Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/428

402 402 XIMENES. i-ART intellectual character, in deliberative assemblies, '■ — for example, where talent, as usually understood, might be supposed to assert an absolute supremacy, but where it is invariably made to bend to the con- trolling influence of this principle. No man desti- tute of it can be the leader of a party ; while there are few leaders, probably, who do not number in their ranks minds, from which they would be com- pelled to shrink in a contest for purely intellectual preeminence. This energy of purpose presents itself in a yet more imposing form when stimulated by some in- tense passion, as ambition, or the nobler principle of patriotism or religion ; when the soul, spurning vulgar considerations of interest, is ready to do and to dare all for conscience' sake ; when, insensible alike to all that this world can give or take away, it loosens itself from the gross ties which bind it to earth, and, however humble its powers in every other point of view, attains a grandeur and eleva- tion, which genius alone, however gifted, can never reach. But it is when associated with exalted genius, and under the action of the potent principles above mentioned, that this moral energy conveys an image of power, which approaches, nearer than any thing else on earth, to that of a divine intelligence. It is, indeed, such agents that Providence selects for the accomplishment of those great revolutions, by which the world is shaken to its foundations, new and more beautiful systems created, and the human mind carried forward at a single stride, in the ca-