There is a great deal of intellectual labor, undergone simply for discipline, which shows no present result that is appreciable, and which therefore requires, in addition to patience and humility, one of the noblest of the moral virtues, faith. Of all the toils in which men engage, none are nobler in their origin or their aim than those by which they endeavor to become more wise. Pray observe that whenever the desire for greater wisdom is earnest enough to sustain men in these high endeavors, there must be both humility and faith--the humility which acknowledges present insufficiency, the faith that relies upon the mysterious laws which govern our intellectual being. Be sure that there has been great moral strength in all who have come to intellectual greatness. During some brief moments of insight the mist has rolled away and they have beheld, like a celestial city, the home of their highest aspirations; but the cloud has gathered round them again, and still in the gloom they have gone steadily forwards, stumbling often, yet maintaining their unconquerable resolution. It is to this sublime persistence of the intellectual in other ages that the world owes the treasures which they won; it is by a like persistence that we may hope to hand them down, augmented, to the future. Their intellectual purposes did not weaken their moral nature, but exercised and exalted it. All that was best and highest in the imperfect moral nature of Giordano Bruno had its source in that noble passion for Philosophy, which made him declare that for her sake it was easy to endure labor and pain and exile, since he had found "in brevi labore diuturnam requiem, in levi dolore immensum gaudium, in angusto exilio patriam amplissimam." LETTER II. TO AN UNDISCIPLINED WRITER. Early indocility of great workers--External discipline only a substitute for inward discipline--Necessity for inward discipline--Origin of the idea of discipline--Authors peculiarly liable to overlook its uses--Good examples--Sir Arthur Helps--Sainte-Beuve--The central authority in the mind--Locke's opinion--Even the creative faculty may be commanded--Charles Baudelaire--Discipline in common trades and professions--Lawyers and surgeons--Haller--Mental refusals not to be altogether disregarded--The idea of discipline the moral basis of the intellectual life--Alexander Humboldt. Sir Arthur Helps, in that wise book of his "Thoughts upon Government," says that "much of the best and greatest work in the world has been done by those who were anything but docile in their youth." He believes that "this bold statement applies not only to the greatest men in Science, Literature, and Art, but also to the greatest men in official life, in diplomacy, and in the general business of the world."