning faculties,—in fine, the very extraordinary intellectual powers he displayed, when they were directed to the attainment of any species of human knowledge;—these would, doubtless, have supplied him with those beauties of language, which are usually, as well as most readily, derived from academic instruction. ”

“ Here an opportunity presented for me to make a mark, and I determined to do it, and set myself to the arduous task of arousing and instilling intellectual life into the mentally dormant brain. I labored day and night to accomplish my purpose, i.e., to elevate my students to a higher standard of intellectual improvement. ”

“ INTELLECTUAL CHARACTER. The desire, the duty, the necessity of the age in which we live is education, or that culture which developes, enlarges, and enriches each individual intelligence, according to the measure of its capacity, by familiarizing it with the facts and laws of nature and human life. ”

“ Yet even the most splendid successes of life will often be found to be due much less to extraordinary intellectual gifts than to an extraordinary strength and tenacity of will, to the abnormal courage, perseverance, and work-power that spring from it, or to the tact and judgment which make men skilful in seizing opportunities, and which, of all intellectual qualities, are most closely allied with character. ”

“ In all these ways we should have been adding to the sum of knowledge. And in the greatest steps we made in our advancement we should have made use of our constructive imagination,—the highest intellectual power, according to recent psychologists. ”

“ Many persons of eminence seem to have considered it and kindred studies as the only occupations worthy of exalted minds; as if the acquisition of intellectual knowledge formed the chief end of existence both here and hereafter. ”

“ The object of development is intellect.Now, when we look at the successive phases of individual life, what is it that we find to be their chief characteristic? Intellectual advancement. And we consider that maturity is reached when intellect is at its maximum. ”

“ The first comprehends knowledge purely intellectual, whether derived from observation, memory, reflection, books, or men, Aristotle or Fleet Street. The second demands training, not only intellectual, but moral ”

“ The higher intellectual powers of man, such as those of ratiocination, abstraction, self-consciousness, etc., probably follow from the continued improvement and exercise of the other mental faculties. ”

“ Such need first to know themselves, to know their aptitudes and talents, whether developed or undeveloped. They need to study vocations—to know everything about the kinds of work they might do, from their requirements to their possibilities twenty, thirty, or forty years in the future. Finally, they need the courage, self-confidence, industry, progressiveness, and ambition to throw off the shackles of circumstance and, in the light of scientific truth, to press forward to the achievement, success, fulness of life, and happiness possible through development and use of all their powers. ”

“ To have one favorite study and live in it with happy familiarity, and cultivate every portion of it diligently and lovingly, as a small yeoman proprietor cultivates his own land, this, as to study, at least, is the most enviable intellectual life. ”

“ The reverence for scientific achievement, the revelation of the high honors which are in store for those who seek for truth in science—the inevitable comparison between a life devoted to that great pure search, on one hand, and a life devoted to place-hunting or self-grasping on the other—all these shall come to the minds of thoughtful men in lonely garrets of our cities, in remote cabins on our prairies, and thereby shall come strength and hope for higher endeavor. ”

“ With a mind fitted for the deepest and most accurate research, and an education, of which the perfection is attributable to his natural love of learning, he undertook, in the prime of life, to accomplish a certain literary work, still a desideratum. ”

“ We are attempting generalization about a class of remarkably peculiar and difficult persons. They are persons either of great intellectual power or simply of great imaginative power, whose bias and quality it is to apply these exceptional powers not directly and simply to their personal advancement and enrichment, but primarily through philosophical, scientific, or artistic channels, to the increase of knowledge or of wisdom or of both. ”

“ Lessons of Wisdom and Inspiration to be learned.—But beyond and above all mere gratification and pleasure to be derived from the study of our country's history, there are in it lessons of wisdom to be learned, there is inspiration to noble living, there is an uplifting of the soul to a higher plane of thought and sentiment, [Pg 3] there is constant aid in the development and upbuilding of manly and womanly character. ”

“ I mean that, as people grow more intelligent, or more people grow intelligent at all, we shall discover other opportunities for exercising intellectual energy and for obtaining the thrill and uplift of intellectual prowess. ”

“ The examples of creative intelligence given above belong to the realm of modern scientific achievement, which furnishes the most striking instances of the effects of scrupulous, objective thinking. But there are, of course, other great realms in which the recording and embodiment of acute observation and insight have wrought themselves into the higher life of man. ”

“ Now as the instruction of every art or science is founded upon the wisdom, experience, and maxims of the several great men that have laboured in it; so that right use of our reason, which young people should be called to by their education, is nothing but the best experience, and finest reasonings of men, that have devoted themselves to the improvement of human nature. ”

“ Strong proofs, these, of the practicability and the immense advantage of self-development! A branch of knowledge which, as commonly taught, is dry and even repulsive, is thus, by following the method of Nature, made extremely interesting and profoundly beneficial. We say profoundly beneficial, because the effects are not confined to the gaining of geometrical facts, but often revolutionise the whole state of mind. ”

“ But the possession of an intellectual and moral nature which responds to appropriate stimulations implies, also, that as man develops intellectually, he will find meaning in human life as realized in himself and others. Thus he becomes able to recognize worth in human life and to determine the conditions which favour its highest growth, or development. ”

“ Great attainments, experience, and skill are certainly the fruits of age and of labor; but what are these things, compared with the ideal enjoyments which come of the first sciences we study, when the tree of knowledge, grafted upon the tree of life, puts forth its branches,--compared with the delight with which the new truths of geometry, or of philosophy, or of any favorite science new-born to us, fill the soul? ”

“ In the material as in the moral order, the promise of achievement is given to those who strive after knowledge and wisdom irrespective of the hope of temporal reward; and the history of science shows that it is such seekers as these who have attained to the discovery of those secrets which have been of the greatest benefit to humanity. ”

“ But the distance between twenty and sixty—the life beginning and the life advancing toward its close— was frequently apparent; also between an active, original mind, requiring humanity for its study, and one whose whole bent was among the dry bones of ancient learning—the difference, in short, between learning and knowledge—the mere student and the man who only uses study as a means to the perfecting of his whole nature, his complete existence as a human being. ”

“ It demonstrated to the public the force and extent of his talents, the accuracy and range of his knowledge, the depth of his [129] philosophy, which though yet more theoretical in several doctrines and opinions, than is consistent with fact and practice, manifested on the whole, that strength of discrimination, completeness of comprehension, boldness of conception, and fertility of invention, which when matured by experience, becomes soaring genius, guided by beneficial wisdom. ”

“ He is expected to write philosophy and biography: skill in drawing individual character, the power of describing individual achievements, with a clear perception of general causes, and the generalizing faculty of enlarged philosophy. ”

“ In each century we shall see a great widening of the horizon of human thought, a great increase of precision in each branch of human knowledge, a great improvement in the conditions of human life, as enlightenment and precision come to be controlling factors in human action. ”

“ Indeed, that highly-valued scientific acumen and skill which enables the student to brush away the accidental circumstances by which the laws of Nature are always concealed until the truth stands out in bold relief, is but a higher phase of the same talent which marks professional skill in all the higher walks of life. ”

“ Their intellectual powers are very limited, as they enter into no abstruse meditations, or abstract ideas; but what they know in the narrow range of supplying their wants, and combating with their fellow men, they know thoroughly, and are thereby led to consider themselves the standard of excellence. ”

“ And this people, steadily developing in mental capacity, in will power, in social devotion, had been playing with the arts and sciences—as far as they knew them—for a good many centuries now with inevitable success. ”

“ With respect to the higher qualities of intellect necessary for understanding and developing the general laws of the science, the same talents I believe are required as for making advancement in every other department of human knowledge ”

“ This was followed by an ever-salutary reminder that man is the crown of the visible creation, and that studies upon man—studies in the largest sense of humanity, studies conversant with his nature, his works, his duties and his destinies—these are the highest of all studies. ”

“ But the monumental fact remains that these three most sagacious men of science, whose lives were devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, each approaching the subject from his own direction, each pursuing his course in ignorance of what the others were doing, were substantially led to the same result. The progress of knowledge since the time when these great men lived has confirmed, in ways which we shall endeavour to set forth, the sublime doctrine to which their genius had conducted them. ”