Doing is a deadly thing; doing ends in death.
Oliver Wendell Holmes has described the various intellects of man (but without going into the hereditary question) with as much wit as truth: 'One-story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors who have no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalise, using the labours of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealise, imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above through the skylight.... Poets are often narrow below, incapable of clear statement, and with small power of consecutive reasoning, but full of light, if sometimes rather bare of furniture, in the attics.'
The desire to lay field to field and house to house has been the ruin of some great minds; but it is generally an attribute of the small. A few have almost no other vice save that of acquisitiveness. A whole nation indeed is said to be characterised by it. 'The Dutch,' writes John Foster, 'seem very happy and comfortable, certainly; but it is the happiness of animals. In vain do you look among them for the sweet breath of hope and advancement.... There is gravity enough, but it is the gravity of a man who despises gaiety, without being able to rise by contemplation. The love of money always creates a certain coarseness in the moral texture, either of a nation or an individual.' This last remark has certainly an application on the other side of the Atlantic. It is true that Goethe says that 'English pride is invulnerable, because it is based on the majesty of money;' but he does not refer to the mean desire of gain. He has elsewhere indeed expressed himself with some favour on the national character: 'Is it then derivation, or their soil, or their free constitution, or national education--who can tell?--but it is a fact that the English appear to have the advantage of many other nations. There is in them nothing turned and twisted, and no half-measures and after-thoughts. Whatever they are, they are always _complete_ men. Sometimes they are complete fools, I grant you; but even their folly is a folly of some substance and weight.'
The opinions of man on women are, as might be expected, even more various than those pronounced upon their own sex. But even these are not without a certain congruity. It is rare to find a complete 'irreconcilable,' such as John Knox, who thus delivers himself: 'To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrary to His revealed will and approved ordinance; and finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.' This would be now thought little short of treason; but there is no doubt that Knox had a certain particular queen in his mind when he made those very strong observations. Among the French philosophers, there is a wonderful unanimity concerning the fair sex, and not altogether in accordance with the proverbial gallantry of their nation.