text: " This illustration borrowed by Sir James Mackintosh from chemical science and so happily applied may serve to indicate the undoubted truth that talent is a _growth_ as much as a _gift_; that circumstances call out and develop its latent powers; that as soil flung upon the surface from the uttermost penetrable depths of earth will be found to contain long-dormant germs of vegetable life so the mind of man acted upon by circumstances will ever be found equal to a certain sum of production--the amount of which will be chiefly determined by the force and direction of the external influence which first set it in motion