Explore "The Spanish Pioneers" by Charles Fletcher Lummis on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The achievements of the explorer are among the most important, as they are among the most fascinating, of human heroisms. The qualities of mind and body necessary to his task are rare and admirable. He should have many sides and be strong in each, -- the rounded man that Nature meant man to be. His body need not be as strong as Samson's, nor his mind as Napoleon's, nor his heart the most fully developed heart on earth; but mind, heart, and body he needs, and each in the measure of a strong man. There is hardly another calling in which every muscle, so to speak, of his threefold nature will be more constantly or more evenly called into play.
It is a curious fact that some of the very greatest of human achievements have come about by chance. Many among the most important discoveries in the history of mankind have been made by men who were not seeking the great truth they found. Science is the result not only of study, but of precious accidents; and this is as true of history. It is an interesting study in itself, -- the influence which happy blunders and unintended happenings have had upon civilization.