Their purpose everywhere seems to
have been to evade and slip aside from difficulty. This it has been
the glory of the great masters in all the arts to confront, and to
overcome; and when they had overcome the first difficulty, to turn
it into an instrument for new conquests over new difficulties, thus to
enable them to extend the empire of their science and even to push
forward, beyond the reach of their original thoughts, the landmarks of
the human understanding itself. Difficulty is a severe instructor, set
over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental Guardian and
Legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us
better, too. Pater ipse colendi haud facilem esse viam voluit. He that
wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our
antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty
obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object and compels
us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be
superficial. It is the want of nerves of understanding for such a
task, it is the degenerate fondness for tricking shortcuts and
little fallacious facilities that has in so many parts of the world
created governments with arbitrary powers. They have created the
late arbitrary monarchy of France. They have created the arbitrary
republic of Paris. With them defects in wisdom are to be supplied by
the plenitude of force.
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