This saying must not be taken too literally.
Although Napoleon. In reply to someone who declared that it was impossible to
carry out his orders, exclaimed that the word impossible must be expunged from
the dictionary. It is nevertheless the case that there are such things as
impossible abilities the. I be saying e are considering, and Napoleon‘s denial
of impossibilities,. Are only to be regarded as epigrammatic modes of expressing
the fact that many seeming impossibilities can be overcome b a resolute will.
Taken in this sense they are useful antidotes against despair. Many men when a
difficult task is put before them sit down with their arms folded and despair
of accomplishing it. Yet the every task, which through weakness of ill they
shrink from attempting. Is successfully performed by other men, who are not at
all superior to them in intellectual or physical power. But are endowed with
superior resolution.
Hundreds of instances may be brought forward to
illustrate the immense power of the will in overcoming obstacles. The biography
of almost every eminent man shows that a strong will is as important as a powerful
intellect for the achievement of success in Life Out of the large number of
instances that suggest themselves. One of the most striking is Demosthenes, the
Athenian. In his boyhood he had a weak vice and stammered. These physical
defects ordinary man would have seemed to be insuperable obstacles in the way
of oratorical success. But Demosthenes determined to be a great public speaker,
and found a way to overcome the disadvantages under which he laboured. He cured
himself of stammering b’ speaking with pebbles in his mouth. He strengthened
his each voice by reciting aloud as he ran up steep hills, and by declaiming on
the sea-shore, so that the struggle with the roar of the ‘waves might train him
to make his voice audible in the tumultuous popular assemblies of Athens. Thus
by dint of sturdy determination l found a way to conquer the obstacles that
nature had placed in the way of his oratorical career, and the weak voiced boy
became the greatest of Greek orators perhaps the greatest orator that the world
has ever heard.
Yet his career, while it exemplifies the power of
the human ‘.will in overcoming difficulties, at the same time shows that there
are limits to its power, Demosthenes also willed to save the liberties of
Athens and Greece, that were threatened by Philip of Macedon. He devoted to
this patriotic work his great genius, and strove with all the strength of his
will to accomplish it. But in this he failed, for his untiring energy,
political foresight and eloquence were not equal to the task of rousing his
countrymen to a full sense of their perilous position.