genius is a living influence, beneficial and ennobling throughout the ages.  All that can remain of actions is a memory, and that becomes weak and disfigured by time—­a matter of indifference to us, until at last it is extinguished altogether; unless, indeed, history takes it up, and presents it, fossilized, to posterity.  Works are immortal in themselves, and once committed to writing, may live for ever.  Of Alexander the Great we have but the name and the record; but Plato and Aristotle, Homer and Horace are alive, and as directly at work to-day as they were in their own lifetime.  The Vedas, and their Upanishads, are still with us:  but of all contemporaneous actions not a trace has come down to us.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Accordingly it is a poor compliment, though sometimes a fashionable one, to try to pay honor to a work by calling it an action.  For a work is something essentially higher in its nature.  An action is always something based on motive, and, therefore, fragmentary and fleeting—­a part, in fact, of that Will which is the universal and original element in the constitution of the world.  But a great and beautiful work has a permanent character, as being of universal significance, and sprung from the Intellect, which rises, like a perfume, above the faults and follies of the world of Will.

The fame of a great action has this advantage, that it generally starts with a loud explosion; so loud, indeed, as to be heard all over Europe:  whereas the fame of a great work is slow and gradual in its beginnings; the noise it makes is at first slight, but it goes on growing greater, until at last, after a hundred years perhaps, it attains its full force; but then it remains, because the works remain, for thousands of years.  But in the other case, when the first explosion is over, the noise it makes grows less and less, and is heard by fewer and fewer persons; until it ends by the action having only a shadowy existence in the pages of history.]

Another disadvantage under which actions labor is that they depend upon chance for the possibility of coming into existence; and hence, the fame they win does not flow entirely from their intrinsic value, but also from the circumstances which happened to lend them importance and lustre.  Again, the fame of actions, if, as in war, they are purely personal, depends upon the testimony of fewer witnesses; and these are not always present, and even if present, are not always just or unbiased observers.  This disadvantage, however, is counterbalanced by the fact that actions have the advantage of being of a practical character, and, therefore, within the range of general human intelligence; so that once the facts have been correctly reported, justice is immediately done; unless, indeed, the motive underlying the action is not at first properly understood or appreciated.  No action can be really understood apart from the motive which prompted it.