It is a character of all transitional periods that in them the cautious men regard past precedents of peril rather than sanguine expectations based on present chances.

A hero, in such passes, goes to meet the danger armed with his own cause and courage.

A genius divines the future, and interprets it, and through interpretation tries to govern it.

Paul was neither a hero nor a man of genius.

Yet he did as much as either could have done; and he did it in a temper which perhaps the hero and the genius could not have commanded.