The Importance of a Noble Cause

The inspiration of a noble cause involving human interests enables men to do things which they did not dream themselves capable before, he says. "We rose in soul above the things which even the declaration of independence pronounces ... happiness, liberty, life we laid on the altar of offering or committed to the furies of destruction while our minds were lifted up to a great thought and our hearts swelled to its measure" These are the reasons, not fixed in the form of things, but formative of things.