Volume 1

The lost senses / By John Kitto.

  • John Kitto
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lost senses / By John Kitto. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    100/224 page 86
    self bound to justify all the feelings and actions of his youth I I do not say this as admitting the wrong of the desire of fame : and, if I saw need, I would not scruple to vindicate and uphold it, as a stimulant by which more worthy exertions and more generous actions have been produced than by any other in the world, next after that Christian principle which itself is but a higher development of the same feeling, seeing that it looks forward to the highest approbation which man can ever be capable of receiving, and is content with nothing less than the praises of the world to come. I trust that I have not been insensible to the influence of the highest considerations ; but it may sometimes happen that as I am forbidden to make this work the record of religious impressions, or of the intercourse between the higher world and my own soul, I may seem occasionally to give undue prominence to secondary influences. Regarded in this light, the love of fame is, as it appears to me, never found apart from other influences ; and I apprehend that it takes its hue—derives its character of good or evil, from the nature of the influences with which it is combined, and of the objects at which it aims : but that, taken on the whole, it is more generally good than evil, seeing that the order of minds on which it most strongly operates must have attained a certain degree of culture, and must be, more than any others, open to high and generous impulses. In this, I distin- guish it from the love of notoriety, which I take to be toute uiie cadre chose. It, has often occurred to me that the stimulant which the desire of fame offers, is specially adapted to one’s youth, in which indeed it is most actively in operation; and that it has been providentially given to that period of life, to
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3